Camp David Summit
One of the biggest recent news stories is Trump’s cancellation of a surprise summit with Taliban leaders and the Afghanistan president at Camp David. I am no longer surprised at the criticism towards the President, but I was shocked this time at the nature of the criticism. I assumed the disapproval would come from canceling a meeting that had potential to end the conflict, but instead he was chastised for agreeing to hold the meeting in the first place, especially at Camp David. Congresswomen Liz Cheney tweeted that no member of the Taliban should ever set foot at Camp David and she is a Republican. As always, I am not here to comment on the president’s foreign policy decisions, but historically speaking
Camp David has always been used for meetings such as this, especially when dealing with Middle Eastern Issues.
After years of war and conflict between Israel and the Arab nations, Egypt and Syria both launched an attack against Israel in
1973 which became known as the Yom Kippur War. Caught by surprise, the Israelis were initially pushed back. Eventually they called up reinforcements and turned the tide back in their favor and won the war.
Not able to defeat Israel militarily, the Arab nations of OPEC went with plan B and used the war to justify driving up oil prices.
They also refused to sell oil to the U.S. until Israel pulled out of new lands and recognized Palestinian rights. Henry Kissinger began flying to the Middle East to broker a peace but found it difficult to get the sides to meet. Israel did not want to give up land and Arabs nations did not want the Palestinians thinking they were forgotten.
To solve the crisis, President Jimmy Carter invited Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to a two-week secret meeting at Camp David. The three men worked towards a peace that saw the passage of the Camp David Accords, in which Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai
Peninsula as well as from Gaza and the West Bank. Gaza and the West Bank were allowed to self-govern, setting up a possible separate Palestinian state and a recognition of Israel’s right to exist by Egypt. Though Sadat won a Nobel Peace Prize, the rest of the Arab nations, including the Palestine Liberation Organization
(PLO) and Yasser Arafat, denounced the Accords. The peace plan was partly responsible for Sadat’s assassination.
Jump forward several ...
