Israel-Palestine War Puts Camp David Accords At Stake

Israeli PM Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat, alongside U.S. President Jimmy Carter, following the signing of the Camp David Accords, September 1978. This historic peace agreement is now at stake among rising Egyptian concerns over Israeli military action in Gaza. (Flickr Archive)

By William Doran

The Egyptian government warned that it might suspend the Camp David Accords should Israel invade the Gazan city of Rafah. If credible, the threat jeopardizes the long-standing, renowned peace between the two states for the first time in nearly 50 years.

The Camp David Accords, concluded in 1978 between Egypt and Israel through U.S. mediation, are widely regarded as one of the most important peace deals in modern history and a cornerstone of Middle Eastern diplomacy. Following the 1973 Yom Kippur War and several years of attempts at dialogue, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli PM Menachem Begin normalized relations between their respective states. To this day, the Accords are seen as a fundamental success amidst the long history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Tensions between Israel and Egypt have been muted since their inception.

But the current situation in Gaza has sparked friction between Egypt and Israel once more. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the government in Cairo view an Israeli push into Rafah as untenable, as Egypt’s concerns in the Israel-Palestine War stem mainly from its border situation. Rafah, a city on the Gaza-Egypt border, has quickly become home to more than 1.4 million Gazans, more than quadrupling its pre-war population. Israel’s move into the city would place the epicenter of the Israel-Palestine war right on Egypt’s frontier, sparking both a migrant and security crisis. 

Egypt received hundreds of thousands of refugees from Palestine in the 1948 and 1967 wars. Now it is concerned over a similar crisis today, with no prospects of refugees returning to Gaza. The Egyptian government also worries that a surge of Palestinians over the border would bring along an influx of militants—particularly members of Hamas—into Egypt’s territory. An additional concern is that humanitarian aid currently flows through Rafah to reach the rest of Gaza, but if Israel moves into Rafah, and Egypt, all aid would be effectively blocked out. 

Moreover, a suspension of the Accords could force both states into a military buildup along the border, a situation which Egypt and Israel would both struggle to sustain. It would also mark a dramatic backslide in the Middle East’s longest-surviving agreement in Arab-Israeli relations.

However, whether hostilities would escalate following a suspension of the Accords—and if a suspension will even occur—is still debatable. Egypt regularly receives extensive military aid from the United States, aid that a break in Egypt-Israeli relations would threaten. Likewise, el-Sisi and CIA Director William Burns met on February 13 to affirm strong Egyptian-American ties. Representatives for both governments stated that they found much common ground on desiring consultations, a ceasefire, and the preservation of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.