On this date — fifty years ago — the Yom Kippur/Ramadan War. Camp David Peace Accords with the world’s largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid. The ending is oftentimes the most important part of the story.

Michael de la Force is at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library. October 5, 2023, Atlanta, GA. While public research does not currently seem to reflect this passionate position, what began fifty years ago ended with a sort of affectionate story — at least that is what he was told personally in a conversation with a group of old-time journalists, including Mr. Walter Cronkite.

While traveling and working with that journalist crew, especially alongside U.S. President Gerald Ford, he came to understand upon Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s learning of the demise of Egypt’s President Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat, that Prime Minister Begin expressed his true feelings of profound affectionate regard and heartfelt admiration for President Sadat.

For a clearer understanding of that affection of the parties, one may reach out to President Carter or Secretary of State Kissinger. The peace gentlemen shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 for their collaboration heralded in the Camp David Accords.

Camp David Accords

The Camp David Accords were agreements signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin on September 17, 1978, following secret negotiations at Camp David, the country retreat of the President of the United States in Maryland. The framework agreements were signed at the White House and witnessed by President Jimmy Carter. The second framework led directly to the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty. Sadat and Begin received the shared 1978 Nobel Peace Prize.

Kissinger’s intervening hand

President Ford’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, personally intervened to settle tensions in the region. The Sinai Agreement of 1975, which Kissinger negotiated, called for an end to fighting between Israel and Egypt and outlined a buffer zone with United Nations peacekeeping forces. When Prime Minister Menachem Begin invited President Sadat to Jerusalem in 1977, the world took notice. Sadat’s trip and Begin’s subsequent visit to Egypt showed a desire to move toward peaceful resolution.

(LIKE® Statesman · Leaders · Editorial: Michael de la Force · Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Atlanta · 5 October 2023)