Brokered by Jimmy Carter after the Camp David Accords, the treaty made Egypt the first Arab state to formally recognize Israel. Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula, captured in 1967. The deal cost Sadat dearly at home and across the Arab world, but it held, reshaping Middle Eastern diplomacy for generations.
The signing ceremony on the White House lawn was a study in choreographed reconciliation: Sadat and Begin, men whose countries had fought four wars in thirty years, clasped hands while Carter stood between them, having spent thirteen days at Camp David the previous September wearing down both leaders' resistance. Sadat later called the moment the fulfillment of his dramatic 1977 visit to Jerusalem, when he addressed the Knesset directly.
The cost was steep. The Arab League suspended Egypt and moved its headquarters out of Cairo. Sadat became a pariah to many in the region who viewed the treaty as a betrayal of Palestinian and pan-Arab causes. Two years later, almost to the day of the treaty's anniversary season, he would be assassinated by Islamist military officers during a parade, some of whom cited the peace deal as justification.
Yet the treaty proved durable. Israel completed its withdrawal from Sinai by 1982, dismantling settlements it had built there. The peace has held for over four decades, surviving wars in Lebanon, Gaza, and elsewhere, becoming the cornerstone that later peace agreements with Jordan and Gulf states would build upon.
Key people: Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin, Jimmy Carter