Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine

Nathan Thrall

I would be willing to lose my election because I will alienate the Jewish community. . . . Thus, if necessary, be harder on the Israelis. —President Jimmy Carter to Secretary of State Cyrus Vance When Jimmy Carter entered the White House in January 1977, no one expected that he would quickly obtain two of the most significant agreements in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict: the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, and the Framework for Peace in the Middle East, which served as the blueprint for the 1993 Oslo Accord. Essential to Carter’s success was an approach wholly unlike those of his predecessors, one that was not expected by even the closest observers of the former peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia. In his presidential memoirs, Carter wrote that prior to his election he “had no strong feelings about the Arab countries. I had never visited one and knew […]