In the conventional telling of the origins of the 1979 Camp David accords, President Jimmy Carter and his foreign-policy team dragged a reluctant Anwar Sadat and an even more reluctant Menachem Begin to the negotiating table and coaxed them into coming to an agreement. This story primarily emerges, write Gerald Steinberg and Ziv Rubinovitz, from the memoirs of several American officials. But recently declassified Israeli documents paint a very different picture of events, showing among other things that Begin supported peace with Egypt as far back as 1967:

[During Begin’s] stint as a member of the national-unity government created just prior to the June 1967 war, . . . the cabinet, led by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, endorsed the land-for-peace formula for Egypt and Syria, and Begin . . . joined in approving this framework. He repeated this position on numerous occasions, emphasizing the importance of a full treaty, as distinct from partial agreements or non-belligerency, which, he argued, would not bring Israel the full legitimacy that was required. In 1970, Begin resigned from the cabinet and returned to lead the opposition, citing the government’s [abandonment of these condition].

[In the months leading up to Camp David], Carter’s effort to involve the Soviet Union [in negotiations between Egypt and Israel] alienated both leaders, who made common cause in going around Carter. Sadat had recently evicted the Soviet military from Egypt, and Begin’s experience as a prisoner in the Gulag left a lifelong hostility; both viewed Moscow’s potential role as entirely anathema. The two leaders were also concerned that the American effort to solve the entire Middle East conflict, which included bringing in the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat and Syria’s President Hafez al-Assad, . . . would fail and also prevent realization of a bilateral peace agreement.

Only after they had made progress in their own negotiations did Cairo and Jerusalem ask for Washington’s assistance in ironing out the details. To Steinberg and Rubinovitz, the lessons for future peacemaking are clear:

Success requires leaders who see peace as a national priority and are willing to take prudent risks in order to achieve this objective. Such leaders and the interests that they share cannot be produced artificially or through outside pressure, and in their absence, efforts to reach agreements have no chance. In Sadat, Begin had a partner who recognized this, and vice-versa, and on this basis they explored the possibilities for agreement.

Two of the most important questions about the recent agreement with Hamas are “Why now?” and “What is the relationship between the deal and the military campaign?” To Ron Ben-Yishai, the answer to the two questions is related, and flies in the face of the widespread (and incorrect) claim that the same agreement could have been reached in May:

Contrary to certain public perceptions, the military pressure exerted on northern Gaza in recent months was the main leverage that led to flexibility on the part of Hamas and made clear to the terror group that it would do well to agree to a deal now, before thousands more of its fighters are killed, and before the IDF advances further and destroys Gaza entirely.

Andrew Fox, meanwhile, presents a more comprehensive strategic analysis of the cease-fire:

Tactically, Hamas has taken a severe beating in Gaza since October 2023. It is assessed that it has lost as much as 90 percent of military capability and 80 percent of manpower, although it has recruited well and boosted its numbers from below 10,000 to the 20–30,000 range. However, these are untrained recruits, often under-age, and the IDF has been striking their training camps in northern Gaza so they have been unable to form any kind of meaningful capability. This is not a fighting force that retains any ability to harm the IDF in real numbers, although, as seen this past week with a fatal IED attack, they are able to score the odd hit.

However, this has not affected Hamas’s ability to retain administrative control of Gaza.

Internationally, Hamas sits alone in glory on the information battlefield. It has won the most resounding victory imaginable in the world’s media, in Western states, and on the Internet. . . . The stock of the Palestinian cause rides high internationally and will only get higher as Hamas proclaims a victory following this cease-fire deal. By means of political pressure on Israel, the international information campaign has kept Hamas in the fight, extended the war, prolonged the suffering of Gazan civilians, and has ultimately handed Hamas a win through the fact of their continued survival and eventual rebuild.

Indeed, writes Fox in a separate post, the “images coming out of Gaza over the last few days show us that too many in the wider world have been played for fools.”

Hamas fighters have been seen emerging from hospitals and the humanitarian zone. Well-fed Palestinians, with fresh haircuts and Adidas tracksuits, or in just vests, cheer for the camera. . . . There was no starvation. There was no freezing. There was no genocide.