Word: kamel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...seemed, for a while. The Middle East peace initiative that began euphorically with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's "sacred mission" to Jerusalem appeared to have come to a wrenching halt. First, Sadat abruptly recalled his Foreign Minister, Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel, from negotiations in Jerusalem involving a declaration of principles for a comprehensive settlement. In retaliation, Israel announced that it would not return negotiators to the parallel military talks in Cairo, which dealt with possible Israeli troop withdrawals in the Sinai...
With Secretary of State Cyrus Vance's encouragement, Sadat delivered a fairly moderate address to his parliament explaining why he had called Kamel back from Jerusalem; two days later, Begin accordingly made a reasoned speech before the Knesset in which he insisted that Israel was seeking "an atmosphere in which calm negotiations can be pursued...
...much for the "spirit of Jerusalem." In a mood of cold fury, the Egyptian President last week abruptly broke off the political talks in Jerusalem between his Foreign Minister, Mohammed Kamel, and Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and ordered the Egyptian delegation home. Scarcely two months earlier, Sadat had dramatically transformed the politics of the Middle East with his "sacred mission" to Israel. That venturesome act, as Sadat himself conceded, involved the risks of failure. By calling Kamel home, the Egyptian President had transformed the area's politics again, but this time for the worse: if the talks broke off?...
...Cyrus Vance also said that the peace talks were not "dead" but added sadly: "It's obvious we have hit a bump in the road." Vance, who had served as the essential mediator between the Israeli and Egyptian Foreign Ministers during the talks, flew from Jerusalem to Cairo after Kamel's walkout, in a futile effort to get the negotiations going again. He found an enraged Sadat obsessed with Begin's "arrogance" and what he regarded as Israeli intransigence...
Neither Foreign Minister helped matters. Arriving in Jerusalem, Kamel declared there could be no peace as long as Israel occupied Arab land, including the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, and the Palestinian people were denied the right of self-determination. "Time is of the essence," he said, "so let us invest it to the maximum and not just see it slipping through our fingers." Later that day, Dayan told a press conference that Kamel's statement was like "holding a pistol to our heads" and the Egyptian should take such statements "back to Cairo with him." Thus even before Vance...