Carter summoned Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to Camp David to make peace, not apartheid, in the Middle East. But the Israeli president broke his promise to freeze settlements.

As noted by diplomat Dennis Ross: “He [Carter] is the hero of Camp David, and the agreements would never have emerged without him. He played the role of mediator, often explaining each to the other. He literally drafted the Egyptian-Israeli part of the accords and held the summit together at the moments when it might otherwise have collapsed.”

The late President Jimmy Carter presided over a key landmark in the Arab-Israeli peace process, the 1979 Camp David Accords signed by Egypt and Israel. Carter’s lifelong interest in resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict is an analog for his complicated legacy in foreign policy and human rights.

Carter summoned Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat to Camp David to make peace, not apartheid, in the Middle East. But the Israeli president broke his promise to freeze settlements.