On December 29, former President Jimmy Carter passed away at the age of 100. As the 39th president of the United States and as a private citizen, Carter was an advocate for peace between nations, democracy and various humanitarian and environmental causes. But in the Middle East, he is going to be remembered as the father of Arab-Israeli normalisation.

Sworn in as president in 1977, Carter was given the opportunity by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to be the architect of the first normalisation deal between an Arab country and the Zionist state. He helped Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin conclude the 1978 Camp David Accords and negotiate the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty that formally ended the conflict between the two countries.

As developments in the past four decades have shown, neither the accords nor the treaty led to peace and justice in the Middle East. Israel continues its occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip; the Palestinians still do not have an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital; and an overwhelming majority of the Arab public refuses to recognise Israel or agree to normalising relations with it.

Looking back at the accords Carter brokered, it is clear that they were the beginning of the slow and gradual, although not publicly acknowledged, abandonment of the Palestinian cause by Arab officialdom, and a US campaign to bury Palestinian national aspirations.

The Camp David Accords were first and foremost a roadmap towards a full Egyptian-Israeli peace, full recognition of Israel by Egypt, and an end to Egypt’s participation in the Arab economic boycott of Israel. To be sure, the accords were a mere framework for negotiations between the two countries that would lead a few months later to the signing of a peace treaty.

But they also........

© Al Jazeera