Jimmy Carter at 100: his Jewish legacy

Former President Jimmy Carter, who celebrated his 100^th birthday on October 1, has something to live for.

Back in July, Carter’s son Chip asked his father if he was trying to make it to his 100th birthday. “I’m trying to make it to vote for Kamala Harris,” President Carter replied. Early voting in Georgia begins on October 15 so Carter, who has spent 18 months in hospice care, is on the cusp of attaining his goal.

But it is not his vote for Vice President Harris that will be the highlight of Carter’s public life. His greatest accomplishment was brokering, along with Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the 1979 Camp David Accords, establishing peace between Israel and Egypt.

The 45-year tenure of what, at the time, would have seemed a fragile peace, is itself remarkable given the continuously roiling politics of the region. In that time, governments have been toppled in Iran and Iraq, civil wars have wracked Syria and Yemen, and the Arab Spring drove Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek, Sadat’s successor, from power.

Sadat and Begin deserve great credit for Camp David, especially Sadat who took the politically risky move of visiting Israel in 1978, but it was Carter of whom Middle East analyst Aaron David Miller, in his 2009 book Too Much Promised Land, said "no matter whom I spoke to — Americans, Egyptians, or Israelis — most everyone said the same thing: no Carter, no peace treaty."

While peace was attained through Egypt providing Israel with security guarantees in return for territory, it was only achieved by putting off resolution of the thorniest issue of all: self-determination of the Palestinian people, calling only for the establishment of a five-year transition period toward full autonomy for the Palestinians, a five-year transition that never came about.