ABSTRACT
As we have seen, Anwar Sadat’s behaviour before departing for the Camp David summit with President Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, bewildered and troubled his young Foreign Minister, Mohamed Kamel, who was frantically busy preparing position papers for the great conference. Long discussions were held by Kamel and a team of top Foreign Ministry officials which, of course, included Ossama Al Baz, the star of the Leeds Castle conference. Having had a short but invigorating holiday, Kamel was in a more optimistic mood and no longer feared a catastrophe at Camp David. Both possibilities that he and his team now envisaged were promising: either President Carter would succeed in overcoming Israel’s stubborn resolve to hold on to the occupied Arab territories, thus inducing other Arab states to join the negotiating process later on, and ending Egyptian isolation, or the conference would fail to achieve any progress. In that event, Egypt would lose nothing, providing Israel’s sins were made clear to the world. This in itself would be a gain for Egypt.
