In Pursuit of Peace in the Middle East

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"The Framework for Peace in the Middle East and the Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty Between Egypt and Israel were two major steps forward. For a few hours, all three of us were flushed with pride and good will toward one another because of our unexpected success. We had no idea at that time how far we still had to go."

Jimmy Carter
Keeping Faith (1982)

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It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the presidency of Jimmy Carter endured more bad days than good.

But today is the 35th anniversary of one of the good ones — maybe the best one — for it was on this day in 1978 that Carter, Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords.

Those accords led to a peace treaty the following year — the first such treaty ever signed by the still–new nation of Israel with any of its Arab neighbors in the Middle East — and a shared Nobel Peace Prize for Begin and Sadat.

Secretly, the three men had been engaged in nearly two weeks of negotiations at Camp David, Md., the presidential retreat. Their mutual suspicions required Carter to negotiate with each one separately, going from one cabin to another. At one point, I have heard, he even took the two men to nearby Gettysburg in the hope that they would be inspired by the story of America's civil war.

At the time the accords were signed, it seemed to the general public that the negotiations at Camp David were virtually spontaneous, but appearances can be deceiving. In truth, the Camp David Accords were the outcome of more than a year's worth of diplomatic discussions between the three countries that began after Carter became president in 1977.

What was unique was the fact that Carter managed to bring the two leaders to the same place at the same time.

But even that wasn't enough to ensure the success of the negotiations.

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It required a lot of hard, behind–the–scenes work. The two nations had a brief but stormy history that aroused great passion on both sides — and erected often–enormous barriers between them.

Since Israel was established in 1948, there had been three armed conflicts between Egypt and Israel by the time of the Camp David Accords. Israel won them all and, as a result of the 1967 war, controlled the Sinai Peninsula that connects Africa and Asia.

But Sadat, who probably deserves more credit for the Camp David Accords than he received, traveled to Jerusalem in late 1977 to speak to Israel's parliament, the Knesset. Less than a year later, he joined Carter and Begin at the presidential retreat.

At the time of the accords, Sadat was widely praised outside the Arab world — within it, though, he was roundly condemned. Three years later, on the eighth anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, Sadat was assassinated by Muslim extremists while he watched a military parade in Cairo.

The peace process continued.

More Thoughts on the Nobel Prize

Two days have passed since Barack Obama was named the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Pundits are continuing to voice their support — or opposition. And I continue to try to make sense of it.

An old friend of mine spent quite a bit of time Friday trying to persuade me of the "global perspective" that the Nobel Committee showed in naming Obama this year's winner. Obama is such a change from his predecessor, my friend said, that he has altered the way the world looks at America.

But he acknowledged that was the only conclusion he could reach. When it comes to recognizing Obama's achievements, he admits, as even the most diehard Obama supporters must, that the cupboard is bare of the sort of accomplishments that Nobel historically honors.

My friend may be right. I hope he is. But, absent a tangible achievement like a peace agreement or even a potential achievement, the Nobel Committee's decision clearly is open to interpretation.

And I think the Nobel Prize runs the risk of being diminished (to at least a certain extent) in the eyes of the world if Obama's potential as a peacemaker is not realized.

A friend and I were talking about this (among other things) at lunch after church today. And we agreed that Obama and his party are facing serious setbacks at the polls next year — due, in no small part, to the fact that Obama has spread himself thin in his first year in office.

I sympathize with the fact that he is in a hurry, but it would be embarrassing — at least, ironic — if domestic tranquility is damaged by the manner in which the Nobel Peace Prize winner's administration has ignored the worsening labor market. I don't think that is the kind of image the Nobel Committee wants its prize winners to project.

I know Obama didn't campaign for this. But it is his to live up to now:

• In the Washington Post, Jim Hoagland gives the Nobel Prize a positively Dickensian spin. It is, he says, in recognition of events yet to come.


• Similarly, Tim Rutten observes, in the Los Angeles Times, that, since the Nobel's deadlines would have required Obama to be nominated after less than two weeks in office, it was intended "to reward words and not deeds." That's a noble sentiment, but not especially in keeping with what I have always believed to be the Nobel's purpose.


• Derrick Jackson writes, in the Boston Globe, that the Nobel Committee was actually recognizing the American voters for electing Obama. In the absence of any actual international achievement, I suppose that is as good a reason as any.


• Left–leaning Eleanor Clift of Newsweek speculates that this has the potential to contribute to a Saturday Night Live parody promoting "Obama as a politician who makes grand promises but doesn't deliver."


• Well, SNL may not have picked up on it yet — I didn't watch the show last night so I have no idea if there were any skits about it — but right–leaning Mark Steyn of the Orange County Register thinks the Nobel Committee has outdone SNL in the Obama joke category.
  
  "Obama took office on Jan. 20," Steyn writes. "Gosh, it's so long ago now. What 'extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy' did he make in those first 12 days?"

I seldom agree with Steyn, but I must admit that it is a good question.

Of course, that conclusion depends on the presumption that the Nobel nomination was for something that happened between Jan. 20 and Feb. 1. Technically, it is possible that the prize is in recognition of something that occurred before Obama took the presidential oath of office.

But the problem for Obama is that there was little in the preceding 50 weeks besides charismatic — and, sometimes, well staged — campaign speeches. In 2008, he was a senator — and, for a short time, president–elect.

There have been many senators who sought their party's presidential nomination. And some of them did win the nomination. And a few were elected. But I don't recall hearing that any of them were nominated for the Nobel Prize.

So I think it is reasonable to conclude this prize is linked to Obama's actual presidency.

And, for Obama, the problem with his actual presidency is there is little beyond potential to reward. Right now, anyway. That could change in the future. But doesn't that raise the bar to impossible heights for Obama? If he does something extraordinary on the world stage, he can't really be rewarded for it now, can he? Wasn't that what this prize was intended to recognize — his unfulfilled potential?

Seems to me that anything that fulfills that unfulfilled potential is, by definition, ineligible to be rewarded a second time.

if anyone can provide an equally reasonable answer, that person may well be next in line for next year's Nobel Peace Prize.

Obama's Nobel Prize

Barack Obama is the third incumbent American president to win the Nobel Peace Prize. That is a noteworthy coup, but I have to admit I am baffled by it.

What is the reason for it? The Nobel Committee said he was being recognized "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." The president, the committee said, "has created a new international climate."

Based on that, I can only conclude that it is in recognition of the anticipation of his administration's achievements rather than its actual accomplishments.

With the other two sitting presidents who won, the reasons for winning were more concrete. Theodore Roosevelt was recognized more than 100 years ago for his efforts to end the Russo–Japanese war. Ninety years ago, Woodrow Wilson was honored for co–founding the League of Nations and influencing the Treaty of Versailles.

Both Roosevelt and Wilson had been president for several years when they won the Nobel Peace Prize. They had established records in office. When they won, it wasn't a matter of encouraging the eventual fulfillment of the promise they possessed. It was in recognition of actual achievements.

Nine months into his presidency, Obama has few actual accomplishments. And it does seem odd that, only a week after he was rejected in his attempt to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago, he is named the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Odder still, this international achievement comes at a time when an article in the left–leaning British political magazine, the New Statesman, equated him to his predecessor and, on its cover, called him "Barack W. Bush."

And Michael Binyon writes, in The Times, that "the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace."

To this point, there has hardly been a crescendo of approval of the Nobel Committee's decision from international observers.

Here in this country, I expect partisanship to rule the debate over Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. His supporters will boast about it. His foes will criticize it.

If only this much energy had been devoted to job creation ...

Gore Wins Nobel Prize

Former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize today. Actually, he shares it with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- but they were both honored for their work to warn people of the dangers of global warming.

"This is a chance to elevate global consciousness about the challenges that we face now," Gore said in Palo Alto, Calif. "It truly is a planetary emergency, and we have to respond quickly."

Gore is not the first American politician to be so honored. Former President Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Then-Vice President Charles Dawes (who served under Calvin Coolidge) was honored in 1925. Then-President Woodrow Wilson was a recipient of the award in 1919 for promoting the League of Nations. And another incumbent president, Theodore Roosevelt, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his collaboration on peace treaties.

The announcement has further energized the "Draft Gore" movement, which seeks to get the former vice president into the race for the presidency. Could it be that Jim Rutenberg contributed to that effort in today's New York Times? His article, headlined "Prize Caps Year of Highs for Gore," reads like a promo for a potential Gore advertisement.

Time's Bryan Walsh suggests that 2007 may be remembered as a tipping point in the environmentalist movement.

Mike Allen of The Politico points out that winning the Nobel Peace Prize heightens the drumbeat of White House speculation -- and Gore and his people don't seem too eager to blunt it in any way. There is also talk of a more influential, more important post for Gore in a possible Hillary Clinton administration -- if he chooses not to enter the race for the nomination.

"The Nobel Peace Prize rewards three decades of Vice President Gore's prescient and compelling -- and often lonely -- advocacy for the future of the earth," presidential candidate John Edwards, one of Gore's potential rivals for the nomination, said in a statement.

Also among the American recipients of the prestigious prize are

* former Secretary of State Elihu Root (1912)
* former Secretary of State Frank Kellogg (1929);
* international president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Jane Addams, who shared it with former Columbia University president and former Republican vice presidential candidate Nicholas Butler (1931);
* former Secretary of State Cordell Hull (1945);
* honorary international president of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom Emily Balch, who shared it with chairman of the International Missionary Council and president of the World Alliance of Young Men's Christian Associations John Mott (1946);
* Ralph Bunche (1950);
* former Secretary of State and former Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall, for the Marshall Plan (1953);
* Linus Pauling, for his campaign against nuclear weapons testing (1962);
* Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1964);
* Norman Borlaug (1970);
* then-Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger (1973);
* and author Elie Wiesel (1986).