Sources
- “Geneva Conference (1973).” Wikipedia. Accessed May 6th, 2024.
- Ben-Ami, Shlomo. Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. Cary: Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 2007.
Parties
- Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, with Henry Kissinger from the United States mediating via shuttle diplomacy.
Location
- Concerning the newly captured Syrian Golan Heights, the Jordanian-annexed West Bank and the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip, though Syria did not attend.
Causes
Ben-Ami, Shlomo. Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. (p. 154)
Begin was thus positioning himself as the most eloquent and committed exponent of what could perhaps be defined as the ‘capsule theory’, namely the drive to reach a settlement with the surrounding Arab states that would ‘capsulate’, as it were, the West Bank and with it the Palestinian problem in an environment of binding peace agreements between Israel and the surrounding Arab states. This, Begin believed, would allow Israel to exercise her full control of Eretz-Israel, yet deny the Palestinians the possibility of again triggering an all-Arab war against her.
Ben-Ami, Shlomo. Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy. (p. 155)
Sadat did not believe that a Soviet–American co-sponsorship of the peace process would bear the political fruits he wanted. He could see his fears vindicated already in a joint declaration of the superpowers that, to his dismay, endorsed the Israeli interpretation of Security Council Resolution 242 when it spoke of ‘withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in 1967’. And as to Begin, he was not yet ready to digest the concept of ‘the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people’, one of the central premises upon which the Geneva Conference was to be convened.