Public Support
Although most Israelis supported the Accords, the Israeli settler movement opposed them because Sadat would not agree to a treaty in which Israel had any presence in the Sinai Peninsula at all, Israel had to withdraw from the entire Sinai Peninsula. Israeli settlers tried to prevent the government from dismantling their settlements.
In Israel, there is lasting support of the Camp David Peace Accords, which have become a national consensus, supported by 85% of Israelis according to a 2001 poll taken by the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (Israel based). Nevertheless, a minority of Israelis believe the price Israel paid for the peace agreement was too high for its present gains, i.e. having relinquished the entire Sinai Peninsula, with its oil, tourism and land resources (Israel has no other oil wells), and the trauma of evacuating thousands of its Israeli inhabitants (many resisted, as in the town of Yamit and had to be forcefully evacuated, a phenomenon encountered also in the subsequent Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, known as the disengagement).
For Israel, perhaps the most evident tangible benefit of the agreement with Egypt (other than the subsequent U.S. aid, which Egypt also received) was a peaceful mutual border, enabling the Israel Defense Forces to reduce their levels of alert on Israel's southwestern frontier.
Read more about this topic: Camp David Accords
Famous quotes containing the words public and/or support:
“The study of tools as well as of books should have a place in the public schools. Tools, machinery, and the implements of the farm should be made familiar to every boy, and suitable industrial education should be furnished for every girl.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The interest in Wisdom is fading. Soon there will not be enough left to support the aphorism, even though it tries to amuse by half-mocking the Wisdom it propounds.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)