Egypt and Israel had fought four wars in thirty years. The Sinai Peninsula was soaked in the blood of both nations' sons. Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin had every reason to keep fighting and almost no political incentive to stop. Sadat had led Egypt in the Yom Kippur War. Begin had been a militant revolutionary. They were the last two men anyone expected to make peace.
In September 1978, President Jimmy Carter brought them to Camp David and essentially locked the door. For thirteen days, the three leaders negotiated in the woods of Maryland while the world waited. It nearly fell apart multiple times. Begin and Sadat stopped speaking to each other directly. Carter shuttled between their cabins, rewriting drafts, brokering compromises, refusing to let either man leave. On day eleven, Begin packed his bags. Carter walked over with photographs of the three of them, signed and personalized for each of Begin's grandchildren, and asked him to reconsider.
The Accords produced the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab nation. Egypt recognized Israel's right to exist. Israel withdrew from the Sinai. Sadat and Begin shared the Nobel Peace Prize. Two years later, Sadat was assassinated by extremists in his own military who could not forgive him for choosing peace.
He knew the risk. He went to Camp David anyway. Some acts of repair cost everything, and the people who make them know it going in.
"Perhaps the reason the Universe gave you a broken world is so that you could have a chance to fix it."