“The world prayed for the success of our efforts,” declared President Carter, “and I am glad to announce to you that these prayers have been answered.”
Peace will not come easy. Terrible social and political antagonisms seldom yield to simple solutions. But there is ground for hope. The goals of Jew and Arab are not mutually exclusive. The fundamental need of Israel is security. The bottom line for Egypt and its Arab allies is an autonomous West Bank for Palestinians and Egyptian sovereignty over the Sinai. The agreements reached by Begin and Sadat provide for both these goals. Many sticky problems remain unsolved. Begin and his conservative Israeli supporters must come to see that even a divine promise of the land of ancient Palestine (with which many evangelicals agree) does not warrant unjust acts by man to bring about the fulfillment of that promise. Arabs, on the other hand, must recognize Israel as a Jewish nation and provide adequate guaranties for the integrity of her boundaries and for her full acceptance into the family of nations.
In this issue CHRISTIANITY TODAY presents background for understanding what may well prove to be one of the major historic events in modern times—or another desperate gamble that climaxed in cynical despair.
