After World War II, a series of Arab–Israeli wars kept the Middle East in turmoil. The Six-Day War of 1967, in which Israel occupied the Sinai Peninsula, turned the Egypt–Israel confrontation into a core regional problem that even triggered the global oil crisis. In September 1978, U.S. President Jimmy Carter invited Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin to the presidential retreat of Camp David in Maryland. After 12 days of intense talks they produced a document known as the "Framework for Peace," under which Israel would withdraw from Sinai in stages and Egypt would formally recognize Israel. A provision for future Palestinian self-rule was also included. The framework led to the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, preventing large-scale inter-state war in the region until the First Gulf War. The Nobel Peace Prize honored this pioneering achievement of ending conflict through diplomacy rather than force.

The Camp David Accords consist of two documents. The first, "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East," reaffirmed UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and mapped out a phased Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories along with a roadmap toward Palestinian self-government. The second, "A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel," mandated the full return of the Sinai Peninsula, creation of demilitarized zones, deployment of an international monitoring force (later the MFO), and normalization of economic and diplomatic relations. Negotiations wrestled with boundary demarcation, oil-field ownership, and freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran; the Carter administration facilitated compromise with detailed maps and energetic shuttle diplomacy. Egypt was temporarily expelled from the Arab League and Sadat was later assassinated, yet the treaty has endured for over four decades and is central to regional security. The accords strengthened U.S. aid frameworks and served as a blueprint for later agreements such as Oslo and the Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty.

The Camp David talks exemplify a highly mediated bilateral process; President Carter conducted separate leader meetings and circulated 23 draft texts before convergence. Annexed maps and Annex III divide Sinai into Zones A, B, and C, impose D+3, 9, and 36-month withdrawal sunset clauses, and install the MFO, which submits quarterly verification reports. Part I introduced a five-year interim Palestinian autonomy with final-status talks starting in year three, a staging model later mirrored in the Oslo process. Legally an executive agreement, the accords bypassed U.S. Senate ratification while attaching a $4.2 billion aid package. The accords empirically support territorial concession for recognition as a mechanism of war termination, influencing subsequent game-theoretic literature on conflict resolution.