12.9.01

Twenty three years ago today, President Carter was at Camp David working with Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel and Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat, President of the Arab Republic of Egypt. This treaty called for the return of Sinai by Israel to Egyptian control and promises to negotiate for autonomous government in the West Bank and Gaza. The meetings concluded on the seventeenth of September, 1978. The warring ceased, as planned, before Christmas of that year, and the agreement was officially signed on March 26, 1979. Here is the text of that agreement.

Out of curiosity, I checked the home page of that site and found the following passage from the Talmud:

If you see a generation overwhelmed by many troubles, go forth and examine the judges of Israel, for all retribution that comes to the world comes only on account of the Judges of Israel, as it is said, Hear this, I pray you ye heads of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. They build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money; yet will they lean upon the Lord, etc. (3) They are wicked, but they place their confidence in Him Who decreed, and the world came into existence. (4) Therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, will bring three punishments upon them answering to the three sins which they cultivate (5) as it is said, Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest. (6) And the Holy One, blessed be He, will not cause His Divine presence to rest upon Israel until the wicked judges and officers cease out of Israel, for it is said, And I will turn my hand upon thee, and thoroughly purge away thy dross, and will take away all thy tin.

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