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This article challenges critics of the Camp David accords who acknowledge only limited accomplishments or contend the United States was covering for Israeli settlement expansion while seeking to thwart Palestinian self-determination. President Jimmy Carter and his administration sought to create a new pathway toward peace given the unwillingness of Israel’s right-wing government under Menachem Begin to support Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Palestinian statehood. Carter officials saw the U.S. ideas as a middle way that might get the ball rolling and open a door to peace, however partial and however tentative the process might be at the beginning. Their best-case scenario was that the new U.S. approach would start to transform what the parties thought was possible with regard to the Palestinian question.