A diary kept by a daughter. A general who believed his opponent, while the talks were breaking down. Scientists building something they needed together. Three small windows into the work behind peace, with the documents and the limits of what they tell us.
01
Taba · 1906–1989
Taba: the diary that survived, the cliff that did not
What kind of evidence? Arbitral award + signed agreement
A daughter in England had kept Captain Parker’s 1906 diaries. Decades later, Egypt submitted them to the Taba arbitration, alongside photographs he had taken on 31 December 1906 as a boundary pillar was being built beside the Gulf of Aqaba.1
Follow the evidenceMilestones, not a timeline to scale.
1906A diary and photographs
The diary was found decades later with Parker’s daughter.
1988An award, with a dissent
Four votes to one for Egypt’s BP 91 location.
1989A signed plan to implement it
A withdrawal deadline and joint survey work.
The pillar was gone, and around 1970 its cliff had been removed for a road. The photographs complicated the case: the old pillar stood at neither side’s proposed location for the final disputed marker. On 29 September 1988, the tribunal chose Egypt’s location for Boundary Pillar 91 by four votes to one; Ruth Lapidoth dissented.1
Then came a document about doing the work. On 26 February 1989, both governments signed an agreement accepting the award as final and binding and setting Israeli withdrawal for no later than noon on 15 March. Its annex records surveyors from both countries marking the remaining line to the sea together.2
Pause for a question
Do the old photographs prove that the awarded location was where Parker’s pillar stood?
Compare with our reading
No. The award distinguishes the vanished Parker pillar from the location awarded to Egypt. A source can complicate a dispute without settling it by itself.
A question to take away: can a government accept a binding decision while still disagreeing with its reasoning? Our reading is that a peace treaty needs a way to resolve the next dispute, not only the one that brought it into existence. Read the wider story of the Egypt–Israel peace treaty.
02
Kilometer 101 · 1973
Kilometer 101: trust at the moment talks broke down
What kind of evidence? Contemporary diplomatic reports
A telegram of 1 December 1973 records Israeli General Aharon Yariv describing a private conversation with Egyptian General Mohamed Abdel Ghani el-Gamasy. According to Yariv, Gamasy believed Israel wanted peace rather than renewed fighting, and had told Sadat so. Yariv said Gamasy first agreed to another meeting, then changed his mind after returning to the tent.3
How the account reaches usAn explanatory diagram, not an archival image.
1Gamasy
The words attributed to him.
2Yariv
His account of their conversation.
3U.S. ambassador
Records Yariv’s account.
41 December 1973
The telegram we can read.
The same telegram reports Egypt’s accusation that Israel had used the talks to recover prisoners while delaying disengagement. A separate American memorandum of 3 December describes narrowing differences over withdrawal and armour, followed by a breakdown: it reports that at the 29 November meeting, Yariv was under instructions to return to Israel’s earlier position. Its authors acknowledged that their information came mainly from Egyptian and UN sources.34
Pause for a question
Are we reading Gamasy’s own transcript?
Compare with our reading
No. We are reading the American ambassador’s record of Yariv’s account. This chain of attribution is part of the evidence, not a detail to erase.
A question to take away: where do these records describe an action, relay someone’s account, or interpret a motive? The human opening matters; it does not answer where troops should stand or what a negotiator is authorised to concede. Continue to the Sinai disengagement agreements.
03
SESAME · 1995–2018
SESAME: a moment of silence, then years of building
What kind of evidence? Later recollection + institutional records
The 1995 scene is a participant’s recollection, published in 2023.
Physicist Eliezer Rabinovici remembered a scientific meeting in a Bedouin tent in Dahab in November 1995. At Egyptian minister Venice Gouda’s request, participants stood in memory of the murdered Yitzhak Rabin. He told this story in 2023: it is a participant’s recollection, not a contemporary transcript.5
What was reused, what was newAn explanatory diagram, not an archival image.
01Microtron
Reused from BESSY I.
02Booster
Reused from BESSY I.
03Main storage ring
Entirely new. First circulating beam: 11 January 2017.
Cooperation eventually needed a machine. Germany donated the retired BESSY I accelerator; its microtron and booster were retained as the first acceleration stages, while SESAME received a completely new main storage ring. This distinction matters: the new laboratory was more than an old machine moved abroad. A beam first circulated in its main ring on 11 January 2017.6
SESAME opened in Allan, Jordan, on 16 May 2017. Its members included Egypt, Iran, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. The shared facility was designed for research spanning subjects such as medicine, materials and archaeology. These are the membership and opening recorded in 2017, not a claim about relations between those governments today.7
Pause for a question
Was the laboratory simply an old machine shipped to a new country?
Compare with our reading
No. Two early acceleration stages were reused, but the main storage ring was entirely new. Building a shared institution required years of work beyond the remembered encounter.
A question to take away: what must people agree on to run a laboratory together, and what can remain disputed outside it? Our reading is that shared interests become more durable when they have a practical home: rules, trained people, equipment and work worth doing. Compare this with the other possibilities in options for the future.
Sources
You do not have to agree with us. That is what the sources are for: open them, compare and check for yourself.