February 12, 2011|H.D.S. Greenway
I couldn’t find anyone in Israel’s foreign office who believed there could be a change in Egypt’s attitude. “Nonsense,’’ I was told, no Arab country would ever end its hostility toward Israel.
But before the year was out, Sadat was on Israel’s doorstep, and none of us who were there at the time will ever forget the rejoicing throughout Israel when Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin said together: “No more wars.’’
That was the sublime moment that Israel failed to grasp, however. Instead of turning “no more wars’’ into a peace policy, Israel took it to mean that Egypt was now enabling Israel to make wars with other people. Within a year Israel sent its tanks into Lebanon up to the Litani River against pesky Palestinians: an operation Israel would expand upon, investing an Arab capital, Beirut, for the first time in 1982, occupying a zone in southern Lebanon, and creating conditions for the birth of Hezbollah, a resistance group for which there had hitherto been no need. The last Israeli war in Lebanon was in 2006, and another showdown with Hezbollah is more than probable.
Sadat also thought he had made a deal with Israel about the Palestinians. When Israel and Egypt made their formal peace in 1979, a headline in the Boston Globe declared: “Self-rule plan for West Bank.’’ There was to be a limited withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza, with an autonomous government for the Palestinians after a five-year transition period.
But Israel viewed the deal as giving up the Sinai only. Israel’s grip on the occupied territories tightened, leading later to two uprisings. Egypt swallowed its disappointment, but it never forgot.
ISRAEL HAS been watching events in Cairo as a bird watches a snake. Will the end of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak threaten its peace with Egypt, and everything Israel has taken for granted for the last 30 years?
When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat went to Israel on that magic day in 1977 to make peace, he didn’t go because Egypt had fallen in love with Israel. He went in Egypt’s self-interest.
I first got wind that something might be in the offing on a visit to Cairo in the summer of 1977. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, later secretary general of the United Nations but then a well-informed newspaper columnist, told me that Egypt was in a mood to change. It had borne the brunt of four wars with Israel in the Arab cause, but simply could not afford to go to war with Israel every 10 years, he said. Others in the Egyptian establishment I interviewed felt the same way.
When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat went to Israel on that magic day in 1977 to make peace, he didn’t go because Egypt had fallen in love with Israel. He went in Egypt’s self-interest.
I first got wind that something might be in the offing on a visit to Cairo in the summer of 1977. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, later secretary general of the United Nations but then a well-informed newspaper columnist, told me that Egypt was in a mood to change. It had borne the brunt of four wars with Israel in the Arab cause, but simply could not afford to go to war with Israel every 10 years, he said. Others in the Egyptian establishment I interviewed felt the same way.
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But before the year was out, Sadat was on Israel’s doorstep, and none of us who were there at the time will ever forget the rejoicing throughout Israel when Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin said together: “No more wars.’’
That was the sublime moment that Israel failed to grasp, however. Instead of turning “no more wars’’ into a peace policy, Israel took it to mean that Egypt was now enabling Israel to make wars with other people. Within a year Israel sent its tanks into Lebanon up to the Litani River against pesky Palestinians: an operation Israel would expand upon, investing an Arab capital, Beirut, for the first time in 1982, occupying a zone in southern Lebanon, and creating conditions for the birth of Hezbollah, a resistance group for which there had hitherto been no need. The last Israeli war in Lebanon was in 2006, and another showdown with Hezbollah is more than probable.
Sadat also thought he had made a deal with Israel about the Palestinians. When Israel and Egypt made their formal peace in 1979, a headline in the Boston Globe declared: “Self-rule plan for West Bank.’’ There was to be a limited withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza, with an autonomous government for the Palestinians after a five-year transition period.
But Israel viewed the deal as giving up the Sinai only. Israel’s grip on the occupied territories tightened, leading later to two uprisings. Egypt swallowed its disappointment, but it never forgot.
