Jerusalem U Presents Egypt & Israel: A Lasting Peace?
This week on History of Israel explained, we’re talking Israel-Egypt relations. In 1979, after decades of enmity and five wars, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty that still holds, albeit coldly, today.
Incredibly, it was two of the region’s most radical extremists, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, that will go down in history as the men that brought peace to the two countries. More unlikely peacemakers are hard to imagine.
Begin was once viewed by many, including David Ben-Gurion, as a terrorist (we’ll get to that another time) while Sadat not only admired Hitler, but also urged terrorism as a tactic for overthrowing the British (sound familiar?) So how did these two unlikely leaders end up signing a peace deal – one that would end in Sadat’s assassination just a few short years later – and how did this decision alter regional politics from an Arab-Israeli conflict to the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Let us know what you think about this odd couple and the unlikely Israel-Egypt peace treaty in the comments below.
Sources: – Daniel Gordis, Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn – Yehuda Avner, The Prime Ministers – Sari Nusseibeh, Once Upon a Country – Gil Troy, The Zionist Ideas, Part One: Pioneers Founding the State
