Egypt and the Middle East Peace Talks

The Middle East Peace Talks

In 1977, after two years of stalled negotiations, President Anwar Sadat made the historic decision to go in person to Israel to initiate top-level talks with the Israeli government. The following year he teamed up with the Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, to negotiate a comprehensive peace treaty between the two countries. This became known as the Camp David Accords, so named after the U.S. presidential retreat in Maryland where negotiations took place.

The Camp David Accords

Under the new agreement, signed by the two leaders in Washington on March 26, 1979, Israel agreed to hand back Sinai to Egypt and to work towards Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. After years spent at war with each other, the two countries had finally agreed to peace.

The effort won Sadat and Begin the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. Sinai was subsequently returned to Egypt, but coming up with a workable solution to the issue of Palestinian autonomy proved elusive. Indeed, as the 21st century dawned, the search for a peaceful solution to the problem remained as urgent and desperate as ever.

The Arab League Suspends Egypt

Although Sadat's reputation, based on his actions in behalf of Egypt and the Middle East Peace Talks, had risen to the loftiest of heights in the West, it could hardly have sunk any lower in the Arab world. The Arab community rewarded the Egyptians by suspending them from the Arab League. Its headquarters were forthwith transferred from Cairo to Tunisia.

The Growth of Islamic Movements

This was not the only alarming development. Another was the effect of the peace deal struck by Egypt and the Middle East Peace Talks on the growing Islamic fundamentalist movements, which had now joined in a deafening chorus of disapproval. Islamic movements in general had been gaining a great deal of popularity during the 1970s, taking advantage of a thaw in the political climate that saw the lifting of press censorship in 1974 and the legalization of parties in 1977.

The Assassination of Anwar Sadat

In the midst of the worsening political climate, Sadat paid the ultimate price for incurring the displeasure of his Muslim opponents. On October 6, 1981, the president, surrounded by a large entourage, was reviewing a military parade commemorating the eighth anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, and the subsequent role of Egypt and the Middle East Peace Talks.

As all eyes were turned to a jet display overhead, a group of four men, armed with machine-guns and grenades, jumped out of a truck that was taking part in the parade and rushed over to where Sadat was seated. Within a matter of seconds, the stand was engulfed in a hail of bullets and smoke. Sadat was hit repeatedly at close range and died shortly afterwards. In the aftermath it emerged that the assassins and their accomplices, who were subsequently caught and executed, belonged to a Muslim fundamentalist organization whose aim was to establish an Islamic state in Egypt.