Just as a reminder, in previous articles we have discussed the series of wars that have erupted between the Arabs and Israel since the Arabs rejected United Nations Resolution No. 181 issued on November 29, 1947, which stipulates the establishment of two states (Jewish and Arab). The Arabs entered open wars in the years: 1948, 1956, and 1967. Israel defeated the Arabs in every war they entered, and the Arabs lost all the land of Palestine, in addition to all of Gaza, the Golan, and the northern part of Jordan.
Abdel Nasser, who suffered a terrible defeat in 1967, arrived in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, to attend the Arab Summit Conference and received a victorious welcome. The Arab Summit resolutions came out with what are called:
the Three No’s resolutions: No to reconciliation… No to negotiation… No to recognition… of Israel. Accordingly, the Arabs entered an open war with Israel with a specific and clear goal, which was to eliminate Israel, kill their men, take their women as captives, and enslave their children.
In the year 1970, the leader Gamal Abdel Nasser died, and Muhammad Anwar Sadat rule of Egypt, and the fundamentalist Islamic transformation began in Egypt. Sadat declared that he was a Muslim president for a Muslim country and a Muslim people. He announced that he would make the Christians in Egypt shoe polishers. In his late days, he even removed the Coptic Pope, His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, and restricted his residence in the monastery.
Sadat began to strengthen the Muslim Brotherhood organization in Egypt by forming armed terrorist groups to change the shape and life of the Egyptian people, and they raised the slogan “Islam is the solution. Egypt went downhill: socially, economically, and politically since that time.
In October 1973, the Egyptians seized the opportunity of the Jewish Day of Atonement, and the Egyptian army crossed the Suez Canal, successfully penetrating the formidable Bar Lev Line. It was indeed a military miracle by all measures, and the Egyptian army excelled in this achievement.
The brilliance of the Egyptian army lay in destroying this formidable line through the design of a type of water request system that operates under high pressure, causing the dam to collapse in record time. The Egyptian army created openings in the line and the Engineering Corps erected movable bridges in no time. Thousands of tanks and armored vehicles crossed to the eastern side of the canal.
the designer of these pumps and the originator of the idea to destroy the impregnable Bar Lev Line was Major General, an intelligent Christian engineer. Mr. Baqi Zaky. he was immediately retired after being promoted to the rank of major general. He passed away about a year before the date of this book, and the Egyptian armed forces did not mention him, nor did they honor him with a military funeral.
The Egyptians crossed the canal and destroyed the formidable Bar Lev Line. However, after three weeks of the war, the Israeli army managed to shift the balance and create a gap in the Egyptian army, crossing the Suez Canal from the western side and besieging the Third Army, Simultaneously, the Israeli army advanced in Syria and came within 20 miles of Damascus.
The Arabs realized that the Israeli military strength was too significant for the combined Arab-Islamic forces to confront. Israel threatened to destroy the Third Army in Egypt once again and warned of bombing and annihilating Damascus.
Therefore, Egypt requested rapid intervention from the United States to seek an immediate ceasefire, the United States and the Soviet Union presented a resolution to the United Nations calling for a ceasefire.
The United Nations agreed to the ceasefire resolution on the condition that each army would remain in its position. As a result, the Third Army remained besieged by the Israeli army, and Israel demanded a guarantee of a fair and comprehensive peace in the region.
In 1977, Sadat took the historic step of accepting negotiations for peace. He went even further by visiting Jerusalem and delivering a speech before the Knesset. This led to the initiation of peace negotiations, facilitated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter, at the presidential retreat Camp David in Maryland.
The negotiations between Menachem Begin, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Anwar Sadat continued for 12 days. Israel and Egypt agreed to initiate a new phase of relations calling for peace and normalization between the two countries. As part of the agreement, Israel would withdraw from the Egyptian territories it had occupied prior to the year 1967, with the assurance of a comprehensive and just peace.
The agreement also included guarantees for the passage of Israeli ships through the Suez Canal and the recognition of the Tiran Straits as international waterways that should not be closed to Egypt or Israel. It emphasized the full right of the Palestinian people to participate in peace negotiations with Israel to determine a permanent peace between them and Israel.
But unfortunately, instead of Arabs and Muslims rejoicing over the peace agreement and blessing living in peace in the region. Rather, Egypt was isolated from the Arab countries, the League of Arab States was transferred from Egypt to Tunisia, and Egypt’s membership in the League was suspended.
In all Arab and Islamic countries, the agitation of Muslim youth against Israel began, considering that the peace agreement at Camp David was a betrayal of God and His Messenger Mohamed. They made the issue of Al-Aqsa Mosque a fundamental issue, and the sheikhs and scholars established the sacred lie about Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Sadat had used these Salafi sheikhs and fundamentalists to fight the Followers of Abdel Nasser and those with leftist thought that had prevailed in Egypt since the revolution of July 23 until the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser.
but after the peace agreement with Israel, Sadat found himself confronting these Islamists. Sadat knew that all Islamic organizations are one, even if their names differ, and that they are all subversive terrorist organizations, and they are all different aspects of one hateful coin, he said this in his last sermon: There is no such thing as Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic groups, they are all one.
Yesterday’s supporters became today’s enemies, and waves of excitement from Muslim sheikhs led to the decision to get rid of Sadat and seize power by force. Indeed, President Sadat was assassinated in October 1981 in the famous platform incident, led by the group of Muhammad Abdel Salam Farag and Aboud Al-Zumar, and at the hands of Lieutenant Khaled Al-Estambouli. The Brotherhood announced that they were completely innocent of this operation and that they had nothing to do with it. To be more careful, the Brotherhood’s leaders had left Egypt about two months before Sadat’s assassination.
Years later, the Palestine Liberation Organization realized that peace was the only solution to resolve the Palestinian issue, and Yasser Arafat accepted to sit at the negotiating table with Israel.
In 1993, an agreement was reached, and a peace agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, called the Oslo Accords. We will discuss the details of the Oslo Agreement in the next article.
Ibn Farag Al-Assioty.