Anwar Al Sadat

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Muhammad Anwar Al Sadat محمد أنورالسادات
3rd President of Egypt
In office October 15, 1970 – October 6, 1981
Preceded by	Gamal Abdel Nasser
Succeeded by	Hosni Mubarak
Born	December 25, 1918 Mit Abu al-Kum, al-Minufiyah, Egypt
Died	October 6, 1981 Cairo
Political party	Arab Socialist Union (until 1977) National Democratic Party (from 1977)
Religion	Sunni Islam

Anwar Al Sadat, officially Muhammad Anwar Al Sadat (Arabic: محمد أنورالسادات Muhammad 'Anwar as-Sādāt) was the third President of Egypt, serving from October 15, 1970 until his assassination on October 6, 1981. He is considered to one of the most important and influential Egyptian and Arab figures in modern history.

[edit] Early life

Sadat was born on December 25, 1918 in Mit Abu al-Kum, al-Minufiyah, Egypt to a poor family, one of 13 brothers and sisters. His father was Egyptian, his mother was Sudanese. He graduated from the Royal Military Academy in Cairo in 1938 and was appointed in the Signal Corps. He entered the army as a second lieutenant and was posted in Sudan. There, he met Gamal Abdel Nasser, and along with several other junior officers they formed the secret Free Officers Movement committed to freeing Egypt from British domination and royal corruption.

During World War II he was imprisoned by the British for his efforts to obtain help from the Axis Powers in expelling the occupying British forces. Along with his fellow Free Officers, Sadat participated in the Revolution of 1952 which overthrew King Farouk I. When the coup which launched the Revolution was initiated, he was assigned to take over the radio networks to announce the news of the Revolution to the Egyptian people.

In 1964, after holding many positions in the Egyptian government, he was chosen to be Vice president by President Nasser. He served in that capacity until 1966, and again from 1969 to 1970.

[edit] During Nasser's presidency

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President Sadat looking at President Nasser's coffin

During the presidency of Gamal Abdel Nasser, Sadat was appointed Minister of State in 1954. In 1959 he assumed the position of Secretary to the National Union. Sadat was the President of the National Assembly (1960 - 1968) and then Vice president and member of the Presidential Council in (1964). Sadat was reappointed as Vice president again in December 1969. He survived the turmoil of Nasser's presidency by loyal obedience to him.

[edit] Presidency

Anwar Al Sadat (left), Jimmy Carter (center) and Menachem Begin (right) at the Camp David Accords (1978)

Sadat ascended to the presidency after Nasser's death in 1971 by very clever means. Considering him nothing but a puppet of the former President, Nasser's supporters in government settled on Sadat as someone they could easily manipulate. For months, he was known as the donkey as he learned to control the levers of power. Nasser's supporters were well satisfied for six months until Sadat instituted The Corrective Revolution and purged Egypt of most of its other leaders and other elements of the Nasser era.

In 1971, Sadat endorsed in a letter the peace proposals of UN negotiator Gunnar Jarring which seemed to lead to a full peace with Israel on the basis of Israel's withdrawal to its pre-war borders. This peace initiative failed as neither the United States nor Israel accepted the terms as discussed then.

Sadat likely perceived that Israel's desire to negotiate was directly correlated to how much of a military threat they perceived from Egypt, which, after the Six-Day War of 1967 was at an all time low. Israel also viewed the most substantial part of the Egyptian threat as the presence of Soviet equipment and personnel (in the thousands at this time). It was for those reasons that Sadat expelled the Soviet military advisors from Egypt and proceeded to whip his army into shape for a renewed confrontation with Israel.

On October 6 1973, in conjunction with Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Sadat launched the October War, a surprise attack against the Israeli forces occupying the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights in an attempt to liberate the territory captured by Israel six years earlier. The Egyptian and Syrian performance in the initial stages of the war (see The Crossing) astonished both Israel and the Arab World as Egyptian forces pressed approximately 15 km into the Sinai Peninsula beyond the hitherto inpregnable Bar Lev Line. As the war progressed Israel managed to reverse much of these gains, and by October 22, three divisions of the Israeli army (IDF) led by General Ariel Sharon had crossed the Suez Canal, encircling the Egyptian Third Army. Prompted by an agreement between the United States and Egypt's Soviet allies, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 338, calling for an immediate ceasefire. [1]

The initial Egyptian and Syrian victories in the war restored popular morale throughout Egypt and the Arab World, and for many years after Sadat was known as the "hero of the Crossing". Israel recognized Egypt as a formidable foe, and Egypt's renewed political significance eventually led to regaining and reopening the Suez Canal through the peace process.

On November 19, 1977 Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel when he met with Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and spoke before the Knesset in Jerusalem about his views on how to achieve a comprehensive peace to the Arab-Israeli conflict, which included the full implementation of U.N. Resolution 242 and Resolution 338. He made the visit after receiving an invitation from Begin and once again sought a permanent peace settlement (much of the Arab World was outraged by the visit, due to their widespread view of Israel as a rogue state, and a tyrannical symbol of imperialism). This visit went against the U.S. and Soviet Union’s intentions, which were to revive the international Geneva Conference. In 1978, this resulted in the Camp David Peace Agreement, for which Sadat and Begin received the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the action was extremely unpopular in the Arab World and the wider Muslim World. Egypt was the most powerful Arab state and an icon of Arab nationalism. Many hopes were placed on Egypt to help extract concessions from Israel for the displaced Palestinians and others in the Arab World. By signing the accords, Sadat left all the other Arab states (who were reluctant to engage into such détente politics towards Israel) hanging by themselves, and steered Egypt towards a strategic relationship with the U.S.A.. This was seen as a betrayal of his predecessor Nasser's pan-Arabism, destroying visions of a united Arab front and elimination of the Zionist Entity.

In 1979, the Arab League suspended Egypt's membership in the wake of Egypt's peace agreement with Israel; the League moved its headquarters from Cairo to Tunis. It was not until 1989 that the League re-admitted Egypt as a member, and returned its headquarters to Cairo. Many believed that only a threat of force would make Israel negotiate over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Camp David accords removed the possibility of Egypt, the major Arab military power, from providing such a threat. As part of the peace deal, Israel withdrew from the Sinai peninsula in phases, returning the entire area to Egypt on April 25th, 1982.

Also contributing to Sadat's unpopularity were the January 1977 "Bread riots" protesting al-Sadat's economic liberalization and specifically a government decree lifting price controls on basic necessities like bread. 120 buses and hundreds of buildings burned in Cairo alone. Dozens of nightclubs on the famous Pyramids Street were sacked by Islamists. Following the riots the government reversed itself and recontroled prices. ^{[1] [2]}

[edit] Unpopularity and conspiracy theories

The last years of Sadat's reign were marked by turmoil and allegations of corruption against Sadat and his family.

Near the end of his presidency, most of Sadat's advisors resigned in protest of his internal policies. The deaths of the Defense Minister Ahmed Badawi and 13 senior Egyptian Army officers in a helicopter crash on March 6, 1981 near the Libyan border increased the public anger at Sadat and his policy. Conspiracy theorists allege the pilot could not have survived the crash without injury while 14 generals using the same helicopter died. Nor could these generals all have been in the helicopter as Egyptian army regulations do not allow two generals to use the same car or helicopter together.^{[citation needed]}

General Badawi commanded the Egyptian Third Army in Sinai in the 1973 war. There were rumors that the Defense Minister had issued an ultimatum to President Sadat to change his internal policies right before the accident.^{[citation needed]}

In September 1981, Sadat cracked down on intellectuals and activists of all ideological stripes, imprisoning communists, Nasserists, feminists, Islamists, homosexuals, Coptic Christian clergy, university professors, journalists and members of student groups. The arrests totalled nearly 1,600, receiving worldwide condemnation for the extremity of his techniques. Meanwhile, internal support for Sadat disappeared under the pressure of an economic crisis and Sadat's suppression of dissidents.

From clockwise direction: Sadat before the shooting, the fire fight starts, the aftermath and the fierce gunfight in the assassination

Sadat funeral

[edit] Assassination

On October 6, the month after the crackdown, Sadat was assassinated [2] during the annual 6th October victory parade in Cairo. The assassination was carried out by army members who were part of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization. They opposed Sadat's negotiations with Israel, as well as his use of force in the September crackdown.

A fatwa approving the assassination had been obtained from Omar Abdel-Rahman, a cleric later convicted in the U.S. for his role in the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Sadat was protected by four layers of security and the army parade should have been safe due to ammunition-seizure rules. However, the officers in charge of that procedure were on hajj to Mecca.

As air force Mirage jets flew overhead, distracting the crowd, a troop truck halted before the Presidential reviewing stand, and a lieutenant strode forward. Sadat stood to receive his salute, whereupon the assassins rose from the truck, throwing grenades and firing assault rifle rounds. The assassination lasted about 2 minutes. The lead assassin Khalid Islambouli shouted "Death to Pharaoh!" as he ran towards the stand and shot Sadat in the head. After he fell to the floor, people around Sadat threw chairs to try to protect him from the bullets. Seven other dignitaries were killed, including the Cuban ambassador and a Coptic Orthodox bishop, and 28 were wounded, including James Tully, the Irish Minister for Defence, and four US military liaisons. Sadat was then rushed to a hospital, but he was declared dead within hours. This was the first time in the Egyptian history that the head of the Egyptian state was assassinated by Egyptian citizens. Video showing Sadat's assassination. Two of the attackers were killed and the others were arrested by the military police on-site. He was later found guilty and executed in April of 1982.

Unknown soldier memorial in Cairo

In conjunction with the assassination an insurrection was organized in Asyut in Upper Egypt. Rebels took control of the city for a few days and 68 policemen and soldiers are killed in the fighting. Government control was not restored until paratroopers from Cairo arrived. Most of the militants convicted of fighting received light sentences and served only three years in prison. ^[3]

Sadat was succeeded by his Vice-President Hosni Mubarak, who was injured in his hand during the attack. Sadat's funeral was attended by a record number of dignitaries from around the world, including a rare simultaneous attendance by three former U.S. presidents, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon. No Arab leaders attended the funeral apart from Sudan's President Gaafar Nimeiry. Sadat was buried in the unknown soldier memorial in Cairo.

Over three hundred Islamic radicals were indicted in the trial of assassin Khalid Islambouli, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, Omar Abdel-Rahman, and Abd al-Hamid Kishk. The trial was covered by the international press and Zawahiri's knowledge of English made him the de facto spokesman for the defendants. Zawahiri was released from prison in 1984, before travelling to Afghanistan and forging a close relationship with Osama Bin Laden. In October 31, 2006 the nephew of the late President Anwar Sadat was sentenced to a year in prison for defaming Egypt's armed forces, less than a month after he gave an interview accusing Egyptian generals of masterminding his uncle's assassination.

[edit] Family

Sadat was married twice. He divorced Ehsan Madi to marry half-Egyptian/half-British Jehan Raouf (later known as Jehan Sadat), who was barely 16, on May 29, 1949. They had three daughters and one son. Jehan Sadat was the 2001 recipient of the Pearl S. Buck Award. Anwar Sadat's autobiography, In Search of Identity, was published in the USA in 1977. Currently, Mrs. Sadat is an Associate Resident Scholar at the University of Maryland where The Anwar Sadat Chair for Development and Peace was established and fully endowed in 1997 to honor her husband's legacy. A nephew, Talaat Sadat, was imprisoned in October 2006 for accusing the Egyptian military with complicity in his uncle's assassination.

[edit] Media portrayals of Anwar Sadat

In 1983, Sadat, a miniseries, aired on U.S. television with Academy Award-winning actor Louis Gossett, Jr. in the title role, though it was temporarily banned by the Egyptian government due to historical inaccuracies as reported by a former officer in the Ministry of the Interior, Ahmed Y. Zohny, who was a Ph.D candidate at The University of Pittsburgh at the time. The two-part series earned Gossett an Emmy nomination.

The first Egyptian depiction of Sadat's life came in 2001, when Ayam El-Sadat (English: Days of Sadat) was released in Egyptian Cinemas. The movie was a major success in Egypt, and was hailed as Ahmed Zaki's greatest performance to date. [3]

Sadat is a minor character in Ken Follet's "The Key to Rebecca".

[edit] Books by Anwar Sadat

Anwar Sadat wrote many books during his life. These include:

• The Full Story of the Revolution (1954)
• Unknown Pages of the Revolution (1955)
• Revolt on the Nile (1957), about the revolt of the army officers.
• Son, This Is Your Uncle Gamal - Memoirs of Anwar el-Sadat (1958), about Nasser.
• In Search of Identity: An Autobiography (1978), the story of his life and of his country after 1918.

[edit] References

1. ^ Roy, Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1994, p.56
2. ^ Weaver, Weaver, Mary Ann, Portrait of Egypt, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, p.25
3. ^ Sageman, Marc, Understanding Terror Networks, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004 p.33, 34

1- Meital, Yoram. Egypt’s Struggle for Peace: Continuity and Change, 1967-1977.

2- Jos Finklestone. "Anwar Sadat", Routledge, 1 edition, June 30, 1996".

3- John Waterbury. "The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes, Princeton Univ Pr, Limited Ed edition, May 1983"

4- Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal, "Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat",Wm Collins & Sons & Co, 1982

[edit] External links

• Official website (Arabic)
• [4] (Arabic)
• [5]
• [6]

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Anwar Sadat

Presidents of Egypt
Muhammad Naguib • Gamal Abdel Nasser • Anwar Al Sadat • Hosni Mubarak