Anwar Sadat

"Sadat" redirects here. For the Indian town in district Ghazipur, see Sadat, Uttar Pradesh.

Muhammad Anwar El Sadat محمد أنورالسادات
3rd President of Egypt
In office October 5, 1970 – October 6, 1981
Preceded by	Gamal Abdel Nasser
Succeeded by	Hosni Mubarak
Personal details
Born	(1918-12-25)December 25, 1918 Mit Abu al-Kum, Egypt
Died	October 6, 1981(1981-10-06) (aged 62) Cairo, Egypt
Political party	Arab Socialist Union (until 1977) National Democratic Party (from 1977)
Spouse	Jehan Sadat

Anwar El Sadat, officially Muhammad Anwar El Sadat, Arabic: محمد أنور السادات (December 25, 1918 - October 6, 1981) was the third President of Egypt, serving from October 15, 1970 until his assassination. He had been a senior member of the Free Officers who overthrew the Muhammad Ali Dynasty in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and was a close confidante of Gamal Abdel Nasser, whom he succeeded as President in 1970.

However, upon becoming president, he departed from some of the economic and political principles of Nasserism by reinstituting the multi-party system and launching the Infitah. His leadership in the October War of 1973 and the regaining Sinai made him an Egyptian hero, and the eventual Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty resulted in Egypt being expelled from the Arab League.

Early life

Sadat was born on December 24, 1918 in Mit Abu al-Kum, al-Minufiyah, Egypt to a poor family, one of 13 brothers and sisters. His father was Egyptian, and 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 (Egypt and Sudan were one country at the time). 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 the Second World War 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 military coup known as the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 which overthrew King Farouk I. After the coup, 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.

During Nasser's presidency

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. He was reappointed as vice president again in December 1969.

Presidency

Sadat with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, 1981

After Nasser's death in 1970, Sadat succeeded him as President, but it was widely considered that his presidency would be short-lived. Viewing him as having been little more than a puppet of the former President, Nasser's supporters in government settled on Sadat as someone they could easily manipulate. 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 advisers 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 to recapture occupied Sinai. The Egyptian 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 Bar Lev Line. This line is popularly thought to have been an impregnable defensive chain, while it in fact was a lightly held chain of observation bunkers designed to give Israel an early warning of an impending attack. Indeed the Egyptian performance was highly praised by Jewish American military strategist Edward Luttwak in an article that appeared in the Jerusalem Post in the wake of the 2006 Lebanon War:

...hundreds of Israeli tanks were damaged or destroyed by brave Egyptian infantrymen with their hand-carried missiles and rockets....In 1973, after crossing the Suez Canal, Egyptian infantrymen by the thousands stood their ground unflinchingly against advancing 50-ton Israeli battle tanks, to attack them successfully with their puny hand-held weapons. They were in the open, flat desert, with none of the cover and protection that Hizbullah had in their fortified bunkers or in Lebanon's rugged terrain.... Later, within the few square miles of the so-called Chinese farm near the Suez Canal, the Israelis lost more soldiers fighting against the Egyptians in a single day and night than the 116 killed in a month of war in Lebanon - including the victims of vehicle accidents and friendly fire....Hizbullah certainly did not run away and did hold its ground, but its mediocrity is revealed by the casualties it inflicted, which were very few."

As the war progressed, three divisions of the Israeli army (IDF) led by then 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 on October 24, 1973, calling for an immediate ceasefire.

File:Anwar sadat TIME.jpg

Anwar Al Sadat, 1977 Man of the Year for Time magazine

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 UN Resolutions 242 and 338. He made the visit after receiving an invitation from Begin and once again sought a permanent peace settlement. 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.

The action, which gained wide support among Egyptians was extremely unpopular in the Arab World and the wider Muslim World. Nasser earlier had made Egypt an icon of Arab nationalism, an ideology that came into serious question following the 1973 war (see Egypt#Identity). By signing the accords, Sadat left the Arab states hanging by themselves, putting Egypt's interests above all and asserting an uncontested Egyptian orientation much as before Nasser. He then steered the country towards a strategic relationship with the U.S. 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 expelled Egypt in the wake of the Egyptian-Israel peace agreement, and 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 25, 1982.

In January 1977, a series of "Bread Riots" protested 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 recontrolled prices.

Unpopularity and conspiracy theories

The last years of Sadat's reign were marked by turmoil and there were several allegations of corruption against him 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.

Islamists were enraged by Sadat's Sinai treaty with Israel, particularly the radical Egyptian Islamic Jihad. According to interviews and information gathered by journalist Lawrence Wright, the group was recruiting military officers and accumulating weapons, waiting for the right moment to launch "a complete overthrow of the existing order" in Egypt. Chief strategist of El-Jihad was Aboud el-Zumar, a colonel in the military intelligence whose "plan was to kill the main leaders of the country, capture the headquarters of the army and State Security, the telephone exchange building, and of course the radio and television building, where news of the Islamic revolution would then be broadcast, unleashing - he expected - a popular uprising against secular authority all over the country."

In February 1981, Egyptian authorities were alerted to El-Jihad's plan by the arrest of an operative carrying crucial information. Sadat ordered a highly unpopular roundup of more than 1500 people, including many Jihad members, but also 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 round up missed a Jihad cell in the military led by Lieutenant Khaled Islambouli, who succeeded in assassinating Anwar Sadat that October.

According to Tala'at Qasim, ex-head of the Gama'a Islamiyya interviewed in Middle East Report, it was not Islamic Jihad but the Islamic Group that organized the assassination and recruited the assassin (Islambuli). Members of the Group's 'Maglis el-Shura' ('Consultative Council') - headed by the famed 'blind shaykh' - were arrested two weeks before the killing, but they did not disclose the existing plans and Islambuli succeeded in assassinating Sadat.

Assassination

On October 6, 1981, the month after the crackdown, Sadat was assassinated during the annual 6th October victory parade in Cairo. A fatwā 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 attack lasted about two minutes. The lead assassin Khalid Islambouli shouted "Death to Pharaoh!" as he ran towards the stand and shot Sadat. After he fell to the floor people around Sadat threw chairs on his body to try to protect him from the bullets. 11 others 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 U.S. military liaison officers. Sadat was then rushed to a hospital, but was declared dead within hours. This was the first time in Egyptian history that the head of state had been assassinated by an Egyptian citizen. Two of the attackers were killed and the others were arrested by military police on-site. Islambouli was later found guilty and was executed in April 1982.

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 were 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.

Sadat was succeeded by his vice president Hosni Mubarak, whose hand was injured 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.

Despite these facts, the nephew of the late President, Talaat al-Sadat, claimed that the assassination was an international conspiracy. On October 31, 2006, he was sentenced to a year in prison for defaming Egypt's armed forces, less than a month after he gave the interview accusing Egyptian generals of masterminding his uncle's assassination. In an interview with a Saudi television channel, he also claimed both the United States and Israel were involved: "No one from the special personal protection group of the late president fired a single shot during the killing, and not one of them has been put on trial," he said. It should be noted that in the late 1970s the training of Sadat's personal bodyguards was handled by the private American security firm of JJ Cappucci. In 1980, however, the CIA agent William Francis Buckley took over the training.

And on the same side a group of Egyptians calling them selves "The Free Egyptians" are publishing an online Petition asking for re-open of the investigation in Sadat's assasination saying that vice president at the time of the assasination "Husni Mubarak" is involved in it , actually they say that he might even shot him with a small pistol .

Family

Sadat was married twice. He was first married to Ehsan Madi at age 22, and divorced her ten years later, just 17 days after the birth of their third daughter, Camelia. He then married Jehan Raouf (later known as Jehan Sadat), who was barely 16 at the time, on May 29, 1949, and they had 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 of complicity in his uncle's assassination.

Media portrayals of Anwar Sadat

In 1983, Sadat, a miniseries, aired on U.S. television with Oscar-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.

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

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 his work with German spies during World War II and the revolt of the army officers after the war.
• 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.

References

• Finklestone, Jos. Anwar Sadat, Routledge, 1 edition, June 30, 1996.
• Haykal, Muhammad Hasanayn. Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat, Wm Collins & Sons & Co, 1982.
• Meital, Yoram. Egypt’s Struggle for Peace: Continuity and Change, 1967-1977.
• Waterbury, John. The Egypt of Nasser and Sadat: The Political Economy of Two Regimes, Princeton University Press, Limited Edition, May 1983.
• Wright, Lawrence, Looming Tower : Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Knopf, 2006

External links

• Official website Template:Ar icon & Template:En icon
• http://www.anwarelsadat.com/ Template:Ar icon
• http://www.elsadat.info/
• http://www.bsos.umd.edu/sadat
• Video of Sadat's assassination
• Another video of Sadat's assassination
• Al Jazeera Video detailed coverage of the cause of Sadat's Assassination Template:Ar icon
• [http://www.angelfire.com/art3/eg05/killingSadat.htm Free Egyptians Point of View About Sadat's Assassination
• [http://www.petitiononline.com/sadat81/petition.html Online petition about Sadat's assasination To: The United Nations Secretary General