Nadine, if you were in charge of the White House, or the Knesset, 25, 30, 40 years ago, Egypt and Israel would still be at war.
It frequently takes a long time for cultural and political change to happen.
Political circumstance within a country is often shaped by the then-current popular opinion, in addition to other groups vying for power. Things are not always as they seem on the surface, nor do apparent hard-liners always end up being unable to deliver peace in the end. Israel and Egypt are a perfect case in point.
In the early 70's Sadat himself was still openly opposed to Resolution 242 - perhaps a notional move to placate the masses, or perhaps he actually believed in in that stance.
Editorials of the day spoke to this:
Arab policy at this stage has but two objectives. The first, the elimination of the traces of the 1967 aggression through an Israeli withdrawal from all the territories it occupied that year. The second objective is the elimination of the traces of the 1948 aggression, by the means of the elimination of the State of Israel itself. This is, however, as yet an abstract, undefined objective, and some of us have erred in commencing the latter step before the former.
Yet people on both sides of the border continued to move moderation forward, often against intense domestic pressure, and despite ongoing military conflict. Within that decade a peace agreement was signed, and Israel was recognized.
Later, anti-moderates on both sides of the fence made both Sadat and Rabin pay the ultimate price. |
