Page 14-Friday, December 10, 1982-The Michigan Daily
Sadat's peace trip 5 years later
By The Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt - In the cool Cairo
evening of Saturday, Nov. 19, 1977,
President Anwar Sadat took off in a
Boeing 707 jetliner and 65 minutes later
landed in the land of the enemy-Israel.
There he declared, "No more wars,"
and with Prime Minister Menachen
Begin of Israel set in motion the
machinery that led to the signing of
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in
Washington March 26, 1979, with
Presdent Jimmy Carter at their side.
The treaty changed the course of Mid-
dle East History.
Now, five years after Sadat's
precedent-breaking trip, there have
been no more wars between Egypt and
Israel but the peace process between
the two nations has stalled-and pos-
sibly is in seriour trouble.
EGYPTIAN government sources list
a succession of Israeli actions which
they claim are to blame: the an-
nexation of Arab East Jerusalem on
July 30, 1980, and the Golan Heights on
Dec. 14,r1981;the bombing of theIraq's
nuclear reactor June 7, 1981; the
decisions earlier this year that led to
the suspension of Palestinian
autonomy talks, and the invasion of
Lebanon last June 6.
Israelis, too, see some trouble with the
peace treaty, especially since the in-
vasion of Lebanon and the routing of
Palestine Liberation Organization
guerrillas from Beirut.
Troubles mounting for
Egypt-Israel accord
Prime Minister Begin shrugs off any
talk of trouble with the peace process,
saying it passed its crucial tests with
the invasion of Lebanon and clashed
with Syrian forces.
BUT ISRAELI officials in Jerusalem
say Begin purposely is underplaying
Israel's concerns to avoid aggravating
them.
Some Israeli officials say they may
be losing the ground patiently gained
since Sadat visited them five years ago.
"Perhaps 'freeze' is not the right
word," one top Israeli government of-
ficial told The Associated Press in
Jerusalem. "Maybe we should call it a
regression."
The Israelis don't accept any blame
for the suspension of the Palestinian
autonomy talks, which were provided
for in the second phase of the peace
treaty. They maintain those talks never
got under way because the Egyptians
refused to negotiate in Jerusalem,
which Israel has proclaimed as its
capital and which Arabs consider oc-
cupied territory.
"THE EGYPTIANS from the start
saw normalization as an instrument to
play," commented Eliahu Ben-Alissar,
Israel's first ambassador to Cairo.
"When they thought that . . . they
could apply pressure on us, they
tightened their belt."
Sadat is no longer around to help in
any mendng of fences-he was
assassinated by Moslem fundamen-
talists while reviewing an Egyptian
army parade Oct. 6, 1981.
His successor, President Hosni
Mubarak, has been unable to expand
contacts with the Israelis because of the
succession of Israeli actions that other
Arabs seeas evidence of what they
call Israeli insincerity.
SADAT'S three-day visit to Israel in
1977 was hailed in Egypt and Israel as a
step that would bring not only peace but
prosperity, through trade and tourism.
But trade between the two countries
has barely topped $1 million annually.
The Israeli invasion of Lebanon has
all but frozen trade now.
Tourism, vital to the economies of
both nations, is a one-way street, with
tens of thousands of Israelis visiting
Egypt each year, and only a few Egyp-
tians, mostly officials, visiting Israel.