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(Mit
Abu l-Kawm, Minoufiyya 1918- Cairo 1981).
President of Egypt from 1970 to 1981.
Sadat's background was military education. He was
arrested twice during the World War 2, for
cooperating with the Germans, and put to trial for
plans to assassinate a politician in 1946, but was
acquitted. He was active in the dissident
officer's actions of freeing Egypt from British
control, together with Gamal Abdu l-Nasser. Sadat
was on Nasser's side with the coup in 1952,
and later the deposing of Naguib. Sadat was
vice-president in two periods, 1964-66 and
1969-1970. With Nasser's death in 1970,
Sadat was elected new president.
To have been one of Nasser's closest associates,
Sadat set a new course surprisingly independent
from Nasser. While Nasser had oriented himself
away from the West, and started cooperation
closely with the Soviet Union, Sadat sacked 20,000
Soviet military personnel two year after seizing
power.
In 1973 Sadat was one of the instigators of
the Yom Kippur war against Israel, but this only
gave part of the victory he had hoped for (which
was regaining control over the Suez Canal, a very
important aim for him). But the war demonstrated
that the Arab military was now at least as strong
as the Israeli (which needed US aid to fight back
the Arabs). The Yom Kippur war regarded as a
victory for Sadat, especially compared to the
falling star of Nasser in his last years at power.
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Sadat's
rising star on the Arab sky, dropped to the ground
in 1977, when he surprised the world by
visiting Israel. This visit was to a large degree
motivated by the economical problems after many
wars with Israel. In Israel, Sadat spoke with
prime minister Menachim Begin, and gave a speech
in the national assembly of Israel, the Knesset.
The result of the talks that started here, was the
so-called Camp David agreement, officially signed
on March 26, 1979. The treaty was in two
parts: Israel should give up land taken from Egypt
in exchange for peace. The other part, that should
secure the establishment of a Palestinian state
and no more building of settlements on the
occupied territories, was never fulfilled from
Israeli side.
While the international society rewarded him with
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 (together
with Menachim Begin), the treaty with Israel
isolated Egypt in the Arab world, and strong
opposition was expressed from the Islamists. In
September 1981, Sadat gave the order to
round up 1,600 dissidents, Islamists and
Communists. One month later, on October 6, he was
shot by three soldiers under a military parade in
Cairo.
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