Anwar Sadat (1918 - 1981) was an Egyptian military officer and politician who served as president of Egypt from 1970 until his assassination in 1981. [1] He launched the October War of 1973 against Israel and then reversed Egypt's alignment and policy, negotiating the Camp David Accords and the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Menachem Begin. [2] He was killed by Islamist soldiers during a military parade in Cairo.
Early life and the Free Officers
Muhammad Anwar Sadat was born on 25 December 1918 in Mit Abu al-Kum, a village in the Nile Delta, into a large family of modest means. [1] He graduated from the Egyptian Military College in Cairo in 1938 and was posted to Sudan, where he met Gamal Abdel Nasser. During the Second World War he was imprisoned by the British authorities for contacts with Axis agents and for nationalist activity, escaping and later being detained again.
He joined the Free Officers movement that overthrew King Farouk in the revolution of July 1952, and he read the proclamation of the coup on the radio. [3] Under Nasser he held a series of posts, including secretary of the National Union, speaker of the National Assembly and, from 1969, vice president.
Presidency and the October War
Sadat succeeded Nasser on the latter's death in 1970. He consolidated his position the following year in what he called the Corrective Revolution, removing rivals from the government and security services, and in 1972 expelled Soviet military advisers, loosening Egypt's dependence on Moscow. [1]
On 6 October 1973 Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal in a coordinated attack with Syria, opening the October War, known in Israel as the Yom Kippur War. [3] Although the war ended without Egyptian military victory, the initial crossing restored Egyptian confidence and altered the diplomatic balance, enabling disengagement agreements brokered with United States mediation and the reopening of the canal in 1975. Domestically, Sadat introduced the infitah, an opening of the economy to private and foreign investment that reversed much of Nasser's state socialism and produced both growth and sharp inequality, contributing to bread riots in 1977.
Peace with Israel
In November 1977 Sadat travelled to Jerusalem and addressed the Israeli Knesset, the first Arab head of state to visit Israel. [2] Negotiations mediated by United States President Jimmy Carter produced the Camp David Accords in September 1978 and the Egypt-Israel peace treaty signed in Washington in March 1979, under which Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula and the two states established diplomatic relations. Sadat and Begin were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978.
The treaty was condemned across much of the Arab world. Egypt was suspended from the Arab League and its headquarters moved from Cairo, and Sadat faced mounting domestic opposition from Islamist groups, leftists and Nasserists. In September 1981 he ordered a mass arrest of more than a thousand critics across the political spectrum. [1]
Assassination and legacy
On 6 October 1981, during a parade marking the anniversary of the October War, Sadat was shot dead in Cairo by members of Egyptian Islamic Jihad serving in the army, led by Lieutenant Khalid Islambouli. [1] He was succeeded by his vice president, Hosni Mubarak.
Sadat's international honours included the Nobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. [4] His legacy remains contested: the peace treaty ended the cycle of full-scale Egyptian-Israeli wars and has endured for decades, while his economic liberalisation, authoritarian turn and separate peace with Israel continue to divide assessments in Egypt and the wider region. [3]
