A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Friday, April 25, 2014

Today is Also Sinai Liberation Day

April 25 is not just Anzac Day; in Egypt it is also Sinai Liberation Day, the date in 1982 when Israel completed its withdrawal from Sinai (except for Taba, which went to arbitration). Israel occupied all of Sinai in 1967; after the 1973 war and the Kissinger shuttles it withdrew from the zone along the Suez Canal. Only in the 1979 peace treaty did Israel agree to withdraw completely by 1982.

The Egyptian patriotic video below touches most of the key points: the crossing of the Canal in the 1973 war;  Sadat in wartime command; Sadat at he Knesset in 1977; Sadat, Carter, and Begin signing either the Camp David Accords or the peace treaty; lowering the Israeli flag and raising the Egyptian one.

2 comments:

David Mack said...

Anwar Sadat will look better and better as historians study his sense of grand strategy. At the U.S National War College he is celebrated for his combined use of military force and skillful diplomacy to achieve lasting political goals for Egypt.

SETH said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_Day

Italy April 25-1945 - General insurrection in Northern Italy by the Italian Resistance Movement, end of Benito Mussolini's regime and Nazi occupation (known locally as Liberazione)
Portugal April 25-1974 - Fall of the Estado Novo fascist regime (known locally as Revolução dos Cravos)
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands April 25-1982 - Liberation from Argentina