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Anwar Sadat Quotes

Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers on 6 October 1981. Sadat was a senior member of the Free Officers who overthrew King Farouk in the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, and a close confidant of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, under whom he served as Vice President twice and whom he succeeded as president in 1970. In 1978, Sadat and Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, signed a peace treaty in cooperation with United States President Jimmy Carter, for which they were recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize.

In his eleven years as president, he changed Egypt's trajectory, departing from many of the political and economic tenets of Nasserism, re-instituting a multi-party system, and launching the Infitah economic policy. As President, he led Egypt in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to regain Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had occupied since the Six-Day War of 1967, making him a hero in Egypt and, for a time, the wider Arab World. Afterwards, he engaged in negotiations with Israel, culminating in the Egypt–Israel peace treaty; this won him and Menachem Begin the Nobel Peace Prize, making Sadat the first Muslim Nobel laureate. Although reaction to the treaty—which resulted in the return of Sinai to Egypt—was generally favorable among Egyptians, it was rejected by the country's Muslim Brotherhood and the left, which felt Sadat had abandoned efforts to ensure a Palestinian state. With the exception of Sudan, the Arab world and the Palestine Liberation Organization strongly opposed Sadat's efforts to make a separate peace with Israel without prior consultations with the Arab states. His refusal to reconcile with them over the Palestinian issue resulted in Egypt being suspended from the Arab League from 1979 to 1989. The peace treaty was also one of the primary factors that led to his assassination; on 6 October 1981, militants led by Khalid Islambouli opened fire on Sadat with automatic rifles during the 6 October parade in Cairo, killing him. Wikipedia  

✵ 25. December 1918 – 6. October 1981
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Anwar Sadat: 5   quotes 1   like

Famous Anwar Sadat Quotes

“Any life lost in war is the life of a human being, irrespective of whether it is an Arab or an Israeli. The wife who becomes widowed is a human being, entitled to live in a happy family, Arab or Israeli. Innocent children, deprived of paternal care and sympathy, are all our children, whether they live on Arab or Israeli soil.”

Anwar Sadat

[Address by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to the Knesset, Anwar, Sadat, Visit to Israel by President Sadat, Jerusalem, November 20, 1977, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/address-by-egyptian-president-anwar-sadat-to-the-knesset, October 9, 2018]

“Russians can give you arms, but only the United States can give you a solution.”

Anwar Sadat

[Fradkin, Hillel, Libby, Lewis, September/October 2012, Learning from Sadat: The Dividends of American Resolve, http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/article/learning-sadat-dividends-american-resolve, World Affairs, Washington, D.C., World Affairs Institute, October 9, 2018]

“The goal is to bring security to the peoples of the area, and the Palestinians in particular, restoring to them all their right to a life of liberty and dignity… This is what I stand for.”

Anwar Sadat

[Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, Anwar, Sadat, Nobel Prize Ceremony, Stockholm, December 10, 1978, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1978/al-sadat/lecture/, October 9, 2018]

“I am convinced that we owe it to this generation and the generations to come, not to leave a stone unturned in our pursuit of peace.”

Anwar Sadat

[Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, Anwar, Sadat, Nobel Prize Ceremony, Stockholm, December 10, 1978, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1978/al-sadat/lecture/, October 9, 2018]

“Today I tell you, and I declare it to the whole world, that we accept to live with you in permanent peace based on justice. We do not want to encircle you or be encircled ourselves by destructive missiles ready for launching, nor by the shells of grudges and hatreds.”

Anwar Sadat

[Address by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to the Knesset, Anwar, Sadat, Visit to Israel by President Sadat, Jerusalem, November 20, 1977, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/address-by-egyptian-president-anwar-sadat-to-the-knesset, October 9, 2018]

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