Tears of the Sphinx
October 6, 1981. Another of those days that was destined to live in infamy and one that would make a lasting impression on me. I can still recall that suddenly out of a hushed silence, there were gasps, screams and cries that erupted from the passengers. One woman, sobbing uncontrollably, cried out “there goes the peace”.
The day had progressed uneventfully as my wife Rebecca and I boarded our El Al plane in Tel Aviv for the short flight to Cairo, Egypt. After spending ten days in Israel, we planned to stay in Cairo for four days where we planned to visit the Cairo Museum and take in the sites of ancient Egypt. Just before we were scheduled to land the announcement came over the PA system, President Anwar Sadat had been shot and critically wounded while attending a military parade. The moment remains forever etched in my memory. What followed was the reality that we were witnessing one of the defining moments in modern Middle Eastern history. After finally landing, we experienced more of the display of raw emotions and anguish amid a highly tense situation as we made our way through the airport and finally to the Cairo Concorde Hotel where we would be staying.
We were confined to our hotel for twenty-four hours as a part of the security clampdown around the city. I still have pictures today, taken from the window of our hotel room, of Egyptian soldiers and security guards stationed around the hotel and the tanks and military vehicles that rumbled down the streets to wherever. We later watched as planes landed bringing world dignitaries to attend the state funeral, including Air Force One as it arrived with the U. S. delegation.
Looking back at the historical facts of that period, I am reminded of what David Horowitz had so often said; “truth is often stranger than fiction”.
Anwar Sadat was born on Christmas day, 1918 in the Nile Delta village of Mit Abul Kom, the son of an Egyptian clerk and his part Sudanese wife. It was the year the War in Europe ended and the year that Egypt demanded, in vain, total independence from Britain. A religious child, he attended both Muslim and Coptic Christian schools. Later while attending a Military Academy, one of his classmates was the late President Gamal Abdul Nasser.
All his life, Sadat flirted with danger. His courage and a kind of reckless self assurance was one of the keys to his success. He took desperate chances as a young man, plotting against King Farouk and the colonial domination of Great Britain. As President, Sadat infuriated the Soviet Union when he abruptly threw 18,000 Soviet military personnel out of Egypt. In 1971 he raised the possibility of signing an agreement with Israel provided all the occupied territories captured by the Israelis were returned. With no progress toward peace, Sadat began to say that war with Israel was inevitable. Throughout 1972 and much of 1973, he threatened war unless the United States forced Israel to accept his interpretation of Resolution 242 - total Israeli withdrawal from territories taken in 1967. In April, 1973 Sadat again warned that he would renew the war with Israel, the same threat he had made in 1971 and 1972. Most observers remained skeptical of the rhetoric.
On October 6, 1973 on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar and during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan it happened. Egypt and Syria opened a coordinated surprise attack against Israel. The equivalent of the total forces of NATO in Europe was mobilized on Israel’s borders. On the Golan Heights, approximately 180 Israeli tanks faced an onslaught of 1,400 Syrian tanks. Along the Suez Canal, fewer than 500 Israeli defenders with only three tanks were attacked by 600,000 Egyptian soldiers, backed by 2,000 tanks and 550 aircraft. Nine Arab states, including four non-Middle Eastern nations actively aided the Egyptian-Syria war effort. The Soviets gave wholehearted political support to the Arab invasion while pouring weapons into the region. This would lead to the October 12 emergency airlift order of supplies and arms by U. S. President Nixon. Between October 14 and November 14, 1973, the sons of Joseph would provide 22,000 tons of equipment transported to Israel by air and sea. The airlift alone involved 566 flights. To pay for this infusion of weapons, Nixon asked Congress for and received 2.2 billion in emergency aid for Israel.
Thrown on the defensive during the first two days of fighting, Israel mobilized its reserves and began to counterattack. What followed, history tells us, was an epic period of intense engagement. In the greatest tank battle since the Germans and Russians fought at Kursk in World War II, roughly 1,000 Israeli and Egyptian tanks massed in the western Sinai from October 12-14. On the 14th, Israeli forces destroyed 250 Egyptian tanks in the first two hours of fighting. By late afternoon the Israeli forces had routed the enemy, accomplishing a feat equal to Montgomery’s victory over Rommel in World War II. By October 18th, Israeli forces were marching with little opposition toward Cairo. About the same time Israeli troops were on the outskirts of Damascus. This reversal of fortune would bring us to the brink of nuclear war.
The Soviets began to panic and on October 24th they threatened to intervene in the fighting. Responding to the Soviet threat, Nixon put the U. S. military on alert, increasing its readiness for deployment of conventional and nuclear forces. The danger of a U. S –Soviet conflict was real. In fact, this was probably the closest the superpowers had come to a nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. What followed was an intense period of diplomatic efforts to gain a cease-fire with which Israel reluctantly complied, largely because of U. S. pressure, and because the next military moves would have been to attack the two Arab capitals, action few believed to be politically wise.
By the end of the fighting, 2,688 Israeli soldiers had been killed. Combat deaths for Egypt and Syria totaled 7,700 and 3,500, respectively.
Ironically, the United States had helped save Israel by its resupply effort and then rescued Egypt by forcing Israel to accept the ceasefire. In January 1974, Israel and Egypt negotiated a disengagement agreement thanks to Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy.
The risks Anwar Sadat later took for peace overshadowed his risks in war. In 1977 defying the wrath of most of his fellow Arabs he did the unthinkable and traveled to Jerusalem, the heart of his enemy’s camp, and so began a march to a Mideast peace. His performances in Jerusalem and at Camp David shattered an insidious myth: that Arabs and Israelis could never negotiate face to face. In 1978 Sadat shared the Nobel Peace Prize with another old conspirator turned statesman: Menachem Begin.
On October 6, 1981, exactly eight years to the day he launched the Yom Kippur attack on the Jewish nation, Anwar el-Sadat, the villager who hero-worshipped Mahatma Gandhi as a young boy and would one day rise to lead Egypt, this one who would dare seek peace with the Jewish nation, would be cut down by the enemies of peace. The fanatic Islamic group called Al Taqfir wal Hijra, the largest such fundamentalist group in Egypt and whose roots were tangled in the fanatic Muslim Brotherhood, would darken the whole political landscape of the Middle East.
Providence would permit Rebecca and me to be present during this tragic unfolding of events covered and chronicled by copies of the October 7-8, 1981 issues of The Egyptian Gazette which we still retain.
We did indeed get to visit the Cairo Museum, an incredible experience. We also visited the timeless great pyramids and the Sphinx. The Sphinx, sitting as if guarding the tombs of past Pharaohs, with a weathered face and empty stare, like one who had seen too much.
Ralph Buntyn