Al-Sadat makes
an attempt to regain Sinai peacefully
General
Mohamed Abd Al-Ghany Al-Gamasy said in his memoirs (
On 5th of February 1971, Al-Sadat declared a peace initiative and
defined
it in an address in May
of the same year.
The initiative included a partial withdrawal of the
Israeli Forces, as a primary stage for the complete
withdrawal, in which Egypt could purify the Suez Canal and open
it for international navigation. After
that step, Egypt would accept extending cease-fire for a specific period in which the
ambassador of the United Nations Mr.
Jarring would put a time table to fulfill the
resolution of the security council number 242.
Then, the Egyptian Forces would pass across the Suez
Canal
to the eastern bank, putting arrangements to
separate between forces during the determined period
of cease-fire. If this period ended without a
tangible progress, the Egyptian forces would have the
right to liberate their land by force, refusing any
discussion around disarming Sinai, but Egypt could agree on disarmed areas
on both sides of
borders in accordance to the Security Council
resolution, and refusing any aspect of the Israeli
presence in
Sharm Al-Sheikh.
Israel replied expressing
the real intention,
declaring that there are nothing new in that
initiative and refused to withdraw from the eastern
bank of the canal, and Moshe Dayan
the defense minister of
Israel declared that Israel had no intention to
withdraw from the best line it had seized.
In the beginning of 1973, Egypt began an intensive
political activity by communicating the main
five countries of the permanent seats in the
Security Council . Although the Soviet Union sustainment
was clear, the British situation which was taken
by the government of governors to make Israel
withdraw to the international Egyptian borders was
constant, the French understanding to our
situation was strong, and the Chinese situation was
primary with us, while the American situation was
negative.
Egypt demanded to convene the
Security
Council to discuss the Middle East problem, and
asked the general secretary of the United Nations to
give a report about the mission of the special
representative ambassador "Jarring" since November 1967, till the
time of convening the council in July 1973.
On 26 of July 1973, the non-alignment countries
voted for a resolution draft. It showed to the world
the amount of sustainment to the Arabic right,
where fourteen
countries had voted for the resolution that condemned
the continuation of the Israeli occupation to the
Arab lands, but America dropped it by using
"Veto".)General
Mohamed Abd Al-Ghany Al-Gamasy
Anwar Al-Sadat said "
Mohamed Hafez Ismail, the Egyptian presidential adviser for
national security affairs, met Henry A.
Kissinger, Assistant to the president for
national security affairs, twice in 1973, Once in
Paris and the other in the U.S.A.
Kissinger said "My advice to
Al-Sadat is to be realistic, we live in the world of reality. And
we can not build anything on the basis of hopes and
imagination, and to know the fact, you are
defeated, so do not ask like a winner, you have to
offer concessions to get our help.
How you
can dictate your
conditions in spite of your defeat. Either you change
the reality you live, so we consequently change our dealing
for the situation, or you cannot. So we must find
a solution that go well with your situation instead of
the offered solutions.
I hope my words were clear;
because I don’t ask Al-Sadat to change the military
position, if he does it, Israel will make a greater
victory than that in 1967. In that case it will
be difficult for us to do anything and it will be a
great loss for Egypt and for Al-Sadat personally,
and he is a man I like to deal with one day."
Al-Sadat continued saying "Kissinger
said that in February and April 1973, I thought that
there is no use of America; because Israel had seized them and Americans
still applying the policy of president Johnson
which
prefer Israel interests to Americans interests. And
like what common Egyptian man said "Israel is
the only guard for America interests in the Middle
East"
That what Israel made of
herself or what America made of it. The
result in the two cases was the same, that no hope
to achieve peace through America as long as Israel
did not want peace." from Anwar Al-Sadat book
"In Search of Identity"
Source:
October War 1973, second
edition 1998. General Mohamed Abd Al-Ghany Al-Gamasy
chief of operations of
Egyptian Army during the
war.
