Doaa Abdel Latif - Cairo
No one present at the time of the Egyptian parliament imagined that what the President of the Republic was saying would turn into a reality that had repercussions on the whole Arab region, so their applause was sharp, perhaps out of courtesy or praise for the boldness of the statement or perhaps the complete unconsciousness or the fear of not supporting All that is spoken by the individual ruler.
After decades of war with Israel, the late President Anwar Sadat declared in his famous speech to parliament on November 9, 1977, Egypt's readiness to enter into peace with the Zionist entity.
"I am ready to go to the end of the world, even to the Knesset itself, because we do not fear peace, because we also do not fear confrontation with Israel," said Sadat.
Two days later, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin sent an official invitation to the Egyptian president to visit Tel Aviv. Sadat arrived in Israel on November 19, 1977 and delivered a speech in the Knesset itself.
"I came to you today on two fixed feet to build a new life, in order to establish peace, and all of us on this earth are the land of God. We are all Muslims, Christians and Jews, we worship God and not We share with him one and the teachings of God and his commandments are love, honesty, purity and peace. "
"Every man, woman and child in Israel encouraged your leadership to struggle for peace and to make efforts to build a lofty edifice for peace instead of building castles and hideouts fortified with missiles of destruction," he said. "Tell your children that the past is the last war. The end of pain and what is coming is the new beginning of a new life. "
Several months later, on 17 September 1978, the Camp David Accords between Cairo and Tel Aviv were signed at the Camp David Resort in the United States of America under the auspices of President Jimmy Carter.
Six months later, on March 26, 1979, the two sides signed a peace treaty, which ended the state of war between them, the complete withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces from Sinai and the establishment of an autonomous Palestinian area in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, .
Justifications for peace
Despite Egyptian, Arab and Islamic anger over Sadat's move, his supporters see his move as a result of a darker future he would have faced in Egypt because of the power gap between Egypt and Israel, US support for Israel and weak Arab and even Russian support for Egypt.
Sadat's supporters assert that he was able to obtain the rights of Egypt, away from the war and the human and material losses that would have been incurred, with the great possibility of losing Sinai forever.
His wife, Jihan, said Sadat was a courageous man who sought peace at a very difficult time to pass through the region and to prevent wars and bloodshed, noting that after some time, many admitted that Sadat was right and that they had misjudged the situation.
Beyond Peace
"We are based on a solid position of Arab solidarity," Sadat said in his speech, in which he offered his readiness for peace with Israel, but what happened was contrary to his vision of things.
Many saw Sadat's betrayal of Arabism and its causes. A few days after Sadat's visit to Jerusalem, the Arab states had settled at a summit that decided to boycott Egypt and transfer the headquarters of the League of Arab States to Tunisia. The boycott lasted nearly ten years.
Israel won the official recognition of its existence by the largest Arab state, and received the first Zionist ambassador to work in Cairo in February 1980.
Egypt has lost its Arab brothers, but has received financial aid from Washington, which has been going on to date with military aid of $ 1.3 billion, and economic aid of $ 250 million since 1989.
In addition, Egypt has gained from the state of war, which has cost the GDP more than 20% of the national product, while the current military expenditure rate of 2 to 5.2%.
Treaty and despotism
Years later, things seem very contradictory. Egypt, which has offered thousands of martyrs in its wars with Israel to recover Sinai, is using Tel Aviv to fight militants on the same land.
According to statements by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi with CBS, which was broadcast in January, the Egyptian army is working with Israel against terrorists in northern Sinai. Sisi said the cooperation was the closest since the signing of the peace treaty.
For his part, Deputy Foreign Relations Committee in the former parliament, Dr. Jamal Heshmat, said that the peace treaty restored the Sinai is incomplete sovereignty, while Egypt provided full of Zionist influence.
He added to Al-Jazeera Net that the treaty succeeded in controlling the Arab regimes and making heads of clients for Israel in return for enabling them to continue in their positions to destroy the capabilities of their countries and to plunder their wealth.
Although four decades have passed since the signing of the agreement, the popular mood does not seem to be satisfied with it.
Economic cooperation
Egypt opened its economy to Israel after the signing of the treaty. Several agreements were signed between the two sides, and trade between them was exported and exported.
In December 2004, Egypt and Israel signed the QIZ Trade Agreement, which allowed Egyptian companies using Israeli inputs to export their products to the US with customs exemption.
In June 2005, the two parties signed an agreement to export 1.7 billion cubic meters of Egyptian gas to Israel annually for 20 years.
Despite the difficulty of subjecting this treaty to the scale of benefits and losses economically, according to the economist, Dr. Abdul Nabi Abdul Muttalib, he does not mind the existence of some indicators on measuring the economic impact of this Convention.
At the same time, Abdul-Muttalib told Al-Jazeera Net that some of those who were marketing for normalization with the Zionist entity talked about benefiting from the Israeli experiences in reclaiming the desert lands and establishing the modern farms in Suez Canal cities, especially the farms of apricots, mangoes and other fruits.
"Some of the reporters spoke of Egyptians who had to travel to Israel in search of a living," he said, adding that this meant the treaty's contribution to increasing the value of remittances to Egyptians working abroad.
In 1995, Abdelmutallab prepared a study on international trade between Egypt and Israel, which revealed that Cairo was getting a large portion of its gasoline, diesel and diesel from Israel.
The East Mediterranean gas pipeline is considered one of the most important gains of the peace treaty with Israel.
On the other hand, Abdel-Muttalib saw that a large part of the deterioration of the agricultural sector was a result of this policy in one form or another. Since the beginning of the cooperation between Egypt and Israel, there has been a goal to replace the wheat and maize crops.
Israel also worked with all its might to eradicate Egypt's long-standing cotton industry, the economist said.
"Despite the lack of sufficient evidence so far to export Israel carcinogenic pesticides or soil-damaging fertilizers and the public health of Egypt, the tracer to increase kidney disease and liver disease in the recent period will conclude that the Israeli hand was not far from it."