This day in history: Sadat makes infamous visit to Israel

Preparing his people

Before making the trip, Sadat prepared the homefront by announcing from the Egyptian parliament on 9 November that he was willing to go "to the end of the world" … "right to their home" … "to the Israeli Knesset" for the sake of peace. A master of theatrics, he had invited Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to attend the parliamentary session, who stood there dumbfounded as Sadat was delivering his speech, not knowing whether to believe his ears and eyes.

Arab League Secretary-General Mahmud Riad was also in the chamber and would write in his memoirs: "To us, his remark seemed sort of a defiant verbal exaggeration, and it didn't occur to us that it was serious." Sadat could comment: "The immediate reaction was quite funny. Some imagined it was a slip of the tongue or an effusion unbacked by proper thought. Some people still believe politicians say things they don't mean—which I could never do."

Syria reacts

Sadat returned to his office, and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad was on the line, asking impatiently and angrily: "Do you really mean what you said in your speech? Would you really go to Isreal?" Sadat replied: "I certainly would." He then travelled to Damascus to meet with the Syrian leader on 16-17 November, explaining: "If this proves to be the last thing I do as president, I'll still do it and then go back and present my resignation. I am absolutely convinced of the need for this initiative."

Al-Assad was adamant, claiming that not only was his visit unwise and untimely but that it would legitimise Israel and undermine the Arab position. He accused Sadat of abandoning the Arabs, to which the Egyptian leader said: "Let us then go together." Al-Assad raised his eyebrows in bewilderment, "Me? Never!" Sadat remarked: "If I fail, I will admit I was wrong." The stormy Damascus meeting lasted for seven long hours and was the last between al-Assad and Sadat.

Touchdown Tel Aviv

On 19 November 1977, he got on a plane from Abu Suwayr air base, west of Ismailia, and within 40 minutes, he landed at al-Lod airport (Ben Gurion Airport), 15 km southeast of Tel Aviv. Awaiting him was the entire Israeli cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Menachem Begin. As he got off the plane, millions of Muslims were performing the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and cussing the Egyptian president. The Times wrote, "Goodbye, Arab solidarity." Syria declared 19 November an official day of mourning.

Sadat looked uneasy as he stood at the aeroplane door, exchanging smiles with an audience he couldn't really identify as the Israelis had opened bright headlights, fearing an ambush. Chief-of-Staff Mordechai Gur felt that this was a camouflaged trap and that instead of Sadat, the Egyptian commando force would come out of the plane and shoot the entire Israeli cabinet.

Sadat recalled: "I found myself face-to-face with Golda Meir, who had cut short her US visit in order to see me on arrival (Meir had been premier during Sadat's 1973 war with Israel). I saw Moshe Dayan next, recognising the man against whom I had fought the 1973 battle. Then, Abba Eban and General Ariel Sharon. "If you attempt to cross to the West Bank again," I told him "I'll put you in jail!" "Oh, no!" he said, "I'm the Minister of Culture now!"  Sadat got it wrong in the English version but corrected it in the Arabic version of his memoir, where he says Sharon was actually the minister of agriculture, not culture.

That evening, he sat down for a joint television interview with Begin and, while smoking his landmark pipe, was asked whether the Israeli prime minister was now welcome in Egypt. Sadat replied that he would work on an invitation, not to Cairo but to Sinai, which was still under Israeli occupation. He seemed confident that his visit would lead to the complete restoration of the Sinai Peninsula, which had been occupied during the 1967 war.

Praying at Al Aqsa

Sadat wanted to pray at the al-Aqsa Mosque on Sunday before addressing the Israeli Knesset. It was the first day of Eid al-Adha, and prominent Palestinians from the West Bank and Jerusalem were invited to join him, including several pro-Arafat mayors elected to office just 18 months earlier. Everyone refused, including Nablus mayor Bassam Shak'a, Ramallah mayor Karim Khalaf, and Hebron mayor Fahd Qawasmi.

Israeli security wanted to ban worshipers from entering the mosque, remembering only too well how King Abdullah I of Jordan had been assassinated at the very same spot by a Palestinian gunman back in 1951. But it was also reasoned that seeing Sadat on TV praying in complete isolation would be very counterproductive to the image Israel wanted from the Egyptian president's visit. Such a scene would actually be a victory for all those who opposed Sadat's initiative.

One idea was to train an Israeli infantry unit to pray the Muslim prayer, dress them in Keffiyehs and then plant them around Sadat at the mosque, but it was overruled, and in the end, 1,500 Palestinians were allowed to attend, with heavy Israeli security. While performing the prayer, Sadat got word that his daughter had given birth to his grandchild, and upon his return to Egypt, he declared: "In Jerusalem, I met the real Palestinians."

He had last visited the mosque in the 1950s when he was minister of state under Abdel Nasser. "I immediately realised that the condition of the mosque had greatly deteriorated. The Saladin pulpit had been completely burnt out. I ordered that it should be rebuilt. The Egyptian artisans who had originally built the old Saladin pulpit would do so once again."

The 1977 visit had many results and would soon cost Sadat his life. It laid the groundwork for the Camp David Accords of 1978, formally ending the war between Egypt and Israel. Signed at the White House by Sadat and Begin and the auspices of President Jimmy Carter, it broke a psychological barrier in the Arab World and led to Yasser Arafat's own peace with the Israelis in 1993, followed one year later by that of King Hussein of Jordan. Most of the Arab world denounced Sadat as a traitor, expelling Egypt from the Arab League.

Three weeks after the Jerusalem visit, an anti-Sadat camp was created by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), Syria, Algeria, Libya, South Yemen, and subsequently, Iraq. Called the Steadfast and Confrontation Front, it vowed to sanction and isolate the Egyptian president. Indeed, Sadat would remain an outcast in the Arab world until his assassination at the hands of Egyptian extremists on 6 October 1981.