Sample Solution

unknown quantity on the international scene. The Israeli capture of Sinai served as a continuing affront to Egyptian honour, a situation that led to a lengthy confrontation and stalemate at the Suez Canal during the early 1970s. Al-Sadat, however, give the appearance of concentrating much of his attention on the domestic agenda. Certain civil liberties that had been generally lacking during the 1960s were restored under the most careful controlled circumstances, including the right of speaking (and writing) “absolutely frankly,” all within limits of appropriateness determined by the government. The most of the books written of the time were violently anti Naseer (including Tawfiq al-Hakim’s Awdat al-Way) made it clear that a change in political priorities and alignments was under way. As if to underline that direction, al-Sadat announced his policy of infitah, opening up Egyptian markets to both local and international capitalism. The major result of that policy has been to widen still further the gap between the wealthy and poor of the country, a theme that has not surprisingly, spawned a very large amount of fictional writing.
As these social transformations were in progress, the confrontation at the Suez Canal continued. The pressure for action mounted, and in October 1973 al-Sadat responded: the “crossing” of the Suez Canal caught the Israeli forces by surprise, and, even though the Arab Armies were eventually driven back, the cracking of the “Bar Lev Line” was a substantial psychological boost for al-Sadat, even though its impact elsewhere in the region was minimal; Berque terms the event a “semi success.” 76 In 1977 al-Sadat undertook another bold initiative when he agreed to travel to Jerusalem and addressed the Israeli Knesset. This was followed by a peace agreement between the two countries and, in March 1979, the singing of the Camp David accords in Washington. However, well these events may have played on the world stage, the assassination of al-Sadat in 1981 by members of a popular Islamic group in his own country and the almost empty streets in Cairo on the day of his funeral were potent reminders of the extent to which he had lost touch with political realities of Egypt and the region as a whole. In 1974 Abdullah Laroui had suggested that the post–1967 period was to be characterized by “an increasingly pronounced polarization of forces.” 77 The recent history of Egypt and its relationship with other Arab states provides just one illustration of how accurate his comment was to be.
1979 witnessed another transforming event in the recent history of the Middle East: the ouster of the Shah of Iran and his replacement by a conservative Shi’ite religious leadership he