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Why Israelis ignore 40th anniversary of peace with Egypt

Forty years after Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed the peace treaty, Israelis sideline this achievement and prefer to ignore that relations with an Arab nation can change.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin join hands in celebration of the signing of the ÒTreaty of Peace Between the Arab Republic of Egypt and the State of IsraelÓ at the White House in Washington, D.C., March 26, 1979. Courtesy Jimmy Carter Library/National Archives/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo  ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY.  PLEASE SEARCH "FROM THE FILES - 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF EGYPT-ISRAEL PEACE TRE
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On March 26, 1979, on the White House lawn, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and US President Jimmy Carter signed a historic peace treaty that transformed the Middle East. “No more war, no more bloodshed,” Begin declared at the ceremony.

Eighteen months prior to the signing, in November 1977, Sadat landed at Ben Gurion Airport, becoming the first Arab leader ever to pay an official visit to Israel. Barely four years after the trauma of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Israel Television broadcast history in the making. The black and white footage showed Sadat visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, addressing the Knesset in Arabic, embracing Begin and discussing with him a “peace of the brave.”

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