Why did President Anwar Sadat of Egypt visit Israel in 1977?
Pres. Nasser of Egypt saw his prestige collapse from the debacle of the Six Day War in 1967. Egyptian forces were destroyed as the Israeli’s swept through the Sinai to the Suez Canal, killing at least 3,000 soldiers. The devastation and loss of the Sinai oil fields threatened to bankrupt the Egyptian government. Arab internal hostilities and growing Palestinian nationalism strained Nasser’s abilities. At age 52, he collapsed and died of a heart attack on September 29, 1970. Anwar Sadat took over from Nassar and tried to interest Israel in peace proposals on his terms in 1971. Failure in that arena led to the surprise attack on Israel of the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. Although the Arab strikes against Israel were not successful, the end of the Yom Kippur War led to intense diplomatic efforts to achieve a permanent peace in the region and to a renewed Arab interest in diplomatic, rather than armed, methods of making progress with Israel. In addition to the problems of the war itself, t
