Camp David Accords

Mohamed Ibrahim Kamel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781317848622
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

First published in 1986. This text holds a collection of accounts by the author who was Anwar El Sadat's Foreign Minster. Sadat was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the third president of Egypt, from 15 October 1970 until his assassination by fundamentalist army officers in 1981.

Chapter One

Background: How I Met Anwar El Sadat

In the early forties, I was a student at the Faculty of Law, King Fuad I University (now Cairo University). Egypt was then under British occupation. Along with a group of young people, I embraced the principles of the National Party established by Mustapha Kamel Pasha, who sought an end to the British occupation of Egypt, and to gain independence. This party had been revitalized recently by a group of young men headed by Fathy Radwan, Dr Nour-el-Din Taraf and Dr Zohair Garanna. World War II had then reached its peak and spread to North Africa. Rommel’s Afrika Korps swept over the Western Desert, advancing towards Egypt in a succession of quick victories over the Allies. It was finally halted by General Montgomery at the battle of El Alamein, 120 kilometres from Alexandria.

The German invasion, whose target was the occupation of Egypt and control of the Suez Canal, provoked mixed feelings among Egyptians. Some feared that the German Nazi regime would supplant Britain in Egypt. Others were strongly in favour of it, in the hope that Egypt would be freed from British occupation and regain its independence. Several demonstrations were staged, with cries of “Forward, Rommel!”

In view of the agitated situation and the critical position of Britain and the Allies, British tanks surrounded the Royal Palace of Abdin on the night of 4 February 1942. King Farouk, who sympathized with the Germans, was compelled to dismiss Hussein Sirry Pasha and appoint to the post of Premier the Chairman of the Wafd Party, Mustapha El Nahas Pasha. This was designed to secure internal security in Egypt.

This British move aroused violent feelings, constituting as it did a gross affront to the King as symbol of the State. The events of 4 February were looked upon as a black-spot in the history of the Wafd and acted as a catalyst in intensifying the struggle to expel the British. Since Egypt was under Martial Law, clandestine nationalistic organizations began to proliferate among students and army officers.

In 1943, I, together with a group of my young relatives and some university students, set up a secret organization. This was designed to carry out operations against the British forces (whose soldiers roamed the streets of Cairo and several other Egyptian towns). The operations were modelled on the French Resistance Movement following the German occupation.¹

The organization we established consisted of twenty-three members and a four-man directing committee, namely Hussein Tewfick, Naguib Fakhry (my cousins), Saad Kamel (a law student) and myself. Some time around the middle of 1945, Hussein Tewfick informed the board of directors that a certain Omar Abu Aly had suggested that he (Hussein) join a secret organization which, it appeared, disposed of superior resources. Hussein told him that he was already a member of another organization. They thereupon agreed to propose to their respective organizations that there should be co-operation and co-ordination between both organizations, since they were pursuing the same goal.

Our directing committee approved the proposal and instructed Hussein Tewfick and myself to meet representatives of the other organization to discuss co-operation and co-ordination between the two organizations. A few days later the meeting took place in one of the coffee shops in Opera Square. Hussein Tewfick and I met Omar Abu Aly, who introduced us to a young man accompanying him; his name was Anwar El Sadat.

Anwar El Sadat was several years older than we were. He was tall and dark, with a big moustache and a husky, deep voice. He wore eccentric clothes. He was wearing a dark grey suit, a light-coloured, red-checked waistcoat, a bright tie and white leather shoes. Our meeting lasted for close on ninety minutes. We discussed the general situation. He gave us to understand, rather vaguely, that he was a member of an organization composed of men in the armed forces. He had been an army captain but had been dismissed because he was suspected of sympathizing with the Germans. He was working at that time in contracting and transportation.

He was responsible for a change in our outlook which had never crossed our minds. Resistance to the British occupation forces was necessary and important, but ineffective. The only way we could attain our objectives effectively was through the elimination of Egyptain leaders co-operating with the British; were we to assassinate a certain number of such leaders in succession, the day would come when the British would be unable to find a single Egyptian to co-operate with them in ruling the country.

We went back to our directing committee and submitted what had transpired at the meeting. After discussion, we decided to carry out joint operations with the other organization. We likewise agreed that our activities would take in Egyptian public figures co-operating with the British.

Hussein Tewfick and I met Anwar El Sadat again in one of the popular coffee shops in El Ataba El Khadra Square called “Matathya”. We informed him of our agreement to co-operate with him and his organization. He proposed the assassination of the leader of the Wafd Party, Mustapha El Nahas Pasha, for his disgraceful role in the events of 4 February. He would be killed as his car crossed Kasr el Ainy Street, the main street connecting Garden City, where he lived, and Mounira, the location of the Nady El Saadi (the club of the Wafd party).

We endorsed the proposal. A plan was drawn up assigning the main role to Hussein Tewfick, who had nerves of steel. Saad El Din Kamel and I, from our organization, and Sadat and Omar Abu Aly, from the other organization, would take part in the operation to cover Hussein Tewfick. Sadat’s role consisted of waiting in a car he would park outside the American University in Cairo (which was near the place chosen for the attack on El Nahas Pasha). Sadat gave us a package containing two Bertha 9mm-calibre pistols, some ammunition and two British-made hand grenades.

The assassination attempt was carried out on the specified date. It failed. Hussein Tewfick was to hurl a bomb at Nahas Pasha’s car to bring it to a halt as it crossed the road, and then was to shoot him. However, the driver had to speed-up to avoid a tram coming towards the car. The bomb exploded behind the car. The splinters caused some damage to the car but no one in it was hurt. The car sped quickly away. We returned to our homes and were never suspected of the assassination attempt, which was put down to persons unknown.

When Hussein Tewfick went to the place where he was to find Sadat in the car, he found no trace of either Sadat or the car.

Our activities were suspended for some months. The security forces were on the alert after the attempted assassination and stringent security measures were enforced.

On the night of 6 January 1946 (my birthday), Hussein Tewfick shot Amin Osman Pasha as he was entering the Anglo-Egyptian League Club in Adly Pasha Street. Amin Osman died shortly afterwards of his wounds.

Amin Osman, a member of the Wafd Party (and Finance Minister in Nahas’ Cabinet) was known for his close and suspicious association with the British. He often made speeches and statements which were blatantly provocative of Egyptian feelings. In one such speech, he said that Egypt was tied to England in a Catholic marriage that knows no divorce … It was also rumoured that he had masterminded the events of 4 February.

Hussein Tewfick made his escape in the dark after an exciting adventure. Many people ran after him as he fired into the air. When his pursuers became too numerous, he threw a hand-grenade, which dispersed them without injuring anyone. He walked calmly to Ataba Square and took a tram home.

It was by a sheer coincidence that Hussein Tewfick was arrested. His father was Tewfick Pasha Ahmed, Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Communications. He had a reputation for being very strict in his work. He had sacked an official for misconduct. Hussein Tewfick was known to the official since he was the son of his superior. He was aware of Hussein’s feelings of hatred and bitterness for the British. He had joined the Anglo-Egyptian League in an attempt to further himself through Amin Osman, its President. As chance would have it, he met Hussein Tewfick a few days prior to the assassination in front of the headquarters of the League in Adly Street. Hussein was studying the scene of the operation to which he had been assigned. The official greeted him and exchanged a few words with him, after which Hussein departed.

After the assassination, a reward of L.E. 5,000 was offered by the government for any information leading to the killer’s capture. The official went to the police and informed them that the man who had killed Amin Osman was Hussein Tewfick. It was mere guesswork.

At midnight, on the night of the assassination, officers from the political police force called on Hussein Tewfick in the villa where he lived with his family in the suburbs of Heliopolis. They searched the place and found some hidden arms and a diary. Hussein had jotted down some remarks expressing his hostility to the British, their henchmen, and the address of the Anglo-Egyptian League. They arrested him and took him away. After a lengthy interrogation he finally confessed to killing Amin Osman for political reasons. He gave the names of all the members of our organization and those of Anwar El Sadat and Omar Abu Aly.

We all, twenty-six persons, were taken into custody. All, save four confessed to being members of a clandestine organization. The four who had not confessed to such membership were Anwar El Sadat, Saad El Din Kamel, Naguib Fakhry and myself. We spent two months in the Foreigners’ Prison, which was the place where political interrogations were conducted.² We were committed to solitary confinement and were not allowed to contact one another until the interrogations were concluded. The Public Prosecutor’s Office and the political police were in charge of the investigation, and we were eventually sent to the Misr Criminal and Public Prison.³

My denial of any connection with the organization, and my subsequent denial of all knowledge of Sadat, were major factors in helping to clear him. With the exception of Hussein Tewfick and myself, he was unknown to the members of our organization. As to his own organization, he was known only to Omar Abu Aly. Both Hussein and Omar Abu Aly had included Sadat in their confessions. They averred that I had met him twice in their presence. My utter denial and that of Sadat strengthened his position in this case. This was particularly important as the Public Prosecutor and the political police laid great emphasis on Anwar El Sadat being primarily responsible for the assassinations committed. He was older than we were and had a record in the army. He had been pensioned off for participating with others in certain operations, among which was the attempted escape of the former Commander-in-chief of the Egyptian amry, Aziz Pasha El Masry, who was known to harbour feelings of great hostility to the British while sympathizing with the Germans.

Sadat appreciated the stand I had taken. When we were led to Misr Public Prison, we remained in solitary confinement, but were allowed to mingle for one hour in the morning and another in the afternoon, when we were taken to the prison courtyard for exercise and recreation. It was then that our relationship became rather close.

My father was deputy head of the Court of Appeal. He was both influential and highly popular in judicial and public prosecution circles. This gave me certain privileges. I was granted permission to receive food from my family. My mother sent enough food for me and a number of my co-defendants in the case. I shared the food equally among us. Anwar El Sadat had a great liking for good food. He often requested me to ask my mother for special dishes such as rice-and-pigeon casserole. My father was likewise able to procure for me permission for dental treatment outside the prison. Twice a week I went, under escort, to the dentist’s clinic, where I met my family. Two hours later, I returned to prison laden with cigarettes and sweets. As this was forbidden, I arranged for my dental treatment days to fall on the days when a group of officers, who were Sadat’s friends, were in charge. They let me in with the smuggled goods and soon allowed me to share meals with Sadat, in either of our respective cells during their shift.

In spite of the close relations between Sadat and myself in prison, he never told me anything about the group to which he belonged, nor did he reveal the names of any of its members. He did, however, mention the name of Hassan Ezzat, an air force officer, who had retired and who was Sadat’s partner in the contracting business. I sometimes wondered about the truth of the matter, and whether he was really a member of such a group, or whether he was a “loner”, operating on his own.

One day he came to my cell for lunch. When we had finished, he told me that some great event was to take place the following day. The event was to have a drastic effect on the case and guarantee all the defendants’ acquittal, including ourselves. He said no more than that.

We were to be arraigned the following day before the magistrate. Two people in a green car attacked the court messenger, who was riding a bicycle. He had tied the original file of the case, numbering several thousand pages, to the carrier behind, and was proceeding along the highly congested Mohamed Aly Street. He was taking the file to court so it would be at the disposal of the judge when the court sat in judgment. The file had been at the judge’s home for consideration before the court session. The two men tried to seize the file and carry it off in the car. The people on the street gathered around the messenger, who had yelled for help, and the men were forced to flee leaving the file behind. This was an ingenious idea. The file contained the signed confessions of Hussein Tewfick and the other defendants. Were the original text to disappear and the defendants to deny what they had previously confessed and signed, there would be no case against them and it would be impossible to secure any convictions.

The Amin Osman case, which was known as “the great political assassinations case”, was a cause célèbre. The defendants had the services of the most prominent lawyers, who had either been retained or had volunteered for the job. Nearly all the political leaders were called to the witness-stand. Among them were the ex-Premier and leader of Wafd Party, Nahas Pasha; the ex-Premier and the then Chef de Cabinet of the King, Aly Maher Pasha; the leader of the Nationalist Party, Hafiz Ramadan; the leader of the El Kotla National Party, Makram Ebeid; ex-Premier Hussein Sirry Pasha; Hussein Heikal Pasha, speaker of the Senate House, etc. There was great sympathy among the people for the defendants. Public feeling ran high as one cabinet after another failed in the negotiations on British withdrawal from Egypt. The defendants were young people and university students, and Amin Osman had an established reputation as a traitor to his country and as a British agent. The case, and the many surprises it involved, were frontpage news in all the Egyptian newspapers throughout the trials, which lasted two years.

Since great emphasis was laid on the role of Anwar El Sadat in the case, his behaviour and his sense of dramatics during the trial gained him fame and notoriety, all the more so as only four defendants were cleared of all charges; Anwar El Sadat, Saad Kamel, Naguib Fakhry and myself.

The case was certainly a milestone in his political career. He devoted several chapters to it in his book entitled In Search of an Identity, published while he was President of the Republic. On page 63 there is a paragraph in which he says:

For a whole week I was indeed left alone. It was a week of tension, our minds fought a difficult battle, his trying to pin guilt onto me, mine trying to pull the case to pieces. Having thought it out thoroughly, I had come to the conclusion that Muhammed Kamel, a young cousin of Tewfik’s (who is now the Foreign Secretary of Egypt) could not have made a confession. Young as he was, he should hold out, if anyone could. I tried to contact him through the warden and eventually succeeded. His response encouraged me. He was dependable, and working together, I hoped we could pull the case apart.

Footnotes

1 Palestine was under the British mandate. Zionist terrorist organizations carried out wide-scale activities against the Palestinians and the British forces stationed in Palestine. In 1944, the terrorist Stern Gang despatched two of its men to Cairo. They assassinated Lord Moyne, who was in Cairo on a mission. They nearly succeeded in escaping, and the Egyptians would have been charged with the crime. By pure chance, an Egyptian constable happened to be present at the scene of the crime. He pursued and captured the killers, who confessed to their crime and were later sentenced and executed.

I recall that my father, who was deputy head of the Court of Appeal, had, at my request, procured for me a permit to attend the trial. I admired the courage of the defendants. They refuted the charge that their act constituted an act of terrorism, claiming that it was legitimate, as promoting the cause for t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1. Background: How I met Anwar El Sadat
• 2. Background: El Sadat President
• 3. The Peace Initiative
• 4. Ismailia (25 December 1977)
• 5. Meditations
• 6. An Understanding
• 7. Are You Afraid Of Going To Jerusalem?
• 8. Jerusalem
• 9. The Last Supper
• 10. Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket
• 11. The Scenario (February 1978)
• 12. Danger from Within
• 13. The European Salad
• 14. A Deadly Octopus is Born and Reared in Darkness
• 15. Personal Impressions
• 16. What About the Palestinians?
• 17. Making War While Talking Peace
• 18. An Unexpected Stab in the Back!
• 19. The Unadorned Story as seen from the Other Side
• 20. A Pause for Reflection
• 21. Towards Implementing the Scenario
• 22. Fall-Back Position
• 23. A Special Favour to Carter
• 24. Israel Rejects the Egyptian Project before it is Presented
• 25. Believe It Or Not!
• 26. Let’s Topple Begin!
• 27. Inside the Ramparts of Leeds Castle
• 28. Not One Grain of Sand for Nothing
• 29. A Meeting with King Hussein
• 30. The Last Stand
• 31. The Leap to the Summit – Why?
• 32. You and I Will Make History
• 33. Fasting While Others Work
• 34. Strange Symptoms and Many Question Marks
• 35. On the Road to Camp David
• 36. The Roaring of the Lion and the Wisdom of the Monkeys
• 37. Kissinger’s Curse Again
• 38. Between The Israeli Hammer and The American Anvil
• 39. Faint or Feint?
• 40. A Last Attempt Before Resigning
• 41. The Signing of the Accords, Sunday 17 September 1984
• Appendix 1: Proposals relative to withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza and security arrangements
• Appendix 2: Framework for the comprehensive peace settlement of the Middle East problem
• Appendix 3: A framework for peace in the Middle East agreed at Camp David
• Appendix 4: Framework for peace in the Middle East
• Appendix 5: Framework for the conclusion of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel
• Selected Bibliography
• Index