ABSTRACT
There is no doubt that Egypt was interested in making peace with Israel and abandoning the vicious circle of military confrontation. I will elaborate later on the reasons that motivated Egypt. At this stage, I will simply state that, after the Yom Kippur War (1973), Egypt strove desperately to reach a peace agreement with Israel and considered the attaining of it to be a vital national interest. On the other hand, establishing a normal relationship with Israel, as is customary between neighboring countries, was not on its agenda of priorities; on the: contrary, this was in opposition to its immediate interests and declared policies. Let me recall the repeated statements of President Sadat and other eminent Egyptian leaders that 'the past cannot be erased in one single stroke. Normalization of relations between the two countries should be left to future generations'.
