ABSTRACT
I was born in Cairo in 1930. When I left the country at the beginning of 1949, a little while after I turned 18,I never thought that I would ever come back, not even for a short visit. In the British passport I was carrying at the time, the Egyptian security services had stamped a seal that said in large Arabic letters Horug Bidun Awda (or, in plain English, Exit without Return). Thirty-two years later, in June 1980,I landed at Cairo Airport not as a refugee or as a returning resident but as the minister plenipotentiary (no. 2 in the embassy) of Israel to Egypt. No doubt the authorities knew exactly who I was and what my background was. However, no one asked for my old passport or hinted at the fact that I had been banned from ever returning to the country where I was born, spent all my childhood, received most of my education and for which I still had deep feelings.
