Stone Soup Museum of Children’s Art

International Collection

Delighted with the Peace Initiative

Moustafa Mouhamed Hassan, age 14

Egypt

Felt pen

Stone Soup Museum Collection

There had been four wars (1948, 1956, 1967, 1973). There was still no peace. Then, to the surprise of the the world, in November 1977, the President of Egypt, Anwar El-Sadat, came to Israel and gave a speech in Jerusalem before the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. This was the first major move towards peace by the leader of an Arab country.

Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem led to a series of meetings that ended in the signing of a peace treaty between President Anwar El-Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel. The treaty was signed at Camp David in the United States at a meeting organized by President Carter.

Huge crowds met Sadat upon his return from his speech in Israel. Two drawings of the event are included at this Web site. The drawing on this page depicts the parade held for Sadat in Cairo.

A few years later President Sadat was assassinated by people opposed to making peace with Israel. What is called the Peace Process continues. Sometimes the process seems to move forward quickly; at other times it seems to go slowly, if at all, or even to move backwards. There remain, throughout the region, people who oppose the peace process. The Prime Minister of Israel was recently killed by an Israeli who opposes peace. In Egypt itself, there is a huge amount of poverty, the goverment is unable to provide basic services to many of its citizens, and opposition to peace with Israel is mixed up with opposition to the government in general, leading to increasing instability.

A new day dawned when President Sadat visited Jerusalem; but what the people who greeted his return must have wondered, and what we may wonder still, is where and when true peace will come to this troubled region and its many troubled countries.