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Los Angeles Times
April 26, 1982
In 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel seized the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt. As part of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979, Israel agreed to return the Sinai to Egypt. This Los Angeles Times article describes the return of the last Israeli-held section of the Sinai.
By Norman Kempster
Jerusalem—Israel consummated its first formal peace treaty with an Arab antagonist Sunday by ending almost 15 years of occupation of the Sinai Peninsula with a minimum of ceremony and a defiant vow to make no more territorial concessions.
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Most Israelis went about their routine on the first day of the Jewish workweek in what seemed a determined effort to ignore the return to Egypt of the final segment of the 23,000-square-mile desert peninsula.
Tears flowed freely as Israel's blue-and-white Star of David flag was lowered for the last time at the Red Sea port of Sharm el Sheik. But few people witnessed Israel's only formal ceremony of the day because it was held at 7:30 a.m., 150 miles from the nearest Israeli community.
Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, in an order of the day read at all army garrisons, said Israel will compensate for its evacuation of the Sinai by strengthening its hold on the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
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Using one of his favorite expressions, “red line,” to indicate an absolute limit that cannot be exceeded, Sharon said, “in Sinai, in Yamit, we have reached the red line of our concessions.
“We shall turn to increasing and consolidating our settlements on the Golan Heights, in Judea, Samaria (Israel's names for the West Bank) and the Gaza district—settlements that are an integral part of our security,” Sharon said.
There were no joint Israeli-Egyptian turnover ceremonies. By the time Egypt regained possession of its territory, the last Israeli had already gone. In the only notable effort to underline the positive elements of the occasion, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak—each in his own country—appeared Sunday night on a television program broadcast in both countries.
Begin sent a telegram to Jihan Sadat, Anwar Sadat's widow, in which he said the assassinated Egyptian president “should have been with us to see the glory of his efforts to make peace and to achieve a conciliation between the two peoples of Egypt and Israel.”
“To prove that his memory will not die ... we all have to work for the sacred cause: No more war, no more bloodshed. Peace ...Saalam ... shalom between our nations,” the telegram said.
President Reagan telephoned both leaders to express his “personal admiration for their statesmanship and the risks they have taken” in pursuit of Middle East peace, a White House spokesman said.
Reagan “believes the withdrawal represents a truly major sacrifice by Israel, and he admires its courage in taking the great risks which true peace requires,” an earlier White House statement said.
“He admires as well the courageous Egyptian initiative without which peace with Israel would not have been achieved.”
Under the terms of the 1978 Camp David accords and the resultant 1979 peace treaty, Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt, beginning May 25, 1979, one month after the treaty's ratification, and ending Sunday, three years after the treaty took effect.
Before Sunday, the last previous turnover took place Jan. 25, 1980, when enthusiasm for the peace treaty still was high. Although many Israelis still support the pact, the process of the final withdrawal—including the destruction of the Mediterranean coastal town of Yamit and the surrounding farming communities—was a national trauma.
In the only official departure ceremony, an Israeli army captain at Sharm el Sheik lowered the flag against an overcast morning sky, folded it and gave it to a woman lieutenant, United Press International reported from the southern tip of the Sinai.
A staff sergeant gave the dismissal order to the 150 or so soldiers who participated. Many wept openly.
A general who, under Israeli censorship regulations can be identified only as Aharon, was the ranking Israeli official in attendance.
There was no departure ceremony at all at Yamit, the one-time model Israeli community reduced to rubble by bulldozers and dynamite last week. Israel radio reported that Arabs living near the town hoisted Egyptian flags Sunday morning, even before the formal turnover took place. Nomadic Bedouin tribesmen displayed on their tents the white flag that is a Muslim symbol of joy.
The Israeli departure ceremony was kept brief and low-key in deference to the sensibilities of the religious and nationalist Jews who resisted the withdrawal and tried to undermine the peace treaty.
One senior Israeli official said the government may have misplaced its priorities in downplaying the transition. The government, he said, should have done everything possible to dramatize Israel's commitment to peace, which caused the country to relinquish a territory that provided military, economic and aesthetic benefits.
At the regular weekly Cabinet meeting, which began shortly after the last Israeli soldier left the Sinai, Begin and his fellow ministers stressed Israel's determination to live in permanent peace with Egypt.
In his order of the day, Sharon said: “Today we are completing the evacuation of Sinai in the framework of the Camp David accords and the first peace treaty that Israel has signed with the largest and most important of the Arab countries—Egypt.”
“We have decided to give peace a full chance while assuming the full extent of the risk.” Sharon said. “For a generation, we have fought again and again in Sinai ... The sands of the Sinai desert are soaked with the blood of our fighters.”
While the Sinai return was taking place, Israeli troops clashed with Palestinian demonstrators in the West Bank, protesting the peace treaty's handling of the Palestine issue. Most West Bank Arab leaders oppose the autonomy plan adopted at Camp David. Troops used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, and no injuries were reported.
The final return of the Sinai came the day before Israel's solemn Memorial Day observances that commemorate those who died—including thousands who fell in the Sinai—in the Arab-Israeli conflicts of Israel's 34-year history. Memorial Day begins at sundown tonight and continues through the daylight hours of Tuesday. At sundown Tuesday, the somber memorial theme changes to the festive celebration of the nation's Independence Day.
In preparation for the two observances, Israeli cities were decorated with strings of lights and the Star of David. But the celebrations were muted by the Sinai events.
An Israel radio commentator summed it up: “Close to 15 years of Israeli rule over Sinai—15 years of new, beautiful horizons for Israelis hemmed into the narrow strip of land one-third the size of the Sinai Peninsula—came to an end this morning.”
Source: Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1982.
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Sinai Peninsula; Israel (country)
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