She explains, “Sadat sold out the country to the Jews and violated the honor of the Islamic nation.” And somehow Egypt wound up bigger for it: they got the Sinai back, thus getting the “do-over” they wanted in compensation for the embarrassment of the military defeat. And they got ample leverage in the two-part package that is the Camp David Accords to blackmail Israel in the future.
If that’s “humiliation,” Egypt did pretty well for itself. “Mother of Sadat’s killer expresses pride in son’s action,” from Al Arabiya, February 20:
The mother of Khaled al-Islambouli, the Egyptian army officer responsible for the assassination of President Anwar al-Sadat in 1981, has said she is proud of her son in an interview with Iran’s state news agency, Fars.
Sadat was assassinated while attending a ceremony to mark the eight anniversary of the Yom Kippur War with Israel in 1973 on October 6, 1981. Gunmen ran from one of the parade vehicles with Islambouli leading an orchestrated hit, leaping from military vehicles to bombard the presidential stand with bullets. Sadat was pronounced dead two hours later and 20 others, including four American diplomats, were injured.
Those involved in the plot were identified as members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Islambouli’s act was seen as a defense of Islamic spirit and the rejection of the Camp David Accord between Israel and Egypt in 1979, the first Arab state’s peace initiative with the Jewish state. Sadat led Egypt through the turbulent 1970s, fighting a war against Israel and then making peace with its Jewish neighbor to regain the Sinai.
“I am very proud that my son killed Anwar al-Sadat,” said Islambouli’s 85-year-old mother, Qadriya. “The government called him a terrorist, a criminal, and a murderer, but they didn’t say that was he was defending Islam. They didn’t say anything about the oppressed people in Palestine, about Camp David, or how Sadat sold out the country to the Jews and violated the honor of the Islamic nation,” she was quoted as saying in Ahram online on Sunday.
Islambouli who joined the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Muhammad al-Salam Faraj, Essam al-Qamari, his fellow assassins were executed on April 15, 1982. Following his execution, Islambouli was declared a martyr by many right-wing Muslims around the world, and became an inspirational symbol for radical Islamic movements.
A plot to assassinate former president Hosni Mubarak by Islambouli’s brother Mohamed Showqi was foiled in 1995. He was arrested at Cairo airport for having established active connections with religious groups, upon arriving from Tehran in August and is awaiting a retrial after submitting an appeal against his conviction. He was sentenced to death in absentia at a military trial in 1992 for planning terrorist operations in Egypt.
Reaction to President Sadat’s death was mixed with Libyans celebrating his death and the Palestinian Liberation Organization condemning it.
The Iranian government named a street after Islambouli in Tehran after him in 1981 in honor of his action. Following his execution, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini declared him a martyr.
Qadriya, who is also the grandmother-in-law of Osama bin Laden’s son, said she was proud to see a street named after her son in Tehran. “Islambouli admired Iran,” she said. He was greatly affected by its Islamic revolution and hoped the same would happen across the Arab world, she told Ahram Online….