Wars That End

No war is eternal, however sacred its name. A war ends when someone with the authority to end it stands up and says that it is over. The men who do this are called traitors in their lifetimes and are often killed. Their treaties outlive their murderers.

The Flight

On the ninth of November 1977 the President of Egypt was addressing his parliament on routine matters when he departed from his text. He was ready, he said, to go to the ends of the earth for peace. He would go to the enemy's own house, to their parliament itself, and argue with them there.

The deputies applauded, taking it for a flourish. Yasser Arafat, who was sitting in the gallery as a guest, applauded with them. No one thought he meant it.

Ten days later an Egyptian airliner descended over the lights of Tel Aviv, and Anwar Sadat walked down the steps into the glare of the arc lamps. He was the head of the largest Arab country, which had fought four wars against Israel in thirty years. In the last of them, only four years earlier, he had sent his own army across the Suez Canal. Now the men who had been his enemies stood in a line on the tarmac to shake his hand. An old woman who had been prime minister during that war told him she had waited a long time for him. To the general who had led the counterattack across the canal he remarked, smiling, that he had hoped to catch him there.

The next day he stood in the Knesset in Jerusalem and said the thing that no Arab leader had ever said. You want to live with us in this part of the world. In all sincerity I tell you: we welcome you among us.

Sixteen months later the two countries signed a treaty of peace.