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holding the Sinai since the 1967 war. The attack took place on the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The Israelis were caught completely by surprise, and though they eventually won the war there was fury in the country that it had been so ill prepared. Although in their hour of need the US had come to the Israelis’ rescue with arms and ammunition, Sadat could still present the war as a victory of the Egyptian forces thwarted only by an unfair intervention by the United States.
    But by the time this war was fought the Arab states had a new weapon, which may not have frightened Israel, but scared the pants off its closest ally America. Oil.
    On the eve of the 1973 ‘Yom Kippur War’ there was very little slack between oil production and demand in the world economy. The Arab world’s reaction to the American rescue was to hit them back where it hurt, in their gas tanks. The Arab states now knew just how much political power oil had given them. The ‘Oil Shock’ would bring the world’s economy to its knees and profoundly change the power dynamics in the region.
    The 1973 war began to level the playing field in the Middle East. As the largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia emerged as a key player. The US now saw that it had to be actively and constantly involved to make sure that those with the most influence in the region understood where America considered its interests lay. But insuring those interests now also meant managing the Arab world’s concerns too, not just Israel’s. From this point until the uprisings of 2011, Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia were the three immediate go-to countries for every American president who dealt with the region’s problems.
    Like all the Arab dictators before and since, Anwar Sadat believed his own hype. If the 1973 war hadn’t worked to get back the Sinai from Israel, then he was going to try peace. He first hinted that he was ready to do the unthinkable in a speech on 9 November 1977. He told the Egyptian People’s Assembly: ‘I am ready to go to their country, even to the Knesset itself, and talk with them.’ Ten days later that is exactly what he did.
    Sadat is remembered around the world for being the first Arab leader to sign a peace treaty with Israel. The deal agreed with Israel’s Prime Minister Menachem Begin and overseen by President Jimmy Carter eventually won them all a Nobel Peace Prize. 66 This award is often given to an individual who symbolises a broader peace movement. Anwar Sadat’s prize was an exception. His actions symbolised absolutely nothing about the wider Arab world, because hardly anyone agreed with his overtures to Israel. By going to Jerusalem to speak before the parliament he was recognising the state’s right to exist. It is hard now to appreciate just how ground-breaking his move was. Equally staggering is the way in which he totally ignored the wishes of most of his people and the wider Arab world. It was a trait that would persist with his successor.
    The Egyptian president had already signalled which side of the Cold War he wanted to be on. He had kicked out 5,000 Soviet advisers the year before, after his pleas to them for more weapons fell on deaf ears. It was a chance for America to make friends with Egypt again.
    In April 1974 Kissinger told President Nixon: ‘Egypt has made an enormous turn in its foreign policy – from war to peace. Sadat is the first leader to commit his country to peace on terms other than the extermination of Israel . . . He has also broken the Soviet link . . . Sadat has to demonstrate to his people that the new policy has benefits and that he has ties to the United States.’ 67 But the closer Sadat moved towards Washington, the further it took him from the people he ruled.
    The maxim ‘Possession is nine-tenths of the law’ could have been designed for the Middle East. And when Sadat came to power Israel was still in possession of the Sinai Peninsula. Sadat believed the longer