Those of us old enough to remember can still see the smiling faces of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shaking hands on the White House grounds. It was  prelude to the formal peace treaty that was concluded and signed on March 26, 1979. The treaty became effective January 1980.

The two nations–Israel and Egypt–had been in a perpetual state of impending war since Israel became a nation on May 14-15, 1948.

Israel agreed, as part of the accord hammered out in Washington D.C. in 1977, to completely withdraw all military forces from the Sinai Peninsula. Israel had won the territory in the 6-Day War of 1967. Egypt agreed to leave the area demilitarized.

Additionally, the agreement guaranteed Israel free shipping passage through the Suez Canal. Also, it gave recognition of the Strait of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways.

The treaty effectively made Egypt the first Arab state to officially recognize Israel and the first to make an agreement with the Jewish state.

Anwar Al-Sadat was successor to Gambel Abdul Nasser, the dictator who fiercely waged war against Israel in times leading up to the 1956 war and then in the 1967 war. Sadat was a fierce warrior himself during those wars against the hated Israeli intruders as they saw them. None of the major Arab states recognized Israel as a legitimate nation-state. None today officially do so–except Egypt.

Much of the Muslim world was enraged when Sadat signed the historic treaty. In my estimation, this set in motion a truly satanic rage that has escalated since, bringing us to where things are today.

Most all Muslim states are in agreement with Nasser’s long-ago declaration that Israel must be eliminated–eradicated from the face of the Middle East.

Anwar Sadat led the 1973 Yom Kipper War. He was at the center of its planning and execution.

The Arab forces were overwhelming, and by every metric of military strategic methodology, it was thought that Israel’s days were numbered.

The Yom Kipper assault was indeed a surprise to even the brilliant Israeli generals at the time–among whom was the Israeli strategists, Menachem Begin.

The Arab coalition assault at first made heavy inroads into Israeli territory. But the tide soon–miraculously, some say–turned, and Israel routed the much larger forces and captured large portions of land from its enemies.

I observed all this and especially Anwar Sadat after all these developments. I was then and remain convinced that he came to realize that–like Pharaoh came to realize finally–that Israel’s god…is God.

Sadat, a hardened Muslim-Arab warrior, I determined, changed considerably. He still was a strong leader, but with a much softer eye toward Israel–toward the West, for that matter.

Anwar Sadat paid for his embrace of Israel and the Western world with his life. He was assassinated by Muslim military elements within his own ranks near Cairo on October 6, 1981, while reviewing a parade that memorialized, strangely enough, a part of the battle that had initiated the Yom Kippur War.

Despite the death of Sadat by such violence, his successor, Hosni Mubarak–also severely wounded during the attack–held to the agreement Sadat had made with Israel. The agreement has, in effect, remained to this day, even in spite of the time of Egyptian inner-turmoil when the Obama administration worked to install the Muslim Brotherhood leadership, that organization and others overthrowing Mubarak.

The Egyptian soon became irate with the Muslim Brotherhood tyrant, Mohamed Morsi, who tried to reinstall strict sharia law and other freedom-suppressing actions.

Morsi was put out of office by the peoples’ demand, despite the Obama administration’s attempt to influence the situation. Abdel Fattah el Sisi, a much less restrictive leader along the lines of Sadat, is now president, having overthrown Morsi. He met this week with, in my view, a much less freedom-suppressing United States president than the previous one.

It was Sadat’s first reaching out to a foe who had severely “whupped” him–as Muhammad Ali might have put it–that has made possible a better working relationship in all of this Middle Eastern madness. It is Anwar Sadat’s foundation-laying  that continues to at least  provide Israel some degree of buffering protection against it’s blood-vowed enemies.

His influence is seen within the most recent, unfolding news.

Egyptian and Jordanian leaders both were in Washington,  D.C., to meet with President Donald J. Trump this past week. The meeting was to include talks on Iran, Isis, and the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. It was el Sisi’s first meeting in the White House. He had been treated as persona non grata by President Barack Obama in the view of many.

Apparently, a number of those within the diplomatic community dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process see el Sisi as being a player in working toward bringing the two sides together. While the Bible makes clear that a man-made peace deal between Israel and “the many” will end only in Israel’s having to flee for its national existence, the Lord also said “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Sadat tried to make peace, and it remains a resilient peace under the governing hand of el Sisi. Some who study the prophetic picture see Egypt as a nation that will be immensely blessed and will embrace Israel as a friend.

The nations are scheduled to be split during that judgment into the sheep and goat division, according to Matthew chapter 25 The Bible indicates that Egypt is a nation on the scene during millennial times. It will be Israel’s friend. So, Egypt obviously will make it into the “sheep” nations during that division.

Perhaps Anwar el Sadat put that  blessing into motion when he met Menachem Begin with a smiling handshake on the White House lawn all those years ago.