1973 Arab-Israeli War
After the death of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, his successor, Anwar Sadat, made several offers of peace and recognition, in return for the Egyptian lands captured by Israel during the Six-Day War. The Israeli government rejected all offers, in line with US secretary of state Henry Kissinger's stalemate policy. . Sadat warned that Egypt would attempt to recapture the territories through war, but the Israeli government, perhaps due to the perception of the Israeli military invincibility after the Six-Day War, dismissed Sadat's threat as empty posturing.
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Syrian president Hafez al-Assad met King Hussein in 1973 to discuss the possibility of war. Hussein, fearing another loss of territory to Israel, declined. Furthermore, Hussein was suspicious of Sadat's promise to PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat to hand over the West Bank to the Palestinians in the event of a victory, as he considered the West Bank to be Jordanian territory. On the night of 25 September, Hussein secretly flew to Tel Aviv to warn Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir of an impending Syrian attack. "Are (the Syrians) going to war without the Egyptians, asked Mrs. Meir. The king said he didn't think so. 'I think they would cooperate'".
On 6 Oct 1973, Syria and Egypt attacked Israel without the aid of Jordan. The war led to Israel taking Sadat seriously and engaging in negotiations which resulted in the return of captured Egyptian territories and the recognition of Israel by Egypt.
Read more about this topic: Hussein Of Jordan
Famous quotes containing the word war:
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse.... A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice—is often the means of their regeneration.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)