"For five centuries, our people and our Arab nation have lived in the cradle of defeat. Victory processions roamed the streets, but these were the processions of foreign invading armies, not ours. They hoisted the banners of victory in the squares, but they were the banners of occupying countries and not ours. Today I declare to our people and to the whole Arab nation that the centuries of backwardness and defeat are past and gone."
So declared Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at a parliamentary victory celebration in Cairo after the October war. Historians will long debate whether or not the...
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