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Anwar Sadat: Visionary Who Dared, by Joseph Finklestone. London and Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1996. xxxvi + 288 pages. Index to p. 297. $39.50 cloth; $25 paper.
This biography by a distinguished, independent Israeli journalist provides a telling, though unintended, demonstration of just how difficult it has been even for enlightened public opinion in Israel to understand the wellsprings and the implications of former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat's grand gesture for peace. The flaws of the book derive from the author's limited historical knowledge of Egypt and his distant and distorted sensse of the social world through which his protagonist moved, resulting in a biographical method anchored in psychological speculation. These very shortcomings define the huge chasm that continues to separate even well-intentioned Israelis from Arabs who wish to transform the Arab-Israeli relationship. In this ironic sense, though not for this reason alone, Joseph Finklestone has written a useful account of the "visionary who dared."
Sadat as messenger for peace, Finklestone's study makes clear, was little understood. None of the major historical currents that have shaped modern Egyptian history emerge in recognizable form here-not the terrible physical and psychological violence of the British colonial encounter, not the great paradox of President Jamal `Abd al-Nasir's anti-Western crusade that, in its most lasting effects, actually furthered the Westernization of Egypt and culminated in the Infitah (open door)...