A couple of days ago Egypt’s former first lady appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
The full episode is available here.
Jehan Sadat was promoting her new book My Hope for Peace, and the interview wasn’t particularly hard-hitting. But what struck me was the simple clarity with which Jehan explained her late husband’s motive for pursuing peace:
He wanted to put an end to the bloodshed. He wanted to save his sons from being killed in the war. He thought: Who’s benefiting from this? Nobody. Nobody.
It’s a testament to Sadat’s courage and pragmatism that a group like Hamas still does not want to come to terms with this fundamental question: Is the empty bravado and relentless hard line worth the misery and death rained upon our populations? And it’s another testament to the impotence of Arab leaders that even today they still use the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the crutch to achieve cheap populism in the face of crippling inadequacy at home.
Be practical. Be pragmatic. And love your people.
(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)