Weekend Reading - MER FlashBack to 1979:

The Long, Tragic Road to 9/11 Began
Decades Before at Camp David and Beyond

MIDDLEEAST.ORG - MER - Washington - 22 April: This Interview with the Egyptian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs the year after the historic Camp David agreement between Israel, the United States and Egypt contains historic insights of considerable significance. Boutros Ghali went on to become Secretary-General of the United Nations. President Jimmy Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980. The Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated at a military parade by persons in his own army in 1981. And over the next two decades the history of the Middle East became more bloody and more complex as Israel proceeded with colonization, all facilitated and financed by the U.S., refusing after all to allow a Palestinian State. The Clash of Civilizations and the era of suicide bombers soon began in a sense culminating more than two decades later in the events now known as "9/11" and the aftermath that is now our present world. The sad and tragic path from the events discussed in this interview to 9/11 is oftentimes convoluted, complex, and indirect; yet the connections from the past to the present are very real and of great importance to understand and appreciate.