Sadat's nephew calls for review of peace treaty with Israel

"The peace agreement is not a 'Koran' and everything is open to being amended for the benefit of future generations."

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
egypt protest 298.88 (photo credit: AP)
egypt protest 298.88
(photo credit: AP)
The nephew of assassinated Egyptian president Anwar Sadat called on Saturday for a review of the peace treaty his uncle signed with Israel after allegations that Egyptian POWs were killed four decades ago, the French news agency AFP reported. "The peace agreement Egypt signed with Israel is not a 'Koran' and everything is open to being amended for the benefit of future generations," parliamentarian Anwar Esmat Sadat said in parliament. In contrast, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said on Saturday that his country would not cut ties with Israel over the Channel 1 documentary Ruah Shaked that sparked the allegations. Abul Gheit told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram that ending relations with Israel was not "the right way" to address the problem. "If Israel wants the trust of the Egyptian people, it must look into [the claims]," Israel Radio reported Gheit as saying. Instead he called for an immediate investigation into a battle described in the documentary in which the Shaked Reconnaissance Unit killed 250 enemy commandos in Gaza at the end of the Six Day War. In the film, the commandos, who were Palestinian fedayeen, are mistakenly identified as Egyptian. As Shaked veteran Yaariv Gershoni described how his unit hunted down and killed the retreating commandos, four photographs are shown of the enemy combatants with their hands up in various stages of surrender. The IBA's head of documentary films, Ittay Landsburg Nevo, told The Jerusalem Post last week that those photographs came from a separate incident in the Sinai. The film's director, Ran Edelist, told the Post that using those photographs and describing the Palestinian fedayeen as Egyptian commandos were mistakes. The film's description of the battle led to allegations in the Egyptian media all last week that Israel had killed members of the unit after they had surrendered. The charge has been denied by Israel and the commander of the unit at the time, National Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. His spokesman told the Post that information regarding the incident had been sent to Egypt describing how the deaths occurred during a battle with Palestinian fedayeen who attacked IDF troops, even as they attempted to retreat. He added that he was not concerned at this time with the errors. What's important was not the film, but refuting the false charge, which stemmed from anti-Israel feelings in Egypt, the spokesman said. He added that he doubted many in Egypt had even seen the film, which aired in Israel two weeks ago. In Egypt over the weekend, Egyptian parliamentarian Mustafa Bakri called for Ben-Eliezer's arrest.