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National Geographic : 1982 Apr
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gradually ousted the Turks and were them selves ousted by the Egyptians in 1954, and, most recently, the Israelis. During their 15 years here, the Israelis gridded the desert with roads, found new oil off Sinai's western coast, discovered vast, still untapped subterranean deposits of fos sil water, constructed some of the world's most sophisticated military bases, resettled many of the 50,000 or so Bedouin, founded a score of Jewish settlements with long-range plans for tens of thousands more inhabi tants, and-in the process-won the near unanimous condemnation of friends and enemies around the world. A Prize Long Coveted Now Egypt prepares to resume control. But, it's worth noting, Egypt has exercised only intermittent sovereignty over Sinai through the centuries. Ancient Egyptians controlled only western Sinai, with its cop per and turquoise mines, and major trans desert routes-the rest being wilderness. Moses, remember, fled into Sinai to get away from the Egyptians. The Ottoman Turks controlled most of Sinai for centuries before being driven back to Palestine by Mohammed Ali in the 1830s. Later, after occupying Egypt in 1882, the British held varying degrees of control over Sinai until finally being ousted in 1954 by President Sadat's predecessor, Gamal Abdel Nasser. Just 13 years later Israel seized control. Twice before 1967 the Israelis were tempted by Sinai's strategic real estate first during the 1948-49 war of indepen dence, when, already in Sinai, they backed off under pressure by Great Britain; and then in the 1956 war, when they actually occupied the peninsula for four months before being constrained by the United States through the United Nations. I approached Sinai from the city of Suez, southern terminus of the Suez Canal. I'd been here before, in 1974, following in the footsteps of Moses.* Then the city was virtu ally depopulated, almost every building pocked with artillery holes from the 1973 war and the less known but even more dam aging 1968-1970 war of attrition. This time I found Suez booming anew, her population of 300,000 surpassing pre war levels, her buildings reconstructed in orderly phalanxes of shining native lime stone, her economy flourishing from her role as southern guardian of the Suez Canal, transited by some 2,000 ships each month. I arrived before the opening of the new Ahmed Hamdi Tunnel beneath the canal, 17 kilometers north of Suez. Named for an Egyptian general killed while directing assault-bridging operations over the canal in the 1973 war, this thoroughly modern two-lane tunnel becomes the first direct land link between Sinai and Egypt proper since the French entrepreneur Ferdinand de Les seps divided Asia from Africa by building the Suez Canal in the 1860s. The canal, blocked since the 1967 war, was reopened in 1975.t The new tunnel noses far enough be neath it to permit deepening and widening. Already, dredging since 1975 has made the canal passable by U. S. aircraft carriers and even larger supertankers. There's more than a touch of majesty in the slow-moving ships-Japanese, Soviet, Liberian, Scandinavian, even Israeli-as they ghost through the narrow milky blue waterway, flanked by desert, carrying car goes from everywhere to anywhere. Aboard a Swedish tanker heading north to Port Said, I witnessed a mild dispute be tween the Swedish captain and the Egyptian pilot who came on board to guide the ship. "But," said the Egyptian pilot, "you must have an Egyptian flag flying up at the prow when you go through the canal." "Well," barked the captain, "I've been through here eight times now, and I have never had a flag up there. We've got the *The author's pilgrimage in the pathway of the prophet was reported in the January 1976 edition of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC. tWilliam Graves described Egypt's reopening of this crucial channel in the June 1975 GEOGRAPHIC. The veil still prevails among Bedouin women, who sew coins onto theirface coverings as a sign of wealth. Sinai's proudBedouin were among the first converts to raise the burningbrand of Islam during seventh-century Muslim conquests. NationalGeographic,April 1982 438
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