This is an envelope with the first day of issue stamp commemorating the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979. The stamp was issued in honour of the signing of the treaty between Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, witnessed by US President Jimmy Carter on the White House lawn. The stamp was designed by Roni and Aryeh Hecht and was worth 10 Israeli lirot (the currency at the time). The stamp is designed with the stones of the Western Wall in the background and the word “peace” written in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. A white paper note is sticking out of a crack between the stones, reminiscent of the traditional notes that are placed in the cracks of the Western Wall. On the attachment to the stamp is a verse from Isaiah 52:7: “Who publishes peace...Who brings good tidings of good.” It should be noted that the stamp itself does not mention the signing of the historic peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. The connection to the peace agreement can be understood from the postmark which bears the inscription, “Peace Treaty of Israel and Egypt, Adar 1979, 26.3.1979” and the design of an olive branch. At the bottom of the envelope, next to the symbol of the Israel Postal Company, there is a quotation from the prayer book: “Who spreadeth the tabernacle of peace over us and over all of His people Israel and over Jerusalem.”
The peace agreement between Israel and Egypt was approved by the Knesset on March 22, 1979. In the agreement, Israel agreed to evacuate all settlements in the Sinai Peninsula, to pay compensation for the oil it produced from the Sinai oil fields, and to transfer their control to the Egyptians.
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Israel-Egypt Peace Accords - After more than thirty years at war, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat signed peace accords in 1979. The agreement established a new border between Israel and Egypt and diplomatic relations between the two countries. It also included the transfer of half of the Sinai Desert to Egyptian control. Following the signing of the agreement, the normalized relations included flights between the countries and easy access for tourists.
The Western Wall - The Western Wall, known colloquially as the Kotel (Hebrew for wall), has been a location for prayer for many hundreds of years. The first record of the site as a place of prayer is from the sixteenth century when Jews were given access to the location having previously prayed at the Mount of Olives as the closest site to the Temple Mount. The Kotel has been a place of worship for the Jewish people throughout history with Jewish pilgrims inscribing words on the stones from the Middle Ages until the beginning of the twentieth century. In 1517, the Turkish Ottomans seized Jerusalem from the Mamluks, who had held it since 1250. Approximately fifty years later, Jews received formal permission to pray at the site, and it seems that the Turkish authorities even built a place of prayer for the Jewish worshippers. The Turks were succeeded by the British, and during the British Mandate, restrictions were placed on prayers at the Western Wall. During the subsequent post-1948 Jordanian rule over the Old City of Jerusalem, Jews were not given access to the Kotel. From June 7, 1967, following the Israeli victory in the Six Day War, Jews were once again free to pray at the Kotel. It is perhaps more accurate to say that 1967 signified the first time that the Western Wall was under Jewish control for almost 2000 years.
