Weary of inter-Arab politics, and tired of the high price Egypt had paid for the Palestinian cause, Sadat wanted to move away from Nasser’s pan-Arab ambitions and an excessive focus on the question of Palestine toward an emphasis on Egypt’s role as a power lying at the strategic crossroads between Asia and Africa. Sadat would, of course, continue to champion the Palestinian cause as the heart of an Arab consensus and sometimes as a fig leaf for his own Egypt-focused foreign policy.