Sources of Hostility Against Gamal Abdel Nasser

Written by Amr Sabah

Translated by Salma Hussein

Reviewed by Mariam Essa

The Muslim Brotherhood and the Zionists… two faces for the same coin.

In 2017, the Facebook page Zionist Sarcasm Society an Israeli satirical page aimed at promoting Zionist ideology and defending the State of Israel through cartoons and memes mocking Arabs, published a caricature mocking President Gamal Abdel Nasser by portraying him as a symbol of defeat, on the 50th anniversary of the 1967 war.

Al Jazeera, a platform for American and Israeli intelligence in the Arab world, immediately picked up the topic and produced a documentary portraying Abdel Nasser as a leader of defeats. The idea of Abdel Nasser as a defeated figure then moved to the Rassd Network, the largest Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated news network, founded by a Brotherhood media figure named Anas Hassan, who fled Egypt and lives in Qatar. On his personal profile, he openly expresses support for the United States, even stating that if forced to choose between American and Chinese occupation, he would choose the American one. Consequently, in a video report by the Brotherhood-affiliated network, President Abdel Nasser was portrayed as a symbol of defeat among Arabs.

From Rassd Network, the idea spread to pages covering art, sports, cinema, and cartoon platforms managed by the Brotherhood’s online brigades and used to promote the organization’s ideology. Thus, the Zionist idea, with the help of the Brotherhood, turned into a social media campaign aimed at branding Gamal Abdel Nasser as a failure and someone addicted to defeat.

The Zionists do not hide their hostility toward the ideas represented by Gamal Abdel Nasser. The page “Israel Speaks Arabic” constantly attacks him and questions what Arabs have gained from their hostility toward Israel by following Abdel Nasser.

Likewise, Avichay Adraee, the spokesperson for the Israeli occupation army, repeats the same idea about the futility of Arab-Israeli hostility and the obsolescence of Nasserist ideology opposing Israel.

The truth is that the widows and bereaved of the Muslim Brotherhood will remain prisoners of their psychological afflictions, which have not and will never heal from the repeated blows delivered by Gamal Abdel Nasser against the group’s leaders, symbols and cadres.

The convergence of interests between Zionists and the Muslim Brotherhood is not recent. Following the failure of the Brotherhood’s alleged plot to assassinate Gamal Abdel Nasser and overthrow his regime in 1965, a plot said to have been coordinated with the American CIA alongside the Brotherhood. It was a plan to eliminate Nasser that shifted from an internal conspiracy to an external military aggression carried out by Israel with full American support, culminating in the June 5, 1967 war. Facts of history show that Gamal Abdel Nasser fought many battles and he won most of them and lost some. He never denied the defeats he faced. Among his greatest victories was crushing the Muslim Brotherhood twice, in 1954 and 1965, and the group had no significant standing throughout his rule.

As for the Muslim Brotherhood, its history bears witness to its successive defeats, the latest being its failure to maintain the power it gained following the January 25, 2011 uprising.

After one year of the presidency of Mohamed Morsi, the first and, God willing, last Brotherhood president in Egypt, the group was eliminated from power. Mohamed Morsi was arrested, imprisoned, and tried on several charges, including espionage. The group was dismantled, its members dispersed, and they were pursued as criminals, killers, and promoters of terrorism. Their year in power became a curse upon them, setting them back 100 years. By divine will, Mohamed Morsi died during a court session in an espionage case against Egypt; no public funeral was held, no condolences were widely received, and he was buried at night with only his family present in the graves of the Brotherhood’s leaders.

The Muslim Brotherhood had been planning to rule Egypt from 1928 until 2011, but when they came to power in 2012, they lost it within just one year.

From June 30, 2012, to July 3, 2013, the group failed, fell, and suffered the greatest defeat in its history, confirming that its past has been and will remain marked by defeats and stained with darkness.

If defeat had a title, it would be the Brotherhood. If the Brotherhood were honest with themselves, they would have changed their name after July 3, 2013, from the Muslim Brotherhood to the “Defeated Brotherhood.”

But an authoritarian, extremist organization built on exploiting religion to gain power can only adopt falsehood as its guiding method. The fact is that the Muslim Brotherhood has been defeated everywhere except on social media, which remains the group’s last refuge. There, it achieves illusory victories by exploiting the ignorance of some and the intellectual and cultural emptiness of others.

Even in this last refuge, the defeated cadres of the Brotherhood rely on Zionist ideas aimed at undermining the sense of belonging among Arab youth. In doing so, they fulfill what was advocated by Ofir Gendelman, the spokesperson for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who stated in 2017:

“There are 158 million Arabic language accounts on Facebook, and the number doubles every year. Arabic is one of the most widespread languages on social media, which has increased our opportunities to exploit these platforms to spread our ideas, promote our state, and eliminate the reasons for Arab hostility toward us.”

Now, let's go over together the record of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s battles from July 23, 1952, to September 28, 1970:

• 1952 Revolution. Gamal Abdel Nasser and his fellow Free Officers successfully carried out their plan, seized power, expelled King Farouk I, and overthrew the rule of the Muhammad Ali dynasty after 150 years in Egypt.
  
  
• Conflict over power (1954): Nasser faced a broad alliance that included Mohamed Naguib, Youssef Siddiq, Khaled Mohieddin, alongside the Wafd Party, the Muslim Brotherhood, communists, and remnants of the old regime. The conflict ended with a decisive victory for Nasser and his allies.
  
  
• The Evacution of the colonizer: After 72 years of British occupation, following the failure of the 1919 Revolution, continued uprisings, and the 1936 treaty, Nasser succeeded in signing the evacuation agreement just two years after the revolution.
  
  
• The Brotherhood conspiracy (1954): In a final attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood, allegedly in coordination with Mohamed Naguib, to assassinate Nasser on October 26, 1954, the plot failed. Nasser survived, crushed the Brotherhood, and sidelined Mohamed Naguib forever.
  
  
• Breaking the arms monopoly (1955): After the West refused to supply Egypt with weapons, Nasser broke the Western monopoly by signing an arms deal with the Soviet Union through Czechoslovakia. This hammered the first nail into the Iron Curtain surrounding the Soviet Union and moved the Soviets from their cold waters into the heart of the Arab world and the depths of Africa.
  
  
• Nationalization of the Suez Canal and the 1956 War: After the United States refused to finance the High Dam project and its Secretary of State described the Egyptian economy as bankrupt, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, showing no concern for the fate of Mohammad Mossadegh and what followed the nationalization of Iranian oil. When Britain, France, and Israel allied with American complicity to reclaim the canal and overthrow Gamal Abdel Nasser’s regime, their aggression failed after 11 days of resistance. The canal returned to Egypt, the aggressors withdrew, and Nasser emerged stronger than before, as both an Arab and international leader.
  
  
• Egyptianization (1957): After nationalizing the canal, Nasser found that Egypt was owned by 7,000 individuals, most of them foreigners. He proceeded to reclaim Egypt’s wealth and return it to the Egyptian people.
  
  
• Egyptian-Syrian Unity (1958): For the first and last time in contemporary Arab history, a unifying merger took place between two Arab states based on overwhelming popular will. Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of the state, which was named the United Arab Republic.
  
  
• The Collapse of the Baghdad Pact (1958): The Western alliance conspiring against Egypt and participating in the 1956 plot was shattered by the July 14, 1958 revolution in Iraq, led by Qasim, Arif, and their comrades, who moved to overthrow the Iraqi monarchy in coordination with Gamal Abdel Nasser.
  
  
• Socialist Resolutions (1961): Following the nationalization of the canal and Egyptianization of the economy, Nasser decided to place all resources of wealth under state control and build a planned economy through successive five-year plans, achieving an annual growth rate of 6.7%.

• Liberation of Algeria: After 130 years of French occupation and the emergence of generations of French citizens born in occupied Algeria, who considered France the “south of the Mediterranean,” and after eight years of fierce war between Algerian revolutionaries supported by Nasser with money, weapons, media, and diplomacy, France was expelled from Algeria.

• The Yemen War (1962): After centuries of backward Imamate rule, which left Yemen living in medieval conditions in the 20th century, Yemeni revolutionaries, with the help of the Egyptian army, overthrew the Imam’s throne, established the Yemen Republic, and threatened the thrones of other client rulers. Were it not for the 1967 war, other thrones would have fallen, leading to the liberation of the entire Arab world.

• The Muslim Brotherhood Conspiracy (1965): Funded by Saudi Arabia and supported by the United States, the Muslim Brotherhood attempted once again to assassinate Nasser and his regime’s leaders and destroy state facilities. As usual, their planning failed, their efforts were thwarted, and they returned to prison.

• The 1967 War. The first military defeat for Gamal Abdel Nasser and his regime. The separation of the Egyptian-Syrian union in 1961 had been his first political defeat, which paved the way for the 1967 defeat. This loss came as a reaction to his success, not due to failure. Nasser had exceeded the limits allowed for a ruler in that region of the world. His socialist experiment in Egypt and the presence of part of his army in Yemen became an immediate threat to global capitalist monopolies, the interests of oil companies, and the thrones protected by the West. As a result, he was drawn into a military confrontation that ended in a crushing defeat. The French President Charles de Gaulle best described the 1967 war: "The battle is American, and the performance is Israeli."

• The Libyan Revolution (1969): On September 1, 1969, two years after the defeat, a new revolution erupted in one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world. This Nasserist revolution expelled American and British military bases from Libya, the same bases from which British aircraft had struck Egypt during the 1956 war, and from which twenty American planes attacked western Egypt in the 1967 war.

• The War of Attrition (1967–1970): After the Egyptian army's defeat and withdrawal from Sinai following the June 5, 1967 war, it underwent a comprehensive restructuring based on scientific and professional principles. This transformation would not have been possible without the hundreds of thousands of highly educated Egyptians and technically qualified professionals who benefited from the free education introduced under Nasser's regime. Moreover, without the hundreds of skilled military leaders sent on scientific missions to the world’s best military academies during Nasser’s rule, and without the economic and social reforms of his regime that maintained internal stability in Egyptian society, the population would not have been able to endure the harsh conditions of life under wartime. Nasser’s overwhelming popularity across the Arab world secured Arab financial support for Egypt after the 1967 war, while his close relations with the Soviet Union enabled Egypt to rearm its army following the defeat and engage in the glorious War of Attrition. The War of Attrition served as a live rehearsal for the October 1973 War. During this period, crossing plans were developed, military training was conducted, and all necessary preparations were completed. These efforts led to the creation of the "Army of Victory" and the construction of the formidable missile barrier on the western bank of the Suez Canal, without which the crossing into Sinai would not have been possible. Public sector companies, working in cooperation with the Egyptian Armed Forces, built the massive missile wall, which at the time was the largest missile defense system in the world. Nasser also insisted on establishing a strong eastern front through Syria to participate alongside Egypt in the coming battle. The importance of this front became evident on the afternoon of October 6, 1973. Thanks to Egyptian-Syrian coordination, Egypt's losses during the crossing were limited to five aircraft, twenty tanks, and 280 martyrs. This remarkable achievement would not have been possible without the Syrian front. Israel concentrated approximately 80% of its air force on the Golan front and only 20% on the Egyptian front because of Syria's proximity to Israeli territory. At the same time, the Sinai Desert separated the Egyptian crossing forces from Israel's borders. It had been estimated that Egypt alone could lose as many as 26,000 martyrs during the crossing operation. Opening the eastern front significantly reduced those anticipated losses. During the October 1973 War, the Egyptian Navy closed the Bab el-Mandeb Strait to Israeli and Western shipping. This would not have been possible without Nasser's campaigns against British colonialism east of Suez, which ended with Britain's withdrawal from the Arabian Gulf and without his support for the Yemeni Revolution of 1962.

• Operation Sparrow (1967–1971): In December 1967, President Gamal Abdel Nasser ordered the installation of listening and surveillance devices inside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo in an intelligence operation known as Operation Sparrow. Operation Sparrow is considered one of the most successful and dangerous intelligence operations in history, rivaled only by Operation Ultra, through which Allied intelligence broke German military codes during the Second World War, allowing the British and Americans to know German military and intelligence movements in advance. Only about ten people in Egypt knew about Operation Sparrow. By Nasser's direct orders, Vice President Anwar Sadat was not informed of the operation. Following President Gamal Abdel Nasser's death on September 28, 1970, Shaarawi Gomaa, Sami Sharaf, and General Mohamed Fawzi refused to inform the new president, Anwar Sadat, about Operation Sparrow because they feared compromising the operation and did not trust him. It was journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal who eventually informed President Sadat about Operation Sparrow in July 1971. The operation continued successfully, and intelligence continued to flow from December 1967 until July 1971, when President Anwar Sadat revealed its existence to his friend Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi intelligence and a close associate of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Adham immediately passed the information to the Americans, bringing the operation to an end and permanently closing this valuable source of intelligence.

• The Final Year of Nasser's Life: During the final year of his life and rule, Abdel Nasser completed the construction of the High Dam, one of the greatest engineering and development projects in the world. It embodied his principles, his independent policies, and his vision for Egypt's future. The construction of the High Dam created a vast national project that produced thousands of skilled engineers, workers, and irrigation specialists, reflecting Nasser's vision of Egypt as a modern industrial and agricultural state. In the same year, just one month before Abdel Nasser's sudden death, the armed forces completed the construction of the missile wall. Nasser provided the political and military cover for this achievement by accepting the Rogers Initiative, which allowed the missile bases to be moved to the western bank of the Suez Canal. This enormous effort, achieved at great human cost, provided the missile protection necessary for the crossing operation and the liberation of Sinai. On the day of President Abdel Nasser's death, U.S. President Richard Nixon was aboard the aircraft carrier Saratoga in the Mediterranean, outside Egyptian territorial waters, observing a large-scale U.S. Sixth Fleet exercise. The purpose of the exercise was for Nasser in Cairo to hear the American naval artillery in response to the construction and deployment of the Egyptian missile wall along the western bank of the Suez Canal. The maneuver was intended to reassure Israel and send Nasser the message that "we are close by." Upon learning of Nasser's death, Nixon ordered the exercise canceled, reportedly saying, "The man targeted by this operation is dead."

In just eighteen years, Gamal Abdel Nasser fought these battles, beginning at the age of thirty-four and ending with his death at fifty-two. By any historical or objective measure, his victories outweigh his defeats.

It is worth noting that Nasser remained committed a resister until his final moments. He never surrendered and never ceased confronting his opponents. As he declared in his speech of 23 November 1967: "If a part of our homeland falls into the hands of an enemy equipped with resources beyond our capacity, that is not the real defeat, nor is it the enemy's true victory. But if the will of the people falls captive to that enemy, that is the real defeat, and that is the enemy's true victory."