Nasser's Egypt - A Westerner's Revisionist's View

Submitted by M Tovey (United States), Sep 28, 2020 at 13:01

As contentious as the Middle East Has been for the ages, Egypt being swept up in the signs of the times by the ambitions of an apparent nationalist movement in order to disrupt the status quo of a colonial existence, is, in retrospect, anticlimactic. Egypt under the auspices of British rule moved into the twentieth century as a pawn of the ambitions of others, whether Ottoman or British, eventually settling for yet, still, non-Egyptian rule after Allenby entered Jerusalem to the north and European influence replaced the Ottoman's. Decidedly, this is a simplistic and altered perception of what happened; but Nasser's ascendency to power in Egypt makes more sense as a faltering idea of 'westernizing' what was essentially a secularist regime in a religious setting of the former Islamically controlled government.
What is sometimes hard to see is that Egypt, Syria, Jordan and the other Arabic allies were set in place to provide the contrast to the differing ideologies that attempted to redefine the circumstances by which Israel was given land by secularistic European powers over the objections of indigenous peoples who thought the land was theirs; and to this day, very few really understand why. For all of his reading, Nasser did not understand why. For all of his study of things of Islam, he resorted to a secularist understanding of his power, emphasized and emboldened with Soviet influences, evidently not realizing further like many others, the solution of peace in the Middle East will not be solved in any secularistic frame of reference. Why; one might ask? Because Israel is established as a Jewish State, even in 1970.
European influences continue to operate as if the powers that be there are the arbiters of Middle East peace. They are not; they are meddlers at best and enemies of Israeli peace at worst. Rampant anti-Semitism betrays the northern powers' ambitions of world domination and the continuing manipulation of political influences, like those forced upon Nasser's Egypt after failing to eject the Jewish nation, continue to foment in the aftermath of Islamic resurgence in much of the region's politics, especially at the cost of the 'Palestinian' peoples, who are being patronized for decidedly secularistic ambitions of totalitarian dreams. Many think Nasser's legacy is still alive; what is not realized is that there is a legacy, it is just not what they thought it should be.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".