A new weekly series about Egypt (Saturdays)

The author of this series "Egyptian Frescoes" André Dirlik was born in Egypt and spent the first twenty years of his life in Cairo, then moved to Beirut where he studied at the American University. He later completed his studies at Mc Gill University, in Montreal. 

André's long career as professor exclusively at the "Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean" was only interrupted when that institution closed it's doors in 1995. 

Egyptian Frescoes part (11 of 19) issued with the permission of the author. 

Egyptian Frescoes (11): The Question of Palestine.

Long before the Question of Palestine and the Jewish Question became intimately related in the minds of the Arabs in the Twentieth Century, the geography of the Near East and the position of Egypt, at the juncture of three continents, constantly projected that country into the limelight. One simply has to visit the narrows of Nahr al-Kalb, north of Beirut, to gage the importance of this passageway to the armies of Pharao, to Asssyrians and Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs from the Peninsula, or French and British, in the modern era.

The City of Jaffa 

The invaders all left their autograph. The Land of Palestine, south of the Ancient Lycus River, the River of the Dog mentioned above, stood as a buffer or a gateway to fertile Egypt. In our times, Napoleon Bonaparte headed north from Cairo along the Mediterranean coastal road till Jaffa. The plague and the Ottomans stopped his cavalcade towards Nahr al-Kalb in 1799. One Nathan Schur suggested, in his Napoleon and the Holy Land, that the young general had planned to proclaim, once he reached Jerusalem, the creation of a Jewish State. His aim was to establish an allied European entity in Palestine which would consolidate his hold on Egypt, the main object of which was to threaten the road to India for the British.

Napoleon

That was well before the opening of a Suez Canal and before the West struck oil in Mesopotamia, in Persia and in the Arab Gulf. It was well before Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), the Austrian journalist, covered the Dreyfus Trial and, as a result, wrote, in 1896, Der Judenstaat. It was also long before Adolf Hitler embarked upon his policy of extermination of the Jews of Europe. One will have to wait until preparations for the First World War came about to reckon with European objectives in the Middle East. These objectives were facilitated by the alliance of the Young Turks with Germany and Austria, the losers of the war. As the British and French battled the Ottomans in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which would divide the Arab spoils of war between England and France, and a Balfour Declaration addressed to Baron Rothschild, which allowed European Jews to set their home in Palestine, were on the drawing board. At the Paris Peace Conference, both these documents were tabled and the Arabs discovered that all promises made to Sharif Husayn would not be honoured. Moreover, a system of mandates and protectorates would be imposed on all Arab territories, except Saudi Arabia. Finally, the gates to Palestine would be open to Jewish Immigration from Europe whose percentage of the entire Palestinian population rose from less than 1% after the war to 17% in 1931, and 27% in 1935.

Al-Sharif Hussein

The Europeans had not considered the damage which the creation of a Jewish State would do to their interests and reputation in the long run. When Theodore Herzl visited 'Abd ul-Hamid II, the Sultan-Caliph, in Istambul, in 1901, he requested permission to establish Jewish colonies in Palestine against the settlement of the entire Ottoman Debt by European Jewish financiers. Jerusalem was the third holiest city of Islam after Makkah and Madina. The Sultan-Caliph is reported to have replied that He would rather be skewered than lose the Holy Land. Herzl then negotiated with the Egyptian Authorities, through Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary to the Colonies, that land in and around al-'Arich, in Egypt proper, be granted to him for his pet project of an Alteneuland. The Egyptians rejected the idea. The British Mandate over Palestine and the Balfour Declaration, made in 1917, opened the way to the eventual creation of Israel in 1948.

Joseph Chamberlain

In the meantime, Palestinians had been rioting against immigration of Europeans to their lands. The Nabi Musa Riots of 1920, outside Jerusalem, were followed by the 1929 Riots and the more serious ones which started, in 1936, in Jaffa, outside Tel Aviv, spread to the rest of the Mandate and lasted till 1939.

The rioting in Palestine had received much attention in Egypt. Everyone seemed to pay lip service to the cause of the Palestinians. Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the close collaborator of the Prophet and father of his daughter, 'Aisha, had been quoted as saying: ma min ummatin tarakat al-Jihad illa wa duriba 'alayha al-dhull, only Jihad, holy war guaranteed against humiliation. As the Second World War approached, an Eighth British Army was being assembled in Egypt, to defend the Canal. British tanks rolled towards 'Abdin Palace and forced the young King Faruq, whose sympathies for the Axis Powers were known, to appoint Mustafa al-Nahhas, leader of the Wafd Party, to form a government and join in the war effort on February 4th, 1942. All political parties were being compromised by the occupier. Only the Ikhwan stood fast against the British. This made them the most popular nationalist force in the country.

Mustafa El-Nahaas Pacha

The Ikhwan were also having access to light weapons and ammunition which were either stolen from the British or else, after 1942, when Field-Marshal Rommel was defeated by Montgomery at al-'Alamayn, were being traded by the Bedouins of the Western Desert. The Ikhwan learnt to use these weapons with the assistance of a few officers of the insignificant Egyptian Army. The Ikhwan had now opted for armed struggle against those whom they defined as enemies of Islam. On the Jewish Palestinian side, terrorism had appealed to extremist factions of society as well. It is not clear if Irish freedom fighters assisted the Ikhwan although it is known they did Jews against the British when Lord Moyne, who did not favour the creation of a Jewish State, was assassinated in Cairo, on November 6th, 1944, by members of a Jewish terrorist organisation. In 1945, on February 24th., Ahmad Mahir, the Prime Minister, who opposed Ikhwan participation at elections, was gunned down. In 1948, on December 28th., yet another Prime Minister, Mahmud al-Nuqrashi, was also assassinated. The membership of the Brotherhood had been estimated that year at 2 million strong and King Faruq was worrisome. 

Hassan El-Banna

On Feburary 12th., 1949, the King had Hasan al-Banna murdered. His party was also banned and simply went underground.

In the meantime, the British Mandate over Palestine had ended on May 15th., 1948 and the six member states of the Arab League, which came into being on 22 March 1945, marched armies into Palestine. The Ikhwan partook into the conflict by providing irregulars. All were confronted by better equipped, better trained Jewish combatants and the Arabs called for a truce. Amongst the Jewish combatants were members of the Jewish Brigade which Haïm Wiseman (1874-1952) had formed in Palestine to fight alongside the Eighth Army during the Second World War. I was a boy when units of this army paraded in Cairo in celebration of King Georges VI's birthday. They marched along Kasr el-Nil street, across Midan Soliman Pasha. My Jewish schoolmates cheered. Back at the Lycée de Bab el-Louk during my last year, Jews in class had espoused Zionism and talked of moving to Israel to build the new state. On a camping trip we undertook to Marsa Matruh, I recall one evening when we talked passionately around the campfire. The Communists amongst my Jewish childhood friends were also Zionists. We could not understand then how Internationalism and Nationalism, or Religion and Nationalism could become one and the same. My Jewish friends, of course, felt the threat of Muslim Brotherhood terrorism and so did the Khawagat. Mr. Moseri, the owner of the Egyptian Cement Factory had not explained to his son how Egyptian humiliation in Palestine would inevitably inflict woes upon the interests of the Jews of Egypt. And Jacques Mizrahi, an Egyptian Jew as his name, Mizrahi, from Mizr, indicated, had not considered how Schwarte and Schlechte would mix in the land east of Eden.

Lycée Français du Caire

 Over the Ikhwan, I had befriended Mahmud Fathi Sa’id, an active member of the Brotherhood who, at the eve of the Military Coup of the 23rd of July 1952, came out of the cupboard when the government lifted the ban on their activities. I once asked Fathi while we hiked in Wadi Digla, in the desert east of Ma’adi, if it was true that the Brotherhood really intended to slaughter all of us Khawagat once they assumed power. He looked me straight in the eyes and replied: kullukum illa inta ya Andreyyah, all except you..