Palestine in the Egyptian Press: From al-Ahram to al-Ahali

10_303_1FM.qxd

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page i

Palestine in the Egyptian Press

10_303_1FM.qxd

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page ii

10_303_1FM.qxd

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page iii

Palestine in the Egyptian Press From Al-Ahram to Al-Ahali Ghada Hashem Talhami

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

10_303_1FM.qxd

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page iv

LEXINGTON BOOKS A division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200 Lanham, MD 20706 Estover Road Plymouth PL6 7PY United Kingdom Copyright © 2007 by Lexington Books First paperback edition 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The hardback edition of this book was previously cataloged by the Library of Congress as follows: Talhami, Ghada Hashem. Palestine in the Egyptian press : from al-Ahram to al-Ahali / Ghada Hashem Talhami. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Palestine—Press coverage—Egypt. 2. Palestinian Arabs—Press coverage— Egypt. I. Title. DS113.6.T35 2007 956.9405—dc22 2007013859 ISBN: 978-0-7391-1784-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-7391-1785-9 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-7391-5863-0 (electronic) Printed in the United States of America

⬁™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

10_303_1FM.qxd

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page v

“In reality, the emergence of the Zionist threat in the form of an Israeli state at the edge of Sinai and along the Negev Desert was destined to … make the Palestine question develop as one of the essential concerns of the Egyptian National movement. By the early 1950s, this question became one of the three sides of the triangular Egyptian movement after those of complete decolonization and the Sudan question.” —Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah al-Arabiyyah fi muwajahat al-ikhtiraq al-Sahyouni (The Arab Press Confronts Zionist Penetration) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1996), 159.

“Allow me to mention quickly the close relationship which exists between the Zionist enemy and the suspension of basic freedoms in Egypt. Since 1948, the curse of Israel has been pursuing basic freedoms in Egypt. The war against Israel became the ‘courage’ which is used by our rulers to justify declaring emergency laws and extending them time and again.” —Nabil al-Hilali, in Amina Rashid, ed., Al-Hurriyah al-fikriyah wa al-academiyah fi Misr (Intellectual and Academic Freedom in Egypt) (Cairo: Markaz al-Buhuth al-Arabiyyah, 2000), 142.

10_303_1FM.qxd

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page vi

10_303_1FM.qxd

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page vii

Contents

Preface

ix

1 Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

1

2 Opinion Journalism and the Beginning of Egyptian Nationalism

25

3 The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

57

4 The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

101

5 Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

161

6 Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

205

7 Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

271

8 Heikal: A Journalist for Most Seasons

337

9 Conclusion: Palestine, Policy, and the Printed Word

347

Endnotes

351

Appendix Journal Titles in Translation

371

Bibliography

375

Index

381

About the Author

387

vii

10_303_1FM.qxd

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page viii

10_303_1FM.qxd

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page ix

Preface

I

n the modern age, a state that inhibits the growth of a free press risks being relegated to the margins of democratic development. Effectively, it will be devoid of unfettered mechanisms to gauge the state of the nation. As dictatorships, autocracies and oligarchies have discovered, the absence of a free press also hampers the effort of the state to communicate and mobilize. The uniqueness of the press is that it is capable of channeling commands and information from the top down, as well as from the bottom up. Modernizing states, as is the case of most Middle Eastern countries today, find themselves constantly struggling against the demands and articulations of the press as a self-appointed guardian of the public interest. As a reflection of public opinion and sentiment, the press can move people to action, withhold legitimacy from failed regimes, demand the adoption of certain policies, or engage in a contestation of power. What the press cannot be is a decorative and decorous institution. In the Middle East, even the feminist press, which began by focusing on manners, the home life, and the individual woman, emerged later on as the voice of an ideologically consequential movement. Despite professional standards and requisite emphasis on newsgathering and information, the press can never be totally neutral, especially in the current conditions of the turbulent Middle East. Egypt enjoys the longest familiarity with this institution in the Arab World. As the first state in the Middle East to confront the military power and advanced and enlightened civilization of revolutionary France, Egypt had no choice but to seek national mobilization in order to escape permanent defeat. Indeed, the birth of the Egyptian press accompanied the rise ix

10_303_1FM.qxd

x

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page x

Preface

of the modern state. Throughout its history, Egypt’s press experienced radical transformations ranging from total subjugation to the state, to a potent political and social wielder of influence and power. The press in this instant not only faithfully mirrored national and state security concerns, but also became a national archive of the opinions, moods and sentiments of past generations. It is not difficult to notice, under these circumstances, the attraction of the Palestine question. Once the Balfour Declaration created an opening for Europe’s Jewish population to seek settlement in Palestine, conditions in that part of the Arab World impinged on the consciousness of governments, people and press alike. When the Egyptian monarchy under King Farouq lost face following a scandalous military performance in the first Palestine war of 1948, the press took the lead in exposing official corruption and misconduct. The government of the Free Officers in 1952 quickly grasped the lethal potential of the press institution and moved to subjugate it to state objectives and needs. In the Nasserite years, it would have been difficult to distinguish the printed word from the mind and thoughts of the ruling elite. It would have also been difficult to ignore the vast reach of the Egyptian press into all corners of the Arab World. But the press, paradoxically, remained the hero and villain of Egyptian political life, both as a defender of the philosophy of pan-Arabism, as well as the tool that the Nasserite regime wielded against its enemies. The press produced the giants of the printed word, like Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, who was both journalist and policymaker, and who remained throughout his life a faithful supporter of Palestinian rights. Under the Saddat presidency, the press was fragmented and encouraged to speak in various voices, giving rise, among other things, to a lively Islamic press. The Palestine question emerged as the centerpiece of the Islamists’ overall rejection of Western developmental strategies and policies. As Sadat declared his interest in nurturing liberal institutions he continued with his attempt to retain a firm grip on power, hence his blundering into sensational battles against the press. But the genie was out of the bottle, especially in the case of the opposition press, which led the public campaign against the signing of the first Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement. The wide gulf that has always separated the government’s stance on Palestine from that of the general public deepened again during that era. Egyptians had their own view of the rationality of normalizing relations with Israel and the press spearheaded a heated public discussion of that policy. The Sadat period, naturally, witnessed a serious reassessment of Egypt’s Arab priorities. As a result, the peace with Israel led to a new official plan for managing the Palestine question. But the eruption of the first and the second intifadas tested the legitimacy and acceptability of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Once again as in the decades preceding the 1952 Revolution, the

10_303_1FM.qxd

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page xi

Preface

xi

regime’s management of Egyptian-Israeli relations came into question. Thus, by 2003, the Egyptian press was fixated on events in Israel/Palestine and began to question publicly Egypt’s dependence on the United States. The Mubarak regime followed in Sadat’s footsteps and produced its own effective ammunition with which to contain the press. The pro-government press, officially owned and directed, was heavily engaged in this confrontation. The regime, meanwhile, developed a coherent anti-terrorism philosophy in an effort to make its Palestinian policy and strong alliance with the United States more palatable to the Egyptian public. Despite its long entrenchment into Egypt’s institutional life, the press was at a dead heat in its competition with the state, and Palestine was the issue.

E This book grew out of a strong desire to grasp the fullness of the Arab dimension of the Palestine question. After exploring in previous studies the nature of the PLO’s Arab relations with countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, as well as the impact of Egypt’s perception of the Palestine question on its identification with the Arab heritage, it became clear that with or without the PLO, Palestine continues to be at the center of the foreign policies of Arab states. In the absence of strong political parties and established parliamentary procedures, the press seems to be effectively the major force shaping public opinion in the Arab World. Egypt’s press deserves more attention than the rest because of its durability and its reflection of opinion and views of a major Arab state. In the 1990s, I became more aware of this institution as the U.S. media spearheaded a government-inspired campaign to trace the new anti-Americanism in the Arab world to the role of the press in highlighting the bloodshed in Israel/Palestine. The Arab press was accused not only of abandoning all pretense to neutrality but also of tweaking the news as a deliberate sensationalization of events on the Israeli-Palestinian theatre. The U.S. government and media alike seemed to be caught in a bind, at once calling for restraining the press while at the same time arguing for the liberalization of Arab political life. My intent became to investigate the history, regulations, ethos, and professionalism of this institution and at the same time gauge its response to the Palestine question. Pursuing all these strands led me to seek a Fulbright research grant in order to conduct my investigations in Egypt, the center of the theater of Arab public opinion. After receiving approval from the U.S. academic committee of the Fulbright program, I waited in anticipation of the next phase of the Fulbright competition, namely approval by the diplomatic post of the research site. Eventually, that approval was denied with no explanation other than citing the larger than usual number of applicants during that particular

10_303_1FM.qxd

xii

4/29/10

12:27 PM

Page xii

Preface

year. My determination to pursue this research offset my initial dismay at the denial of the grant, which I ascribed to rising official discrimination against scholars of Arab-American descent. Upon arriving in Egypt, I stumbled on a battle royale between the American ambassador and members of the press, which apparently had been brewing for some time. Charges were publicly traded back and forth and inflammatory language crackled on the pages of newspapers and official embassy press releases alike. When the ambassador would grant interviews, mutual recriminations resulted and the U.S. representative appeared to be determined to alienate anything and anyone related to the formation of Egyptian public opinion. I began to muse as to what really led to the rejection of my application, official but discrete dismissal of Arab-American academics or simply fear of sponsoring one more piece of research into the most antagonistic area of Egyptian-American relations. Arriving at Egypt without any official sponsorship, however, proved to be liberating since I was free to pursue my research without any official restraint. In Cairo, the bulk of my investigation was undertaken at Dar al-Kutub, Egypt’s official public library and a depository of much that is published in the Arab World. The library’s stringent security regulations, overburdened staff, unreliable computers, and unregulated temperature could never detract from the wealth of its collection. The most efficient service was extended by the Serials Department, which always fulfilled requests in record time. But Egypt is also a haven for researchers not only because of its formal libraries but also its rich bookstores, some of which double as publishing houses. The staff at the well-known Madbuli Bookstore frequently allowed access to their bulging storeroom and their exceptional collection of personal memoirs. On the opposite side of Talaat Harb square, another known mecca for book lovers was al-Shuruq bookstore, which boasted the most extensive collection of Heikal’s works. The alAhali bookstore displayed an unusual collection reflecting the viewpoint of its parent journal al-Ahali, which represented the voice of the foremost political opposition coalition, al-Tagamuu. Then, there was the government-sponsored and moderately priced Al-Hayaah al-Aameh lil-kitab, with a collection rich in historical and Arabic literary studies. Others such as Dar al-Maaref carried academic studies, old and new, reflecting the work of Egyptian academics and researchers. I must also thank all those nameless Egyptians who were always willing to share their stories about the Egyptian media. Special thanks as always go to Lake Forest College for its generous assistance to the academic research efforts of its faculty, and to Aayush Sakya, my student assistant, who labored with me on finalizing the text. I am particularly grateful to his constant reassurances that this has been an educational and informative experience for him. —Ghada HashemTalhami

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 1

1 E

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

E

gyptians have always taken the state of the press seriously. Both the governed and those who ruled over them regarded the press as a powerful and influential institution. They both understood that to ignore the print media was to ignore public opinion. In the age of high democratic expectations and mass mobilization, the rest of the world recognized that the power of the print media often rivaled that of governments even when the latter seemed to maintain the upper hand. The print media in the third world, however, are viewed from opposite cosmic vantage points. Egyptians, for instance, may sometimes exaggerate the power of this influential institution, but Western observers tend only to inflate the Egyptian system of censorship and controls. While theoretically convinced that the print media play an enormous role in shaping public opinion and determining policy, Western writers tend to exclude Egypt and the rest of the third world from their hypotheses. Indeed, theoretical analyses of the nature of communications and its impact on the public mind, tend to be limited to Western societies. It was always commonly accepted that the term “the fourth estate,” was developed by no less a mind than eighteenth-century philosopher and political theorist Edmund Burke, when pointing to the reporter’s section in the British parliament. His objective was to stress the direct influence of the press on people’s lives, as well as political roles. Experts on the theory of communications, however, stress the fact that even when consciously resisting the direct influence of the print media, people generally absorb their influences by recognizing their impact on the minds and lives of others. The vast impact of the mass media on individuals goes beyond its direct influence on the 1

10_303_Ch1.qxd

2

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 2

Chapter 1

formation of personal opinion. According to this hypothesis, known as “the persuasive press inferences,” people rarely escape the total impact of the media content, even when resisting influences impacting their personal opinions. Directly or indirectly, it is the perceptions of the extent of media influence over others and the media’s role in shaping public opinion that account for general submission to the power of the mass media.1

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF THE EGYPTIAN PRINT MEDIA Egyptian experts grappled with these theories mainly to demonstrate the state’s limited ability to exercise total control over mass media. Reacting to a 1980 constitutional amendment that defined the “authority of the mass media,” as fitting naturally under the term “the authority of the state,” Egyptians questioned the artificiality of such a definition. One writer asserted that no constitution in the world made such a claim. He made reference to Thomas Carlyle’s emphasis on the power of the Fourth Estate at the end of the nineteenth century as something that equaled the power of the lords, the scholars and the clergy. He reminded his readers that the first to use this expression in Egypt was Mahmoud Azmi, who argued in 1935 that mass media were not a fourth estate by law, or even according to constitutional rules, but simply because of the government’s own understanding of the significance of the media’s role in enlightening public opinion. The same writer added in 1946, that well-known reformer and Islamic figure, Khaled Muhammed Khaled, called for restricting the government control over the print media by forming a higher press council. This body, which would be elected, should enjoy total freedom in regulating and running the affairs of the profession in order to restrict intervention by the executive authority.2 Egyptian experts also debated the extent of the media’s influence over public opinion. They suggested that the print media’s role in de-legitimizing the royalist regime of King Farouq alerted the Free Officer’s government after 1952 to the urgent need of co-opting the press and the media. The officers, on their part, became well-aware of the ability of the press to sabotage their social policy if they failed to achieve its intended goals, hence the officers’ determination to annex the press to the apparatus of the state. Egyptians also emphasized the value of a diverse press as the only guarantor of an informed public opinion, claiming that all political forces in Egypt were able to express their views though the print media.3

THE ARAB LEAGUE AND ITS INFORMATIONAL STRATEGY The ability of the press to mold and influence public opinion was also recognized by the Arab League of States. This confederal organization, which

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 3

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

3

was occupied with the Palestine question ever since its inception in 1945, always took upon itself the task of developing a unified Palestinian informational strategy. Indeed, the League constantly regarded the adoption of an informational policy as part of its representational role as the organized will of its various member states. The policy aimed at providing an integrated position that the League disseminated regionally and internationally. More significantly, the policy sought to bolster nationalist sentiment in order to serve the objectives of Arab unification and focus on the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. In other words, the League regarded influencing Arab public opinion and winning it to its side as part of the League’s broad mandate, even when it was forced to chart a delicate course between its ideals and narrow interests of its member states. The League cast its informational policy as a defensive strategy in order to protect the Arab states and their various interests. This usually translated into a campaign to confront Zionist propaganda and to correct the Arab image worldwide. It was at this juncture that the League’s publications substituted the term “the Arab homeland” for “the Arab states,” forcing the perception of an integrated Arab identity on its disparate member states. This was usually achieved by supplying the daily press with a stream of declarations, studies and reports, often in competition with the informational efforts of member states. The League’s strategy persisted until it floundered on the rock of the Camp David Agreements and Egypt’s abandonment of the goals of pan-Arabism. But this blow to the Arab informational effort never diminished receptivity of the Arab masses to the communication efforts of the League, nor the organization’s interest in shaping a homogenous Arab public opinion.4 The most visible campaign to chart a unified Arab informational strategy concerning the Palestine question followed on the heels of the Arab defeat in the June War of 1967. This policy resulted from the recommendations of the Arab summit meeting at Khartoum, which called for the convening of an emergency meeting of the Arab Information Ministers at Bizerte, Tunisia, in September of the same year. The summit meeting’s major concern was to restore the national self-confidence of the defeated Arab people by conveying the right type of national consciousness and preparing them for the battle ahead. The Information Ministers also hoped to transmit to the Arab reading public the resolutions of the Khartoum summit meeting, which called for rejecting peace with the Israeli state, as well as refusing to negotiate with it or recognizing its existence. It was also important to call for reaffirmation of the rights of the people of Palestine, acknowledgement of the dimensions of the Palestinian refugee problem, asserting the centrality of the Palestine question to all Arab struggles, and calling for the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The ministers declared their recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and made that decision part of the League’s informational campaign.5

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 4

Chapter 1

EARLY EGYPTIAN AND ZIONIST REFLECTIONS ON THE PALESTINE QUESTION The Arab League, as well as several Arab confrontational states that encircled Israel, were constantly reminded of the perils of the Jewish state. But while early Egyptian statesmen fretted over the flood of Jewish immigrants to Palestine, the Egyptian public was forced to confront the reality of Israel because of the influence of the print media. It was reported that as early as June of 1937, Egyptian Premier Mustafa Nahhas Pasha complained to the British Ambassador that he will never feel secure with a Jewish state along Egypt’s borders, for what would prevent such a state from claiming rights over Sinai itself in the future, he asked.6 Some Egyptian writers date Egypt’s obsession with the question of Palestine to an earlier period, referring specifically to the beginning of the Zionist campaign to recruit and mobilize members of the Egyptian Jewish community. One of the earliest developments in this regard was the 1904 visit to Egypt by the founder of the World Zionist Organization, Theodore Herzl. This resulted in the founding of the first Zionist organization in Egypt, namely Ben Zion, which in 1908 openly embraced the program of the Basel Conference of 1897. Then came a flood of Jewish immigrants fleeing the Syrian Province of the Ottoman Empire when the Sultan banned Zionist activities in 1915. By the end of World War II, a branch of Zionist organization, headed by Leon Castro, sprang up in Egypt. Prospering in the anti-fascist climate of the 1930s and 1940s, Jewish organizations with clear Zionist leanings were able to co-opt leading Egyptian intellectuals such as Taha Hussein and Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid. Zionists resorted to the publication of Arabic and French papers in an effort to communicate their views to a wide-ranging public. Sometimes Arabic journals served as conduits for the Zionist ideas of these advocates, either by publishing expressions of support for the Zionist project in Palestine or by marginalizing or under-reporting news of the bloodshed in that country. One such journal was al-Kateb, a leading literary publication that was edited by Taha Hussein and that kept out any mention of Palestinian suffering and loss. Castro’s embrace of the Zionist cause was even more intriguing since he managed to insert himself within the highest echelons of the Wafd Party and was permitted to publish a highly partisan paper known as La Liberte. This paper was devoted to publishing Wafdist news and views, as well as repeated Zionist calls for donations in order to purchase land in Palestine. Neither were the two leading papers of that period, Al-Ahram and al-Muqattam, above the expression of sympathetic views toward the Zionist enterprise in Palestine. Other papers that leaned toward the Zionist movement included al-Ittihad, representing a minority party, al-Shaab, the voice of alShaab party, and al-Siyaseh, the paper of the Liberal Constitutional Party. The latter found common ground with Zionist goals because of its advo-

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 5

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

5

cacy of an Egypt-first policy and the rejection of wider Arab ties. The press became a battleground for forces supporting the Zionist endeavor in Palestine and those who opposed it during the 1930s and 1940s. The battle was not only fought with words but extended to the application of Jewish economic pressures by withholding subscriptions and advertisements from nationalist Egyptian papers. Meanwhile, Egyptian authorities closed the offices of a major Palestinian paper, al-Shura, while continuing to extend their protection and support to leading Zionist papers such as Israel and alShams. Jewish efforts on behalf of Zionism were challenged on the pages of such nationalist organs as the Wafdist and leftist papers al-Balagh, Sawt alUmmah and al-Hisab. The religious press also took up the Palestine Question in the pre-1952 period, though deliberately casting the Arab-Israeli conflict in religious terms on the pages of Kawkab al-Sharq and al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin. The leftist press, which depicted the Zionist project in Palestine as part of the British imperial effort to maintain hegemony over the region, called for friendly Jewish-Arab contacts in order to confront imperialism on the pages of al-Yassar, al-Misri, al-Jamaheer, al-Fajr, and al-Dhameer.7

EGYPTIAN QUEST FOR A THEORY OF COMMUNICATIONS Clearly, the printed word played a major role in promoting significant policy lines pertaining to Palestine. Egyptian communication experts today not only justify the idea of a policy-making media, they also overstate their relevance to democracy and human rights. According to a recent book, not only was the Egyptian press worthy of study due to its uncontested influence but also because of its crucial and pioneering role as the major source of documentation of Egyptian social, political, and cultural history. Due to its early development and its reflection of various ideological and modernizing trends, the press here more than anywhere else in the third world was a political institution of the first order. Not only did Egypt witness the rise of the government press, the partisan press, the private press, and the foreign press, but also a vigorous religious press and feminist journalism expressing the views of newly-mobilized social groups. Divisions distinguished not only between the ideological and news-centered press, but also between the public and privately owned press. These papers were uniquely situated to transmit commands of ruling groups to the general public, but also to transmit the views of the public to the higher levels of government. Often oscillating between serving the political establishment and vocalizing the public’s views and demands, the Egyptian print media went through alternating phases of abject servility and influential prominence.8 The visible role played by the press in recent Egyptian history not only preceded similar developments in other Arab states, it also gave rise to

10_303_Ch1.qxd

6

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 6

Chapter 1

the first academic and scientific studies in the region. Journalism became a serious craft with rules and regulations, as well as theoretical frameworks and analytical modes. The first to inaugurate the study of communications in Arab universities was Egypt, which founded an institute for the study of journalism, publishing, and translations in 1939. At first attached to the College of Arts at Cairo University, this division attained independence in 1954 as a department of journalism, and then in 1972 as an independent school of communications. But despite this early attempt to professionalize the practice of journalism, Egyptian communication studies suffered and continue to suffer from a variety of weaknesses typically seen in most third world institutes of learning. First, there was always the usual shortage of trained academic personnel, student training opportunities and modern and adequate library facilities. According to the current Director of the Journalism Division within Cairo University’s College of Communications, Awatef Abd al-Rahman, other serious shortcomings have always afflicted the study of communications in Egypt. Among these were weak linkages to other Arab journalism institutes and schools of communications and the hegemonic position enjoyed by American theories of journalism in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, the Sudan and some of the Arab Gulf states. Similar dominance was also enjoyed by the French school of journalistic theory in North African countries. In both Egypt and Lebanon, Abd al-Rahman complained, American approaches to the study of journalism were transmitted through the curricula of the American Universities in Beirut and Cairo. She worried that the absence of an overarching Arab framework for the study of journalism and the excessive dependence on Western theories of communication would jeopardize national priorities that inform the study of journalism in Egypt and elsewhere. When one adds to this the paucity of scientific studies in the Arab field of information, the most serious weakness becomes the narrow research opportunities available to students of journalism. Among the national questions she identified as worthy of future study but rarely received adequate attention were: The history of Arab journalism, pertinent press legislative laws in the Arab world, types of ownership of papers, Arab press coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the relationship of the Arab press to the political authority, the role of the press in promoting national development, and problems of distribution rights and advertising. She concluded that her greatest concern was the spreading influence of American syllabi and communication theories, which she regarded as academically confusing to students of Arab journalism.9 Based on these concerns, this influential educator has shunned Western theories of communications and emphasized more indigenous, and in some cases, international frames of reference. Reflecting prevalent views on Western cultural hegemony, she had indicated a preference for justify-

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 7

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

7

ing freedom of the press on the basis of non-liberal concepts of communications. Believing strongly in the individual’s right to communicate, she adheres to what she described as an international theory of communications. In that context, the right to communicate or the right to inform and receive information is claimed to be a human right enshrined in Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), and Articles 19 and 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966). Yet she warned that international developments have already eroded these rights as a result of the unevenness of access to information in various parts of the world. Problems abound in the vertical flow of information top to bottom and from center to periphery, from governments to individuals, from dominant to subordinate cultures, and from the technologically enriched countries of the north to poor countries of the south. The situation of third world countries, in her view, aggravated these conditions. She lamented the lack of clear definition of individual and group rights and the necessary legislation to protect the right to communicate, the right to privacy, and transparency and access to political information.10 Citing UNESCO’s conception of the right to communicate and receive information, she explained that this was an outgrowth of the international legal view that distinguished between two classes of human rights. The first were Basic Rights such as religious freedom and the people’s rights to select their own government, both of which were internationally recognized and immune from abrogation. Secondary rights, on the other hand, were a different type, including the right to free speech and associational rights, both of which were not absolute rights and could be subjected to restrictive legislation. Out of this right to communicate flow other secondary though not absolute rights, such as freedom of press, immunity from censorship, independent broadcasting, and journalists’ entitlement to protection of their sources of information. UNESCO experts concluded as a result of convening research conferences of their own that the right to communicate boiled down to the following items: the right to participate, the right to dispense information and the right to receive it, and the right to benefit from communication resources. These were basic to the exercise of democratic rights by the majority of the people. Regrettably, she wrote, the recipients of information in countries of the south were reduced to the status of consumers of information rather than participants in decision making.11

AN ISLAMIC BASIS OF HUMAN RIGHTS Despite the importance of relating the right to communicate to an international baseline of human rights, Abd al-Rahman and Egyptian journalists

10_303_Ch1.qxd

8

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 8

Chapter 1

began in the 1980s to subscribe to an Islamic conception of human rights. During that decade, major Egyptian papers such as al-Ahram, al-Akhbar, and al-Jumhuriyah debated this issue by comparing the Islamic foundation of human rights to the international standard desired in the 1940s. Their conclusion stressed the precedence achieved by Islamic Sharia laws, which stood for the importance of free debate among members of various religious communities and Islam’s rejection of coercive religious conversions. These debates, nevertheless, did not gloss over the apparent contradictions between the Islamic Sharia and the standards of international human rights such as Sharia’s rejection of the right to dissent, claiming that all Muslims are one nation and should not oppose one another. Sometimes, al-Ahram claimed that since Islam was the first to enshrine individual rights as an entitlement to political, social, economic and cultural rights, then the heritage of human rights could not be considered Western in origin. The 1980s were also the occasion to debate the need to restore human rights to the Egyptian individual in full and to condemn international instances of the abuse of human rights such as Israeli practices in the Palestinian Occupied Territories and the policy of apartheid in South Africa.12 Egyptians understood also that the right to information and the theory of communications cannot be appreciated without an understanding of how public opinion is formed. For Egyptians in particular, understanding this process held certain urgency because of the severe government-press competition over public perception of the Palestine question. The issue arose as a result of the signing of the Camp David Agreements in 1979, which launched the first era of Egyptian-Israeli peace relations and heightened the government’s interest in obtaining public compliance and assent to the peace. Officially, an era of harmonious relations was launched, but on the level of popular acceptance and understanding, a great deal remained to be done. Egyptian public perception of the peace, the authorities soon discovered, was tied to public memory of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as to the continuing struggle of the Palestinian people. Additionally, the Arab-Israeli question has been a subject of open debate for decades, in which the press contributed widely to the shaping of public opinion and perceptions. The government wished to expedite acceptance of this peace and press forward with the normalization of Egyptian-Israeli relations created heightened interest in the ability of the press to mold public opinion and the government’s interest in neutralizing its effects.13

WESTERN DEFINITION OF PUBLIC OPINION Western studies of the formation of public opinion were not totally accepted either. What is public opinion and how does it get formed have

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 9

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

9

been the central concern of communication theorists for a long time. It is generally accepted that the term “public opinion” was the coinage of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who in 1744, warned a Venetian aristocrat that ‘public opinion’ had already viewed him as too sympathetic to Austria. Rousseau’s l’opinion publique had nothing to do with the concept of an officially sanctioned opinion. The French philosopher pointedly and persistently used the term throughout his writings to demonstrate the public’s readiness to censure officials or disapprove of them. Rousseau articulated this idea by creating the office of the “censor” in The Social Contract as an official charged with the protection of “morality and traditions.” The censor was acting on behalf of public morality, leading to Rousseau’s imagining of the concept of the “general will,” volonté générale, as the sum of combined public opinion. The views, wishes and predilections of the public, he wrote, will eventually emerge as genuine laws and regulations.14 Rousseau emphasized the primacy of public opinion over political authority by stating that: “Opinion, queen of the world, is not subject to the power of the kings; they are themselves her slaves.”15 He then used a new term, “civil religion,” as an alternative to “metaphysical religions,” which he defined as a group of general laws and principles that cannot be repudiated without incurring the wrath and isolation of public opinion. Rousseau also recognized the immense influence of public opinion as a constraint on individualism. He wrote describing the reaction of the private citizen as being both respectful for public opinion as the protector of public morality and the isolator of those resisting its reach.16

THE SPIRAL OF SILENCE THEORY Public opinion and what went into its formation were defined specifically by Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann in 1984 as a phenomenon related to the fear of silence. The insight was based on her reading of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (1835–1840), in which he was the first to refer to the “spiral of silence” theory. Citing the example of the erosion of the influence of the Catholic Church in France before the Revolution of 1789, he attributed this development to the fear of isolation by those who were not ardently opposed to the church. Although the thrust of his argument pertained to the power of public opinion in the United States, he nevertheless described effects of the spiral of silence on many societies. He saw public opinion in America as a pressure to conform, but also as the result of equality among citizens. Public opinion was, according to him, the majority opinion, which led the public to believe that majorities always had a monopoly on the truth. About half a century later, the American writer James Bryce in The American Commonwealth (1888) elaborated

10_303_Ch1.qxd

10

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 10

Chapter 1

on the tyrannical potential of the majority. His reference to the “fatalism of the multitude” later evolved into the concept of the “silent majority.”17 Thus, it has been understood for a long time that refusal to conform to public opinion generally will be met with silence. Public opinion was also expected to act as a powerful agent in time of extreme danger and to foster great pressure toward creating a unified perception or view. Clearly, the mass media was always the main source of public opinion, which could additionally be influenced by opinion polls, government directives and the like. Therefore, it has been generally accepted that only those who knew no fear of isolation or silence could transform society. First enunciated as an important discovery during the 1972 International Congress of Psychology in Tokyo, and later expanded by Noelle-Neumann in German and English, the “spiral of silence” theory was not viewed at first as contributing to an understanding of how public opinion is formed. NoelleNeumann explained that as being due to an absence of concern for public opinions in classical democratic theory. Classical writings on democracy generally tended to ignore the social psychology of citizens and forces contributing to the emergence of public opinion.18 She defined the “spiral of violence” theory as the result of competition between those voicing one view, such as in her study of the election campaign of the German Social Democratic Party, which favored the policy of Ostpolitik, or an opening to the East, and the opposing view of the Christian Democratic Party, which rejected Ostpolitik. Since those favoring the policy—proposed by Chancellor Willie Brandt—acted enthusiastically and confidently, the other side tended to mute their voice. She explained: This very restraint made the view that was receiving vocal support appear to be stronger than it really was and the other view weaker. Observations made in one context spread to another and encouraged people either to proclaim their views or to swallow them and keep quiet until, in a spiraling process, the one view dominated the public scene and the other disappeared from the public awareness as its adherents became mute. This process is called a “spiral of silence.”19

EGYPTIANS CRITIQUE WESTERN THEORIES In appraising Noelle-Neumann’s theory and those of others, Egyptian communication experts diverge from the general Western consensus on the origins and nature of public opinion. This critique eventually leads to the expounding of a different perception of the role of third world mass media in the society and politics of countries like Egypt. Acknowledging that public opinion was always the sum of the views of all individuals, not only certain specific groups, these experts conclude that public opinion was the result of interaction between individual and group opinion, com-

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 11

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

11

bining both the majority view and that of the opposition. Egyptians begin to disagree when Western researchers stress that the general conceptions of freedom and democracy have a great bearing on the development of a mature public opinion. Neither is there any acceptance of the Western idea that claims that the coercive imposition of the government’s views on the public through various political stratagems could in any way be considered public opinion. Egyptians were always skeptical toward the application of theories like the spiral of silence to state-controlled efforts to gain general acceptance of Camp David Agreements. Conditions in most third world countries, they claim, make it difficult to accept the total independence of sources of information and their impact on the development of public opinion. This is due to the nature of the relationship between the information system and the political regime. Given the fact that the political system is always the stronger side of the equation, public opinion often withholds its trust from general sources of information because of the latter’s domination by the state. Among the most striking features of this relationship is that governments often finance information outlets, organize their performance, censure their output, impede or advance their dissemination of information, as well as participate in the creation of that information. The degree of this control by the state has always been conditioned by the urgency of political issues at hand. Yet, the paradox here is that the greater the dependence of the print media on state sources, the lesser the degree of public trust in its veracity and transmission of truth.20 Other problems contribute to the irrelevancy of the spiral of silence theory as an explanation of how public opinion is formed. In addition to the absence of democracy and general freedoms in most third world countries, these also suffer from a conspicuous lack of higher rates of literacy, especially cultural literacy. One outcome of this has been the spread of a sense of political fatalism among the general public, who often feel that their views matter little to the political process. Added to this are the weak economic conditions in most of these countries that impede the public from making a contribution to the formation of public opinion. Lastly, measuring changes in public opinion remains problematic in view of their particular political, social, and economic conditions. Therefore, the application of the spiral of silence theory as a means of understanding how public opinion is formed in any way other than in its broad outline remains controversial. The theory could only be utilized as one among many variables pertaining to the shaping of public opinion in the third world.21

THE ECONOMIC SUBSTRUCTURE OF JOURNALISM If there is an Arab theory of communications to counter the influence of Western theories, Egyptians find it difficult to define. What is very clear

10_303_Ch1.qxd

12

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 12

Chapter 1

to them is that most Western theories remain irrelevant to their experience. For instance, in the 1950s, three theories regarding the relationship of power between the press and the ruling authority gained currency, namely, the power, liberal, and Soviet theories. These concepts relied heavily on the philosophic foundations of democratic theory in Europe and the United States, without any regard to the social and cultural substructures that brought forth various systems of communications. The theories assumed that the concepts of freedom and social responsibility heavily influenced the liberal school of communications that developed as a result of specific cultural and economic evolution of Western societies. The Soviet theory of communications, on the other hand, was described as a non-liberal school and which included the Nazi philosophy of communications. But the nature of communications and informational theory in the third world remained unexplored.22 Even when there is an attempt to apply some of the analytical thinking that went into the development of these theories to third world countries, the result remains unconvincing. The theory of power, for instance, which explained the growth and development of British journalism beginning in the seventeenth century, has only a limited applicability to the Arab press. The theory contends that during the seventeenth century, British laws subjected the private press to government controls via censorship laws and other regulatory measures such as government permits and higher postal dues. Whereas this theory is useful in its explanation of the behavior of governments in the Arab world, it assumes that all the press is privately owned. The reality is that much of the press is government-owned in Arab countries. Neither does the liberal theory hold any relevance for it assumes the prevalence of an economically independent press capable of defending capitalist interests against the state. The Arab world not only lacks capitalist institutions, but also has yet to experience the full capitalist transformation that overtook the Western democracies. The Arab press remains unable to exercise full control due to the general impoverishment of the public and the expanding control of autocratic and authoritarian regimes.23

THE SOVIET THEORY OF COMMUNICATIONS Even the socialist or Soviet school of communications is found to be inapplicable. Although Marxist theory was limited in that regard, it was later embellished through Lenin’s various additions, leading by 1917 to the development of a theoretical framework of a socialist communications theory. According to this analysis, the main role of the media is to be the agent of ideological education and political mobilization. The same the-

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 13

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

13

ory calls for enabling all social groups and professional cadres to bring out their own papers and publications. The system of government claimed that it grants freedom of expression to all citizens and allows them the opportunity for indirect political participation as partners in decision making. This theory also cannot be applied to the Arab world because of differences in the historical development patterns that shaped socialist and Arab societies. Arab governments have always based their relationship to the press on political and economic considerations and not on ideological grounds. Arab countries still exhibit a large gap between their wealthy and poor classes, with the former in control of political power and the means to influence cultural life. In most cases, this meant that the ruling classes utilize the media for the purposes of economic development and nation building. All of this does not preclude the presence of a partisan and ideological press, whose relationship to the ruling authorities is completely different from that in Marxist countries. Arab analysts conclude that the political and constitutional advantages enjoyed by the Western print media derive partially, if not totally in some cases, from Western exploitation of the natural and human resources of the third world.24

CONTROL OVER SOURCES OF INFORMATION Government control over the Arabic press is, therefore, a phenomenon that is unmatched in the political environment of the Western press. This control is predicated upon government domination over local sources of the news, as well as the Arab media’s pervasive technological dependence on Western economic institutions and international news outlets. Throughout the Arab world, there are only eighteen government-owned news agencies that originally came into being in order to offset the monopoly of Western news agencies over Arab news. One such agency was founded during the 1956 Suez War in order to balance negative Western press images of Egypt. In countries such as Algeria, Libya, Iraq, Oman, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen, local news agencies control access to foreign sources of the news that are censored before distributing information to the local Arab press. By contrast, countries like Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates permit the media unimpeded access to foreign sources of news. However, the government in these cases maintains a tight grip on local news agencies. Lebanon is unique since it permits a combination of two systems whereby the government and the public control news agencies jointly.25 Technological dependence creates other problems such as reliance on electronic sources of specialized information, on Western news agencies

10_303_Ch1.qxd

14

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 14

Chapter 1

and on Western monopolies of print paper, printing, and photographic equipment. This would not be of concern were it not for the steady spiral of the international cost of informational material, especially the cost of print paper. Arab governments habitually use this increase in the cost of paper as a way to deny paper supplies to controversial segments of the press. There is also the problem of restricting access to sources of strategic information such as economic, commercial, and natural resources of certain areas by Western news agencies. Denying this information to the press greatly weakens Arab plans to develop accurate assessments for their development projects and weakens Arab governments during economic and strategic negotiations. Since the Arab world became an attractive investment area for European, American, and Japanese businesses after World War II, access to accurate data on the part of Arab governments and people cannot be overestimated. Most of these investing nations happen to be the home countries of major international news agencies such as Associated Press (AP), the United Press International (UPI), Reuters Agency, and Agence France Presse. A phenomenon of long-standing monopolizing the dissemination of information in the third world began as a natural corollary to the imposition of colonial rule. The first effort to establish a Western news agency in the Arab world began in 1860, when British commercial interests at Cairo, Khartoum, Aden, and Muscat called for the creation of a telegraphic network linking Britain to these Arab cities. At the same time, Reuters began the task of collecting and disseminating news in Palestine and Iraq. At the end of World War II, a French company was given exclusive control over the dissemination of foreign news in Syria and Lebanon, as well as much of North Africa. Both the AP and UPI began to compete with these Anglo-French monopolies following World War II, beginning with their operations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in 1952. It took something like the Suez crisis of 1956 to facilitate the introduction of these American agencies to territories previously monopolized by the former colonial powers. The same crisis also made room for the launching of the operation of TAAS, the Soviet news agency in the Arab world. By 1961, during the height of Soviet influence in the Middle East, the Soviets introduced NOVOSTY, another news agency that offered free services to the press through offices attached to TAAS. The two Soviet news agencies still operate in the Middle East, with the exception of Saudi Arabia. To sum up the extent of the influence wielded by these foreign agencies throughout the Arab world, it is estimated that all these countries combined receive 80 percent of their foreign news from London, Paris, and New York. At the same time it is estimated that all four of these Western news agencies disseminate only 20 to 30 percent of their news in the third world. Add to this that of the thirty-five countries lacking any international news agencies in their midst, three are in the Arab world. Fi-

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 15

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

15

nally, it should be noted that most Arab national news agencies lack their own foreign correspondents in world capitals. Thus, the dependency of most third world countries on foreign sources of the news is near total, while their need to gather local news remains largely subject to government control.26 The rise of powerful Arab television stations such as alJazeerah in Qatar and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates with their own foreign correspondents throughout the world is still an unfolding story. But their combined influence can hardly be said to rival the powerful news agencies already operating in the area.

COVERING EGYPTIAN NEWS With all the complexity surrounding the development of a strong press in Egypt, and its determined effort to emphasize the Palestine question, it is important to note that Western narratives depicting the institution of the press remain limited and out of focus. Either the Egyptian press is lumped together with the rest of the third world, thereby losing its essentialism and particularism, or it is viewed totally through the prism of the Western experience. In both cases, very little effort is made to discern the perceptions of native members of this institution, or to place the narrative in the context of recent Egyptian history. What emerges from most of these studies is an undue emphasis on censorship practices and the lack of professionalism of the Arab press in general. In a comprehensive study of the rise of the Arab press, Ami Ayalon documents the major stages of the development of the press in Egypt from its inception in the nineteenth century to the end of World War II. Early parts of his study describe government efforts to regularize its communications with the public by developing state bulletins and publications along the lines of papers developed by Napoleon’s French Expedition to Egypt. Ayalon emphasizes government’s understanding of power of the press and its manipulation by rulers such as Muhammad Ali and Khedive Ismail. He also understands how early perceptions of this nascent development were always as an instrument of modernization. The Egyptian press began to diversify in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, but the official press retained its dominance. Originating in mid-century by expatriate Lebanese editors, the private press began to play a major role in transmitting Western values, as well as laying the foundations for a newsworthy press. The private press also became the pipeline for channeling reformist ideas and political demands. But even when describing the rise of the nationalist anti-British press, he still emphasizes their linkages to official political figures, as in the case of al-Muayyad. With the dawn of the twentieth century, most papers engaged in the national battle for independence, while forces

10_303_Ch1.qxd

16

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 16

Chapter 1

opposed to its independence also utilized the press. Papers like al-Myayyad and Al-Liwaa were platforms for rising nationalist figures such as Ali Yousef, Mustafa Kamil, Muhammad Farid and Saad Zaghloul. Ayalon describes changes in the economic substructure of the press, particularly after World War I. The press proliferated until 1937 when there were 250 Arabic-language papers, as well as sixty-five foreign language publications. Political parties began to bring out their own papers in the 1920s, and literary magazines and the women’s press flourished in this so-called liberal phase of Egyptian history. Throughout this narrative, Ayalon is preoccupied with the mutual recriminations of journalists rather than with the major political issues treated by the press. Unlike Egyptian writers, Ayalon does not bring out the treatment of the Palestine question, the development of the Jewish and Zionist press, nor the evolution of the Islamic press. There are no insights into the evolution of the press syndicate, an institution of remarkable longevity. His treatment of censorship remains limited and little attention is paid to the impact of colonialist rule on the emergence of a distinctive class structure.27 When it comes to treatment of the press after the Revolution of 1952, Western publications mainly note absence of similar guarantees for a free press as existed in Western countries. The power of the state over the press is always emphasized. Egypt is said to be the primary example of the utilization of national security for the sake of muzzling the press. Governments usually plead that their public is abysmally ignorant and therefore easily open to incitement by the press. When it comes to treatment of the press during the socialist phase of recent Egyptian history, the country is presented, along with the socialist regimes of Syria, Iraq, Libya, Algeria, the Sudan, and South Yemen as a perfect example of the mobilizational nature of the press. Even during the liberalized phase of the Sadat presidency, the press is said to have been tightly controlled and prevented from criticizing broad foreign policy issues such as the Camp David Agreements. Sadat’s efforts to rein in the press ranged from legislating the parameters of admissible areas of debate to the creation of a press council capable of regulating the affairs of members of the profession. The reader learns from these accounts all about the preponderance of the executive as represented by the office of the president, but very little about the press corps itself, its diverse membership or ideological representation.28 The picture of journalism as an important angle from which to view Egypt’s history is further obscured by lumping the press of third world countries together and presenting them as a contrasting study to the story of the free press in the West. “In the Third World, objective, truthful, and comprehensive coverage of the news is difficult to achieve because the journalistic profession is regarded mainly as a government function,” a recent publication intoned.29 The press in authoritarian countries, claimed an-

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 17

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

17

other study, is controlled by the administration just as is the economy. The press is used primarily for guidance, whereas in free societies it is a forum for debate. Political parties, just like governments in the third world, use the press as a vehicle for the transmission of their own ideologies and views. In most of these countries the political potential of the press is greatly valued over their utility for the battle of progress and development. It is assumed that the Western press benefits from stable and historically evolved institutions, whereas third world journalists labor without such guarantees. In the case of some socialist governments of the third world, the press is said to be controlled by the ruling party rather than by the government itself.30 There is very little appreciation for the weight of journalism’s history in countries such as Egypt where competition with the state has always been part of the national struggle for independence and the achievement of democracy. General surveys examining freedom of the press in Arab countries could also be very deceptive. According to a recent study by Freedom House, only the media of Morocco, Jordan, and Kuwait can be classified as partly free. The study adds that with the exception of few Arab states, the media are allowed certain latitude in their discussion of major issues and benefit from a readership accustomed to reading between the lines. It is also claimed that the London-based Arabic press enjoys greater freedom and access to multiple sources of information, ignoring its general ownership by Arab governments, or as the case may be, its funding by Arab political groups.31 In an otherwise comprehensive study of the media in the Arab world, William A. Rough focuses on such important aspects of the print media as their weak economic base, lack of autonomy, heavy ideological content and their utilization as an instrument of guidance. But this is a generalized treatment that fails to stress differences in journalistic performance from one country to the next, or to emphasize the exceptionalism of the Egyptian press. Here theorization obliterates and homogenizes particularisms. Even when devising a separate section for treatment of the Egyptian press, Rough analyzes it based on the specific criteria devised for examining journalism throughout the Arab world. His conclusion is that Egyptian journalism cannot be considered a “fourth estate.” But he makes the bold statement that President Anwar Sadat maintained an ambivalent attitude toward the press that is not borne out by the facts. Indeed, Sadat knew this institution well as the head of al-Jumhuriyah during the Nasserite period, and immensely feared it, judging from his public conflict with Mohamed Hassanein Heikal.32 In another study published in a leading American scholarly journal, one author claims that the Egyptian press was off to a good start during the reign of Khedive Ismail and even flourished under the British occupation regime. He adds that

10_303_Ch1.qxd

18

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 18

Chapter 1

the institution of the press suffered a setback following the 1910 assassination of Boutrous Ghali, the Christian Prime Minister of Egypt, and continued to face harassment by authorities due mainly to royalist, rather than British, interference. The emphasis here was not only on the usual theme of government censorship of the press, but later on, on the Free Officer’s efforts to oversee the transformation of the press into a guidance and mobilizational tool.33

EGYPTIAN VIEWS ON THE STATE OF THE PRESS Egyptian experts on the state of the press, by contrast, view the development of journalism in terms of its evolution both as a craft and as a political institution. Because they do not hold Western journalism as the standard, their interest in studying this issue takes on nationalist considerations. Censorship and the history of state regulations to curb the power of this politically potent press are emphasized but in the context of the Egyptian extended quest for a national identity and total independence. When writing this narrative, they are fully conscious of the long history of Egyptian journalism and the struggle of its professional cadres to meet the expectations of its Egyptian and Arab publics. The themes emphasized differ greatly from what animates Western writers. Egyptians provide totally different views of the power of the state, the foreign press, coverage of major pan-Arab issues such as the Palestine question and the role of the press in reviving Egypt’s literary and cultural life. Ibrahim Abduh, a former chair of the Center of Journalism at Cairo University, who wrote an exhaustive study of the evolution of the Egyptian institution of the press from 1798 until 1981, analyzes the nationalist implications of the press for the entire recent history of Egypt. His insights and findings are extremely important if for no other reason than to illustrate the historical and political depth of this institution. He writes in his opening chapter that the study of the history of the press should be considered a study of the entire modern history of Egypt. Such an investigation, in his opinion, should examine the growth and development of public opinion, as well as the variety of views that reflect the complexity of this history. A study of this nature if attempted, he continues, should reveal the expansion of the entire Egyptian state system as evident in the rise of its various regimes and its elite groups, all the way from the French Expedition until the present. In order to achieve this end, one should not only examine official Arabic, Turkish, and other foreign language documents but also journals and historical accounts. Studies of Egypt’s political and intellectual life must be consulted, and not only narratives of the history of journalism. He recommends focusing on legal and constitutional studies of

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 19

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

19

Egypt, as well as the consular reports of the various powers before World War II, stating as an aside that American consuls were the least informed about the affairs of Egyptian journalism.34 Rather than just reporting on the state’s efforts to curb freedom of the press at the end of the nineteenth century, he explains that some members of the press were themselves conscious of the weaknesses of the practice of journalism. Citing press reaction to the assassination of Prime Minister Ghali, he reminds us of the inciteful language and mutual recriminations of papers such as The Egyptian Gazette, al-Liwaa, al-Muqattam, al-Muayyad and al-Wattan. This incident was a great setback for freedom of the press as the authorities scrambled to control the damage and prevent the incident from inciting a Coptic-Muslim civil war. In sketching the period before World War I, he makes the point of defining the reign of Abbas II (1892–1914) as the golden age of Egyptian journalism. It was during that era when Egyptian papers became platforms for debating major social and literary questions of the day, including displaying the literary output of the Khedive’s two protégés, the poets Ahmad Shawqi and Hafiz Ibrahim. The press was indeed a national institution, even when it stooped to the level of personal attacks, exaggerations, incitement and popular commentaries on the much-maligned Muslim institution of marriage. Upon Egypt’s complete loss of autonomy following the exiling of its leaders by British authorities after World War I, Abduh asserts that the press played a major role in comforting a bereaved nation and restoring its self-confidence. It was the press that redeemed itself by restoring the national spirit and teaching it that foreign occupation was an aberration doomed to fail. Egyptian journalists taught the public the value of resistance, all the while downplaying the importance and motivation of the occupier’s reforms. These British handouts, the press repeated, were simply the natural rights of Egyptians.35 Unlike Abduh, non-Egyptian writers glamorized the Egyptian press before 1952, presenting it as the channel for the transmittal of modernizing ideas of the monarchy, as well as the liberal reforms of Wafdist cabinet and British high commissioners. For a country lacking genuine independence, these writers often asserted, the rise of the British, French, Italian, and Greek press was indicative of an unmatched liberal and literate environment. Abduh, however, quickly reveals the dark side of this picture. He points out carefully that although the early growth of the French press was inspired by the desire of the French expedition in 1798 to channel its wishes to a limited reading public and publish the results of its researchers on the pages of Courier de l’Egypte and La D’ecade Egyptienne, the foreign press died with the departure of the French. For thirty years after that, Egypt lacked any such press until Muhammad Ali Pasha decided to extend his support in 1833 to a new paper known as Le Moniteur Egyptien.

10_303_Ch1.qxd

20

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 20

Chapter 1

But then as the various foreign communities of Egypt increased in size and the commercialization of the Egyptian economy opened the door to more immigration, each community desired its own papers and journals. Between 1846 and 1862, for instance, twelve foreign papers appeared— some for only a short while—of which nine were French and three were Italian. Abduh clarifies that this press was exempt from government regulations and the law of publications and was only required to refrain from criticizing public figures or transgressing on government rules and regulations. The foreign press expanded during the reign of Said Pasha (1854–1863) and was located mostly at Alexandria where the growth of commerce and industry required publications dealing with financial news and the movement of ships. Heavily supported by private advertisements, these papers catered also to the social and literary tastes of the resident foreign communities. Italian papers such as Lo Spettatore Egiziano and L’Eco di Egitto were popular because of their publication of pieces of European literature and news from home as well as covering the Egyptian expatriate communities. Until then, rarely did these papers discuss Egyptian political or social issues. The foreign press grew bolder with the ascension to the throne of the liberalizing Khedive Ismail (1863–1879). Shifting from commercial and financial news to political editorials, this press began to insinuate public displeasure with the ruling authorities. The heads of Cairo’s commercial houses and the country notables of Egypt were said to be in a state of near rebellion. Le Progres Egyptien, for instance, took upon itself the task of lambasting the Khedive’s Turkish advisors for abusing the loyal peasant population of Egypt. The Khedivial government often suspended the paper, which claimed the same rights as the native press. The editor of another paper, El-Nil, called for the total separation of Egypt from Ottoman Turkey, and so did L’Impartial d’Egypte. Another paper, L’ndependent, carried attacks against the Khedivial government, prompting the Chief Minister, Cherif Pasha, to persuade the French Consul to withdraw his protection from the paper and its editor. L’Egypte, which appeared at the end of Khedive Ismail’s rule, continuously targeted the Khedive, forcing editors of the official Egyptian paper al-Waqai al-Misriyyah to take up a rebuttal on its pages. The paper was finally eliminated as a result of vilifying the Muslim religion. After the removal of Khedive Ismail from power, two papers began to express strong opinions regarding the national question. One of these was La Gazette des Tribunaux, the other The Egyptian Gazette. Both engaged in opinion journalism while enjoying consular protection.36 The Arabic press, in time, began to engage these papers and express objection to maligning national personages and misrepresenting national issues, which in turn stirred up the animosity of the foreign communities. One paper, The Egyptian Gazette, came to be regarded as the official voice

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 21

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

21

of British interests in Egypt and reflected the views of the British Consul faithfully. One of its constant themes that earned it the displeasure of the Egyptian public was its innate intolerance of the Muslim religion. The Gazette described any small disturbance involving the local Christian population as a prelude to a massacre. A battle of words developed between this paper and other Egyptian journals, which sprang to the defense of the maligned Egyptian government. Egypt’s occupation by British troops in 1882 following the Uraabist Revolt led to differences between the British and French governments that soon played out on the pages of their respective Egyptian journals. Le Bosphore Egyptien campaigned strongly against British occupation, but The Egyptian Gazette lent it great support. With the development of the Egyptian national movement and the rise of Mustafa Kamil to national prominence, the foreign press fought hard against him and his paper, al-Liwaa, edited by Sheikh Ali Yousef. After World War I, the number of foreign journals in Egypt rose to 111, and included political, economic, agricultural, literary, religious, medical, legal, sports, and educational journals. These appeared in a variety of languages such as English, French, Italian, Greek, and Maltese. Abduh vividly portrays the divisive impact of the foreign press, constantly criticizing their interference in policy matters and their success in drawing on the protection of foreign consuls. Abduh also finds a special redeeming value in the fractious activities and contentious writing of the early native Egyptian press, namely its contribution to the survival of written Arabic as the language of an expanding educated public. This fact is hardly noted by the Western historical school of journalism or the functional school, both of which focusing only on the slow growth of a professional and neutral press. It should be recalled that during the nineteenth century in particular, Egypt’s ruling classes expressed themselves in a variety of languages. The occupying powers eventually forced themselves and their languages on government bureaucracies and schools, making Arabic recede to the second or third tier of official languages. In time, Turkish, the language of the court, was pushed aside by French, English, and Italian, which could have succeeded in relegating Arabic to the exchanges of the kitchen or the street. Luckily, Egypt’s national press took upon itself the task of debating national, social, and religious issues by delving into the fields of literature, science, and law, thereby changing Egyptian journalism from a dependent, minority-based press into a powerful national activity.37

CONCLUSION A close look at the historical depth and political and ideological diversity of the Egyptian press should be enough to reveal the mind and soul of

10_303_Ch1.qxd

22

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 22

Chapter 1

Egypt. The pages of the Egyptian press have always mirrored the various historical dilemmas confronting Egypt’s rulers and its public over a period of two centuries. Clearly, the newly developed press of countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, or the government-owned press of socialist regimes such as those of Syria and Libya, are incapable of reflecting the national expanse of their history in the manner in which the Egyptian press has. And yet, little recognition of this fact is present in Western studies which either indulge in great generalization about the press in all third world countries, or focus on the dissimilarities between the performance of this institution in Western and non-Western countries. For the Western democracies, the power of the fourth estate is indicative of attainment of a high level of democratic development and the phenomenon of separation of powers. For the newly emerging countries of the third world, the development of an independent or diverse press reflects the strength or weaknesses of national movements and their struggle for political and cultural independence. Having not yet attained the goal of full democracy, they see themselves engaging in a continuous struggle against native rulers and dominant foreign powers, as well as against pragmatic and idealistic political movements. The press in third world countries, or at least in Egypt as this study hopes to demonstrate, is a unique institution that is in one sense greatly more representative of the breadth and depth of public opinion than in the major democracies of the West. For one thing, no one can accuse this press of representing corporate interests, nor can it be described as being a mouthpiece for governments or foreign concerns. An examination of this press will also reveal the uselessness of theories of public opinion that exaggerate the intimidating impact of majority views on a populace anxious to remain within the national fold. Either due to the highly partisan nature of the press in developing countries or to the comparative weakness of other representative institutions such as parliaments and political parties, the press emerges as a powerful platform for the ideas and battles of nationalist ideologies. To focus only on the excessive nature of legislative and government controls will miss the point. Such an approach merely serves to validate Western preconceptions about the lack of political development in third world countries and overlooks the role of the press as a political training ground for the contestation of authority and power. The Egyptian press, which produced national luminaries such as Abdullah al-Nadim, Mustafa Kamil, and Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid in the past continues to be the platform of choice of such political figures as Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Mustafa Amin, Rifaat al-Said, and Muhammad Sid Ahmad, to name a few. Indeed, it would be difficult to separate the politician from the journalist, so much so that lines dividing the press arena from governmental halls of power often be-

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 23

Introduction: Opinion, Queen of the World

23

come hopelessly blurred. Politicians may often take their case to the pages of the Western press, but in Egypt and other third world countries, they themselves are often the professional working press. Lastly, it is curious that Western students of this aspect of development continuously fail to recognize the struggle for ownership of this institution. As has been the case of Egypt’s earlier decades of the nineteenth century, the press has always been a highly desired tool. Owning the press, and in recent years creating alternate outlets of foreign news, meant the difference between dependency and political participation. Ownership of the press becomes a significant national and cultural issue since it can determine not only how the battle for national survival is waged, but also how the battle for cultural autonomy is won. Ownership of press, of news outlets, of distribution rights, all of these make a great difference in what appears on the front page. Egyptian communications experts today in fact recognize the significance of this battle, as compared to the continuous tug of war between government and the press. Management of local and international news is one thing, but inability to access and reveal all the news is quite another matter. This is where coverage of the Palestine question becomes a perfect prism through which to examine the formation of public opinion, as well as public policy. Largely untreated by Western experts, this continuous story, which occupied the attention of the press ever since the Balfour Declaration in 1917, is a great study of who and what forces shape public opinion and how the demand for the adoption of an appropriate policy arises. The rise of the Jewish press, in its ethnic, Zionist, and religious varieties, is rarely touched upon, although there is ample evidence that it played a significant role in the heightening of Egyptian identification with the people of Palestine. The slow but steady development of official concern for the strategic security of Sinai once Jewish immigration streamed into Palestine galvanized the press. The Egyptian public was eventually subjected to the informational campaign of the Arab League of States as well, which not only defined the need to arrive at a unified informational policy but also viewed information as an important weapon in the Arab national struggle against Israel. Thus, coverage of the Palestine question was not only the subject of concern for pundits, ideologues, and professional press cadres, it was also a matter of importance to governments and Arab information ministers. Who determines the broad outline of Egypt’s Palestine policies as it confronts not only the major powers but also the large Arab constituency of its Arabic press provides great insight into the nature of this institution. More importantly, if viewed in context, coverage of the Palestine question may reveal the extent of official commitment to the restoration of the political rights of the people of Palestine, which remains at the core of one of the most enduring conflicts in this region.

10_303_Ch1.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 24

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 25

2 E

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

E

gyptian ambivalence toward the press began early. Recognizing its powerful impact on political life and its contentious proclivity toward engaging in the raging ideological battles of the day, some have called for restraining it and containing its effect. Following the assassination of Egypt’s premier, Boutrous Ghali, the first official effort to muzzle the press occurred and was justified as a security measure against the possibility of inciting a civil war. Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad, Egypt’s foremost man of letters, claimed on that occasion that freedom of the press was misunderstood and mishandled. He recommended following a course halfway in between fascist and American practices. The first, he contended, banned the expression of independent, non-governmental opinion, while the second permitted anyone who was financially able to establish a paper free from government control and regulations. Others like the renowned socialist philosopher and writer Salamah Musa felt that government censorship of the press was particularly stiff, particularly where socialist publications were concerned.1

THE CULTURAL ACHIEVEMENT OF THE PRESS How did the press develop in the beginning? What was the state of the press during Egypt’s liberal age, which stretched from the Revolution of 1919 until the Revolution of 1952? What motivated its stalwarts to devote pages to the rising Zionist threat in Palestine, as well as to play a significant role in the literary renaissance of the Arabic language If Gamal Abd al-Nasser is 25

10_303_Ch2.qxd

26

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 26

Chapter 2

credited with placing Egypt at the head of the pan-Arabist movement, other generations must be recognized for resurrecting the cultural underpinnings of that movement. The Arabization of Egypt, wrote one author, changed from the national task of the bourgeoisie to that of the socialist classes. It is possible to argue in that context that the struggle to establish the prominent contours of the modern Egyptian identity began at the end of the eighteenth century and spanned a century and a half. The process began with Muhammad Ali’s push to establish better lines of communications with his subjects by reviving traditional Arabic, the language used in the official gazette, alWaqai al-Misriyyah. The movement to transform Arabic into the official language took great leaps forward in the hands of Sheikh Rifaat Rafi al-Tahtawi, the man chosen by Muhammad Ali to direct the education of Egypt’s future administrators and teachers. A student of al-Sheikh Hassan ibn-Muhammad al-Attar, who lived through the French cultural invasion of Egypt and in alJabarti’s history, Tahtawi revived the language while at the same time spearheading a state-supported translation movement. He challenged Arabic to cast aside its rigidity in order to express the essence of the new sciences and modern concepts. Khedive Said established Arabic as the official language of the state, displacing Turkish, but the ruling class continued to speak in an Arabic-Turkish argot, expressing a mixed Arab-Turkish-Western worldview. But members of the new educated class, like Ali Mubarak, devoted their careers to organizing a system of native education and the development of a malleable style of writing best suited for the production of historical, geographic, and social works. Not only did he edit al-Waqai, he also created a distinguished journal, Rawdhat al-Madares, documenting scientific and literary trends. The opening of the country’s first Consultative Assembly under Khedive Ismail not only declared public education to be the state’s primary duty, it was also accompanied by the publication of a privately owned paper, Wadi al-Nil. At that time, the foreign press was beginning to give voice to the European expatriate communities and spread the influence of languages such as Italian, French, Greek, and English. By 1868, a special society, Jamiyat al-Maaref, was founded for the purpose of educating the public through a concerted effort to undertake programs of writing and publishing. Printing heritage books was only one aspect of this effort, the rest being devoted to the production of historical and literary works. A special school dedicated to the education of Egypt’s future teachers, Dar al-Ulum, was established in 1871. Its curriculum was centered on the modernization of literary and scientific studies and the revival of Islamic history as a means of bolstering the Arab identity. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Egyptian national identity began to emerge, distinguishing a citizen of the land from its Turkish rulers and European privileged communities. The Egyptian identity, thus, began as a political identity of the Arab population. As Hussein Fawzi has written, all Egyptians were one of two things: Either

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 27

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

27

a Muslim who strongly adhered to the Islamic bond, or a Christian who strongly adhered to the bond of language and heritage, which united him with all Arabic-speaking people. Tahtawi began this trend by writing about the homeland and about nationalism, hitherto purely Western concepts. Ali Mubarak used the term “citizen” or “national” as a way of separating natives from foreigners, while Ahmad Uraabi used the term “Egyptian nation.” Muhammad Abduh, exalting the concept of the homeland as the base on which political life rested and the place where rights and obligations were anchored, cast the homeland in a political mold, thereby exceeding Tahtawi’s efforts at literary revival. Abdullah al-Nadim, great journalist and public hero, often repeated that what united Egyptians was the nationalism bond. All of these pioneered the revival of the Arabic language and culture as the necessary support foundation of the Egyptian national identity. As often in these cases, Egyptian, Arab, and Islamic trends were intermingled, making it difficult to rely on definitive labels. Jamal al-Din Afghani, for one, often appeared to encourage Arabic trends even when espousing and promoting a pan-Islamist ideology. It was reported that he frequently alluded to the fact that what united Egyptians was their nationalist bond. When asked by his followers to transform his sessions into a Sufi séance in order to achieve annihilating the self into the divine, he replied that the only annihilation he understood was to unite with the creatures of the divine. Abduh, similarly, described the state as the suspended ladder to which we cling, for to fall from it would make Muslims like the Jews. The emphasis on Arabic writing did not go unnoticed in other parts of the Arab world. Muhammad Faris al Shidyaq, a noted Lebanese satirist and writer praised Egypt’s pioneering role in developing and exporting new Arab areas of learning and inventing new terminology. He also pointed to the role of Syrian expatriates in the revival project, mentioning such names as Adib Ishaq. Pan-Arabism as a cultural bond, thus, preceded the political ideology of pan-Arabism. Down to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the intellectual movement in Egypt moved in parallel motion with that of the Syrian province of the Ottoman Empire, with Cairo and Beirut experiencing similar activities.2 The revival of Arabic generated serious debates among those favoring a return to classic forms and style and those who desired a simplification of the old forms. In the phase known as the Arab renaissance, al-Nahdha, Sami Baroudi popularized the classic poetry of Abu-Nuwwas, Abu Tammam, Ibn al-Rumi and al-Mutanabi. But Abduh led an opposing drive to reform the language and purge it from outmoded forms such as colloquial terms and borrowings from other tongues. Yet, journalists anxious to move the public to action such as Al-Nadim and Yaaqub Sanuu (Abu Naddhara) deliberately favored the use of the colloquial over that of classical Arabic. AlNadim, in his journal, al-Tankeet wa al-Tabkeet—later al-Lattaaif during the Uraabist revolt—and Sanuu in Abu Naddhara Zarqa wrote in everyday

10_303_Ch2.qxd

28

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 28

Chapter 2

language while still advocating the Arabic language, al-Nadim, having been accustomed to writing in classical Arabic, current Arabic and colloquial Arabic alike. It was the press that led to the development and modernization of Arabic, serving as the vehicle for the transmission of the revived language and simplifying its use. The papers provided channels for publishing translated Western stories, which introduced values of modernization and democracy. One of Tahtawi’s students, Abdullah Abu alSuud, who also served on the faculty of Dar al-Ulum, popularized this genre, which later appeared on the pages of his journal Wadi al-Nil. When Egyptians began to write their own novels, they serialized them first on the pages of papers since most of these stories had a moral objective in mind. Among the first native Egyptian novels by Muhammad Hussein Haikel, namely, Zeinab, explored the values of village families and was written in an Egyptian-style Arabic. Hafiz Ibrahim wrote Layali Sateeh, which was his autobiography and entrusted it to the press, thereby assuring the use of written Arabic in the writing of daily journals.3

THE PRESS DEFINES NATIONALISM By the twentieth century, political parties used the daily press as an extension of their political battles. Among the papers that openly expressed the viewpoint of a specific party were al-Jaridah of al-Ummah party, alMuayyad of the Islah party, and al Liwaa of al-Wattani party. In 1892, al Nadim began issuing al-Ustath, which targeted the foreign occupation regime and called for a purely Egyptian form of nationalism. But he, too, stressed that to lose the language equaled losing one’s self, repeating that Arabic was the first bond uniting all citizens of Egypt. Ahmad Lutfi al Sayyid who represented al-Ummah and strongly opposed the ideology of pan-Islam, labeling it a colonialist ideology, also authored a book on Arab tribes in Egypt. There he argued against the Pharaonic or any other identity save that of the Egyptian, claiming that the only literature Egyptians identify with was that of the Arabs. Even those who tried to resurrect the Pharaonic character of Egypt declined to attack Arabism. Labels fail to properly identify the parties as being captive to any ideology when it is remembered that even such leading Coptic personalities as Wisa Wasef and Murqus Hanna participated in the founding of the so-called pan-Islamist al-Wattani party. It can be argued that the Copts supported the idea of an independent Egyptian nationalism at least in the areas of language and culture. It should also be noted that their acceptance of the Arabic culture was at a slower pace than that of Muslim Egyptians. Clearly, class differences accelerated or slowed the acceptance of Arabic, with the educated elite and those in the commercial and industrial sectors more open

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 29

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

29

to the spread of European culture. Aristocratic and bourgeois youth continued to cling to the French language, even in their daily speech. But the vast majority of the rising Egyptian middle class resorted to Arabic as the badge of their Egyptian political identity. This same class led to the finest expression of Egyptian nationalism in the form of the Revolt of 1919, which seemingly took Egypt on a separate course from that of other Arab countries. But even the 1919 generation maintained a strong faith in the unity of Egypt and the Sudan, two sides of the Nile valley which were united not only by religion but also by language. Egypt strayed from the course of political pan-Arabism, but under the Wafd regime and others, Arabic culture and language thrived. It was as though this revolution stopped at mid-stream rather than fulfill its promised dream. But even in the middle of Arab isolationism, some members of the rising Egyptian nationalist bourgeoisie felt the pull of Arab nationalism in its wider form.4

MAKRAM UBAYD AND ARABISM Makram Ubayd, leading Wafdist statesman and later the founder of al-Kuttlah al-Saadiyah, a splinter party, was known to honor Egypt’s ties to its wider Arab political heritage. In most instances, he used the press to advance his emphasis on the uniting value of the Arabic tongue. When visiting Palestine in 1931, he was greeted with the statement that all Palestinians were Wafdists, and that the only non-Wafdists were found in Egypt.5 Greatly admired by the founder of the first Palestinian Liberation Organization, Ahmad Shuqairy, Ubayd delivered a memorable oration during that visit, not surprisingly stressing the common bonds of culture and language. He said: We are Arabs and should always remember in these days that we are Arabs, united in our common hopes and pain, tied to each other by our tragedies and suffering, welded together by the forces of injustice and world calamities. . . . We are equally Arab in the current struggle waged by each Arab country for the sake of attaining freedom and resurrecting the glory of Arab civilization. . . . Therefore, we must work cooperatively, seeking glory together, strengthening Arab unity, which can only be accomplished by sharing our common hopes and pain, sharing the same history, language and national characteristics. . . . This is because Arab nationalism is a fact, an existing fact in need of organizing so that a front to the struggle against colonialism is formed, to preserve nationalities, provide abundance, develop economic resources and encourage local production.6

During the same visit, he also delivered memorable lines in Syria, which appeared in the Lebanese paper Zahleh al-Fatah on August 29, 1931. Speaking without a prepared text, the Coptic statesman who dazzled

10_303_Ch2.qxd

30

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 30

Chapter 2

Egyptians earlier with his fine Arabic oratory, asserted that what united Egypt and the rest of the Arab countries were the common bonds of Arabic (referred to by Arabs as Lughat al-dhadh) with which history privileged the Arabs and no one else. These were the bonds of the past, he said, but is it not true that Egypt and the Arab countries in the past taught civilization to the earliest forms of humanity? Is it not true that all of humanity’s history was but the result of what your soil and our soil brought forth as the early fruits and eternal thought? Then he moved to the present referring to their common pain and constant struggle, and then to the future, suggesting that Egypt and the Arabs have no choice but to achieve a free life and victory over defeat. Ubayd’s symbolic allusion to the common grandeur of the history of the two areas was only the opening salvo. He followed with precise reference as to what was the common heritage of Egypt and the Arabs. He said that what startled him was the manner in which Syrian crowds expressed enthusiasm precisely as the Egyptians. Even the Syrians’ words and symbols were the same, applauding Egypt, the Wafd, Saad Zaghloul, and his successor exactly as if they were an Egyptian crowd. Perhaps, he added, Egypt’s glory had extended to other lands. What was that sacred meaning that moved Arab and Egyptian crowds to express themselves with the same sentiment, the same idea, the same language? It could not have been freedom, or nationalism alone, or social and political factors generated by World War I, after the Eastern and Arab worlds experienced the spilling of blood for the sake of others. He concluded that all these combined created in the Eastern heart a revolution greater in intensity than the French Revolution. He oscillated unconsciously between reference to Arab nations or to people of the East, reflecting the common Egyptian view in those days of a vast Eastern world that was inclusive of the Arabs. He said that those who accused us people of the East, of fanaticism, did not understand that this did not imply hating others, it was simply fanaticism in maintaining our faith. His speech continued to refer to the resurgence of the East, sometimes singling Syria for specific mention.7 Others, like Lufti al-Sayyid, recognized the intermeshing of the Arab idea with other, perhaps more Egyptian-rooted, identities. Remembered for his famous utterance: “We are Egypt’s Pharaohs and we are Egypt’s Arabs and we are Egypt’s Mamluks and Turks, we are forever Egyptians,” al-Sayyid seemed to capture Egypt’s historical mosaic perfectly. Yet Egypt remained Arab and continued to be part of the Arab nation, with the language of the Arabs its links to the wider Arab world. Egypt’s literary contribution to this identity towered over the works of other Arabs, with masters such as Tahtawi, Hafni Naseef, Abduh, Taha Hussein, Hafiz Ibrahim, and Ahmad Shawqi sometimes doubling as journalists and men of letters. The Revolution of 1952 emphasized the political strand of pan-Arabism and belittled the previous literary and cultural battles to wrest an Arab identity from the mix of na-

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 31

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

31

tionalities. But thoughtful Egyptians refused to see a contradiction between Egyptian nationalism and membership in the Arab nation.8 Makram Ubayd continued to stress Egypt’s Arabism on the pages of its journals. As late as 1939, he was still debating against the isolationist and Pharaonic trend on the pages of the literary journal, al-Hilal. No better vehicle could have served to disseminate his elaboration on the concept of Arabism among Egypt’s educated elite. Owned and directed by Jurji Zeidan in 1892, this monthly journal expressed no religious views and was part of the prominent effort of the Christian expatriate Syrian community. Al-Hilal contained a lot of translations of Western and world classics but its founder was best remembered for his historical romances that evoked the glories of past Arab empires. Introducing the reading public to modern values and discoveries, al-Hilal was also viewed as a primary participant in the Arab, Islamic, and Pharaonic debate that gripped Egypt during the 1920s and 1930s.9 In an article titled “Egyptians are Arabs,” which appeared in al-Hilal, Zeidan began by asserting that Egyptians were Arabs because they arrived from Asia and because they resembled Arabs the most in terms of color, language, Semitic traits and nationalism. Egyptians and Arabs were united in their spirit of resistance against enslavement by an armed colonial power, and were therefore brothers on the basis of shared calamities among nations joined by the linguistic tie, traditions, and sociopolitical characteristics. Arab history was a chain linked by language and culture of the Arabs. He claimed over and over again that Arab unity could only be achieved by the strengthening of the historical and linguistic aspects of nationalism. Years before the Arab League of States gave institutional expression to the idea of Arab unification, Ubayd seemed to be advocating the need to create a similar structure. Arab unity was an existing reality, he wrote, and would lead in time to the creation of a single homeland from which several would branch out, each with its own distinctive features. This led to his theory of coordinated or harmonious nationalities in which he suggested that a man could live for himself, his family, his region, and at the same time devote himself to his homeland and other lands to which he was attached.10 The press was conveniently situated to engage in other heated debates, such as the value of using colloquial Arabic over confinement to the classical language. The debate resonated with the general public until recently, with members of the al-Azhar’s professoriate arguing strongly in favor of the unifying virtue of classical Arabic.11

THE BEGINNING OF INTELLECTUAL LIBERALISM AND THE PRESS Intellectual liberalism with its proclivity toward borrowing from Western and modernizing thought originated from two directions. First came the

10_303_Ch2.qxd

32

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 32

Chapter 2

Azharit and Islamic modernizers like Tahtawi with his interest in creating a rational educational system, then Sheikh Hussein al-Mursifi and later Afghani and Abduh. All used the press and other publications to present new ideas and foster new identities and loyalties. With the exception of Afghani, this school advocated nationalism and democracy, seeking to bolster an Egyptian identity that objected to any form of outside intervention, even that of Turkey. But the overall objective was to remain Islamic in order to meet the opposition of doubters and opponents alike. Muslims were said to be the most suited to propose the progressive message of liberalism. The second wave came to Egypt fleeing the Ottoman mistreatment of the Christians of the Syrian province. British authorities in Egypt provided relative security and open environment from which to propagate their version of liberalism and progress. The British expected a certain restraint that pitted the Syrians, especially publishers of major papers, against Egyptian nationalists. According to some analysts, this liberalism exalted individual freedom but ignored freedom of the homeland, thereby a lame liberalism developed. The Islamic liberal trend, on the other hand, became progressively less tolerant of individual freedoms as it focused on attaining freedom for the motherland. Political liberalism developed in the latter part of the nineteenth century and became the main ideology of two opposing groups: The Wattani party of Mustafa Kamil and Muhammad Farid, and the Ummah party of Ahmad Lutfi alSayyid and Muhammad Hussein Heikal. Strangely, the more liberal of the two, al-Ummah, was the least enthusiastic in the anticolonial struggle. Believing this to be a battle of long duration, which cannot be fought without preparing the Egyptian masses through education and consciousnessraising, al-Ummah’s leadership ignored the masses and allied itself with large landowners and industrialists. The Wafd party, however, emerged as the main representative of the political liberalist school, which fought for the cause of an independent Egypt fiercely. Yet the Wafd and its leader Saad Zaghloul, who symbolized national freedom, were not overly concerned with freedom of the individual. Either unprepared to enter battles in freedom of opinion cases or they simply viewed these as distractions from the main task of political liberation, Zaghloul paid little if any attention to efforts to suppress radical publications such as Taha Hussein’s Fi al-Shiir al-Jahili or Ali Abd al-Raziq’s Al-Islam wa Usul al-Hukm. The Syrian publishers and writers continued to praise individual liberties, rationalism, science, and intellectual freedoms as long as the colonial regime was untouched—a classic case of separating individual liberty from national liberation.12 Freedom of the press, naturally, was one of the recognized attributes of liberalism. In the case of Egypt, the rise of the popular press coincided with the country’s first experiment with constitutional government, when Khedive Ismail allowed for the creation of a consultative assem-

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 33

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

33

bly in 1866. The Khedive feared the direction of the new body and the possibility of misunderstanding its powers, realizing that the official, government press was incapable or ill-suited to play mouthpiece and drill master to the new assembly, made up mostly of the country’s notables. Thus, he instigated the formation of a privately owned paper to channel the ideas and the needs of the assembly to Abu al-Suud Effendi, who began publishing Wadi al-Nil. Abdullah abu Al-Suud, was evidently the principal of al-Madrassah al-Kulliyah, established by Muhammad Ali in Cairo. Referred to often as Egypt’s first Arabiclanguage private paper, Wadi al-Nil remained a newsworthy paper, appearing twice weekly, using a refined linguistic standard that covered political and literary issues but cleared as far as it could away from religion. The paper, in other words, performed exactly according to the Khedive’s wishes. Privately owned by a government employee who was a protégé of Tahtawi, the paper’s inauguration was even recorded in al-Waqaii. Wadi al-Nil also mimicked al-Waqaii’s style, focusing on reporting news of all that mattered of the Khedive’s news and those of his aides. Its presses at Bab al-Shaariyah also printed the official paper of the Egyptian armed forces, Rawdhat al-Akhbar. The latter, published by Muhammad Unsi, Abu al-Suud’s son, specialized in political, scientific, literary, agricultural and commercial journalism along the lines of al-Waqaii. Abdullah Abu al-Suud produced a paper that was truly transnational, often branching into debating what Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq wrote in al-Jawaib, based in Constantinople and considered the premier Arabic Journal of its day. By 1869, two Egyptians, Ibrahim al-Muwaylihi and Othman Jalal briefly produced a weekly journal, Nuzhat al-Afkar, which was seized by the Khedival authorities after only two issues. In the meantime, Khedive Ismail befriended Syrian journalists and allowed them to operate in Egypt. This influential group of journalists also produced remarkably popular papers and was often capable of defending Egypt’s national interests in foreign circles. The presence of these Syrian expatriates in Egypt, if anything, demonstrated how far Egypt had advanced in the area of freedom of the press compared to Constantinople. By 1875, Selim Teqla, a Syrian, petitioned for the establishment of a publishing house at Alexandria, for the printing of a paper called al-Ahram, claiming that it will be devoted to commercial and scientific news, some articles regarding linguistics and grammar, medicine, mathematics, historical discussions, and literary material. The authorities approved the petition as long as the editor refrained from intervening in politics and pledged to observe press regulations. Al-Ahram turned out to be positively inclined toward France and its news and at least at the beginning displaying its impatience with British policies. But al-Ahram soon excelled in its coverage of foreign, telegraphic news and in attracting literary figures to its pages, such as Muhammad Abduh.13

10_303_Ch2.qxd

34

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 34

Chapter 2

THE NATIONALIST ROLE OF THE POPULAR PRESS A number of papers rose and fell during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, some with unusual rapidity. The popular press increased in its political influence and began to excel in opinion journalism. Its influence over public opinion increased, especially during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, which involved Egypt’s suzerain, as well as a large number of European states. Much was at stake, particularly as Egypt’s foreign press exaggerated the poor military performance of Ottoman soldiers. The war was also an occasion to educate the public regarding policies and features of the various participating states. The presence of Afghani in Egypt during that time heightened the interest of the press in exploring new ideas and expressing independent views. Yaaqub Sanuu was encouraged to publish Abu Naddhara, Egypt’s oldest humorous journal, while Adib Ihsaq was inspired to publish Misr. Afghani was also credited with helping in obtaining a license for another important paper, Miraat al-Sharq, the voice of al-Wattani party during the last years of Ismail’s reign. The paper was published by the Syrian Selim Anhouri but passed to Ibrahim al-Laqqani and benefited from the editorial and translation efforts of such accomplished writers as Iskander Nahhas and Said Bustani. Sheikh Muhammad Abduh and Sheikh Ali Yousef were frequent contributors. Afghani chose this paper to publish some of his memorable articles, such as his discussion titled “The Varieties of Oriental Governments,” and “The English and Afghan Creative Spirit.” Often writing under the pseudonym of “Mathar ibn Wadhah,” Afghani favored Miraat al-Sharq with some of his most anti-English and scathing articles. Afghani’s influence was seen behind the rise of two other papers, al-Wattan and al-Tijareh.14 The popular press, most of which supported the Wattani party, received its first jolt when the newly appointed British-French-Egyptian cabinet, dominated by Rivers Wilson, established a receivership over Egypt in 1878 to deal with Egypt’s public debt. The new cabinet issued a warning to all journals to refrain from directing unwarranted criticism, prompting much of the press to indulge in exposing the evils of Ismail’s regime. AlWattan, founded a year earlier by Mikhail Abd al-Sayyid and edited by Girgis Milad, praised the government of Boghus Nubar Pasha as a new responsible cabinet concerned with fiscal management and the collection of taxes. The previous government, al-Wattan wrote, imposed unjust taxes. This note of praise was also sounded by al-Ahram. The popular press began slowly to protest some actions of the mixed cabinet soon after. Al-Wattan criticized new hiring policies that sought to replace educated Egyptians with British and French officials. The press also raised the issue of ministerial responsibility, asking for a return to some system of consultation as in the past. Wilson’s policy of collecting back taxes from

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 35

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

35

the downtrodden Egyptian peasants, often forcing the sale of lands and animals in order to come up with the money, came in for harsh editorials. Suffering repeated warnings and temporary suspension, the press continued with the encouragement of the new consultative assembly, calling on its members to uphold the rights of Egypt’s oppressed peasantry and force the European members of government to submit themselves to taxation laws. Among the outspoken critics of the new cabinet was al-Tijareh, another example of the popular press, which took on Wilson repeatedly, only to suffer numerous suspensions. The paper remained defiant, writing as it faced its suspension orders on February 13, 1879, that the love of country was a religion and struggling in its defense was a jihad. Al-Tijareh, which opened its pages to Afghani’s disciples in the past, was also heavily involved in inciting the public, especially the traditional business class, by calling for the removal of the onerous economic measures of European-dominated cabinets. Calls for the fall of the cabinet of Nubar Pasha were heard from mosques and meetings instigated by members of the press, the latter eventually taking much credit for the appointment of Cherif Pasha.15 The popular press emerged triumphant after its first confrontation with the European-dominated cabinet of Nubar Pasha. The press argued successfully against placing the public debt on the shoulders of the suffering peasantry and encouraged Khedive Ismail to act courageously in the face of this foreign and exploitative control of the management of Egypt. It was evident that the popular press was reaching restless elements of the Egyptian armed forces that recognized and resented Egypt’s apparent loss of autonomy. The Khedive conceded that the press, his allies in the battle against foreign colonial control, had made the Egyptians a nation (ummah). Newly empowered papers like al-Tijareh waged a campaign against journals allied with the foreign regime and criticized the existence of two separate publications’ bureaus, one to oversee the foreign press, the other to manage the native press. Al-Wattan went as far as to call for the release of the conscripted army in order to devote themselves to agriculture, meanwhile assuring the public that Egypt’s security was guaranteed by the British and the French. But while most of the popular press was heavily involved in political discussion and verbal attacks on the foreign press, particularly against La Reforme, which belittled the veracity of Egyptian public opinion, Miraat al-Sharq continued to cover wider social and political issues. It described at length in some articles the rise of socialist and nihilist trends in Czarist Russia, explaining that despotism gave rise to these aberrations. The paper repeatedly lambasted the class of Egyptians who wallowed in riches, ignoring the interests of their society, often linking this economic abuse to the licentious behavior of the princes and those in position of power. Upon the removal and exile of Khedive Ismail in June of

10_303_Ch2.qxd

36

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 36

Chapter 2

1879, the popular press expressed joy. Al-Wattan cited his high-handed rule and the irresponsibility of the notables and deputies during his reign. As for Miraat al-Sharq, the entire reign of Ismail was reassessed in a series of articles, which praised his early promising years but criticized entrusting his government in later years to corrupt and dissolute individuals. The new Khedive, Tawfiq, was praised and entreated to choose good men for his entourage and to banish “the wolves” from government. Tawfiq was beseeched to spread knowledge of freedom. The first phase of the popular press, thus, must be credited with great achievements. Although encouraged by Khedive Ismail, who often bestowed his largesse on selected journals, the press proved itself independent of mind and heavy with a nationalist spirit. Inspired by the efforts of Afghani who resided in Egypt at the time, the press became a keen observer of internal and external politics, focusing on developments in the Russo-Turkish War and raising its voice in defense of all that was Egyptian and democratic. Various papers championed the rights of the peasants but also became involved in examining and debating economic and constitutional issues, at one time clamoring for the establishment of a national bank. During Muhammad Ali’s years, the idea of a national bank was a subject of official discussion but never involved the bourgeoisie. The press adopted the idea not only seeking a debt payment institution but also as a means of building a populous economic foundation with which to uphold Egyptian freedom and independence. The press also called for the establishment of charitable institutions to provide the public with free education. By the end of Ismail’s reign, Misr alFatah came into being as a new political group and began to operate night classes, enlist young people in a literary campaign that was publicized in the papers. The popular press also maintained correspondents in the provinces who reported news of the interior by mail or telegraph. Reporting the news was only part of the paper’s coverage. A clear effort was made to imitate Western journals by devoting a section in the journal to translations of Western classics or serializing Arabic histories of Egypt like that of al-Jabarti. Remarkably, the press at this time rarely exhibited any signs of religious fanaticism and supported the secular tendencies of the nationalist movement. Yet, the press was hardly united, suffering from competition by the Syrian-dominated papers and the attachment of some journals to the Italian, French, or Russian consulates as a source of foreign news. The popular press, however, managed to expand the number of privately owned printing establishments. Abdullah Abu al-Saud built the Wadi al-Nil printing house and owners of al-Ahram founded another one in 1875. The latter grew until it became the largest in Egypt. Afghani helped Adib Ishaq to found his own presses, and papers thrived throughout Egypt.16

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 37

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

37

THE URAABIST PERIOD The popular press underwent another revival during the reign of Khedive Tawfiq and the Uraabist Revolution. Feeling the weight of European pressure on the government and the economy, as well as the Ottoman Government’s reluctance to issue a Firman supporting the succession of the young Khedive to Egypt’s vacated throne, the popular press rallied around its native ruler. For the first time in Egypt’s history, Khedive was accepted as an Egyptian nationalist, his government described as patriotic, and he was absolved of any Turkish attachments. But the honeymoon lasted only until Tawfiq was made to recognize his indebtedness to the British and the French, becoming progressively closer to their respective Egyptian consulates. The Khedive then veered away from Cherif Pasha’s experiment in progressive constitutionalism, imposing a system of censorship by December of 1879. This was followed by the expulsion of Afghani, previously befriended by Khedive, upon Britain’s behest. The press was forced to report Afghani’s exile in the government version of things, claiming that he stood accused of organizing secret societies for the corruption and mental seduction of Egypt’s youths. It was said that he was removed to Suez, and from Suez to the Hijaz on the other side of the Red Sea. This move forced the popular press to suppress its own views on the matter, except for Miraat al-Sharq, which ignored the story completely, taking that occasion as an excuse to praise Afghani’s work and life. The government responded by closing the paper for five months. The government of Riadh Pasha, which succeeded to office and fell under the thumb of the foreign consuls, punished the press severely. A dual system of censorship was invented, enabling a British and French representative to oversee the conduct of the cabinet and the press and to focus on financial matters. The two were excluded from the purview of Egyptian authorities and were answerable only to their own governments. The first paper to suffer suppression was Misr al-Fatah, a journal born in the last days of Ismail’s rule. Considered a voice of the opposition, it received the vocal support of Miraat al-Sharq and attracted considerable attention from the European journals, especially the Times, which described it as the voice of the party by the same name resembling the Ottoman party Turkia al-Fatah. Muhammad Abduh claimed in his contemporary works that the party included prominent Jewish members and European papers outside of Egypt feared its adoption of the French Revolutionary motto of liberty, fraternity and equality. Misr al-Fatah and al-Wattan feuded over the former’s steady attacks against the system of dual censorship, which eventually led to its permanent suspension. The same fate met Adib Ishaq’s two journals, Misr and al-Tijareh. The government of Riyadh Pasha then

10_303_Ch2.qxd

38

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 38

Chapter 2

suspended al-Mahrouseh because of its repeated reference to the foreign communities and their exemption from taxation. Several Egyptian papers published outside of Egypt, such as Abu-Naddhara, al-Nahleh, Abi-Safarrah, al-Qahirah and al-Sharq were prevented from entering the country. These suppressive measures became the prelude to the general agitation leading to the Uraabist Revolution since the general population lacked the means of expressing its frustrations legally and openly. Secret leaflets, authorship unknown, began to appear on the streets. One particular handout numbered over twenty thousand copies and lambasted the politicians, loss of control over national development and the avarice of foreign financers. These events combined with the restlessness of the armed forces resulted in the resignation of Riadh’s cabinet and the return of Cherif Pasha to power, promising the full restoration of constitutional life. By that time, the Uraabist Revolution was in full swing. Lord Cromer, Egypt’s eventual British High Commissioner, referred in his two-volume study, Modern Egypt (1908), to the role of the press at this juncture as inciting the public against the Europeans in general and even against their religion. The Egyptian government repeatedly warned the press against sharply attacking foreign powers and Egypt’s foreign communities by reminding them of Egypt’s delicate international position. Egyptian journals, however, denied engaging in any religious incitement, claiming that it mattered little if the cabinet was headed by a Christian or a Muslim. Only a new journal, al-Hijaz, founded in 1881 by Siraj Ibrahim al-Madani, continued with its vitriolic verbal attack against foreign powers until its suspension soon thereafter. But the majority of the popular press continued with its criticism of the uneven system of taxation favoring the Europeans, and its demand for the return to a parliamentary life and the expansion of educational opportunities for Egypt’s youths. Nearing 1,325 in number, European employees of the Khedival government enjoyed higher salaries than the Egyptians and a variety of economic privileges. Leading this campaign was a new paper, al-Mufid, that published rousing nationalist discussions on the subjects of liberty and independence throughout 1881. These onslaughts elicited a mixed response from the Egyptian authorities, which adopted repressive and permissive measures in order to please nationalists and foreigners alike. This treatment did not go unnoticed by other papers, such as al-Mahrouseh, which praised al-Mufid’s publishers as men of enlightened thinking and moderate disposition. In the midst of all this, Khedive managed to sponsor the publication of a weekly journal at Alexandria by the name of al-Burhan, the publisher of which, Sheikh Hamzeh Fathallah, repeatedly and openly boasted of being the voice of the palace. A perfect example of the Egyptian reactionary trend, Fathallah argued strongly against the principle of shura, or consultation, with the exception of its application by Caliph Omar. When the

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 39

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

39

House of Deputies reopened at the end of 1881, Adib Ishaq, who had recently returned from exile, wrote a long article in al-Masri praising the new constitutional experiment. Writing in the name of al-Wattani party, Ishaq spared no invectives when describing reactionaries like Fathallah.17

THE POWERS AND THE UNBRIDLED PRESS Once constitutional life was restored, the British and the French governments, acting through their consuls, addressed a joint memorandum to Khedive in order to express their concerns. The main objection of the powers was parliament’s budgetary debates, since according to their views, Egyptian deputies lacked any skills in that regard. The popular press responded with disgust, leading to a genuine crisis, with the cabinet favoring the consuls’ position and later forced to resign after a deadlock with the deputies. Al-Mahrouseh led the attack reminding the European powers that since the Khedive and the deputies acknowledged the public debt, there was no fear of reneging on payments. Meanwhile, the leading British paper in Egypt, the Egyptian Gazette took up the debate, accusing Egyptian papers of anti-Christian bias. Leading papers in London and Paris also became critical of the deputies’ competence to deal with fiscal matters, relying mainly on stories by Reuters’ representatives in Egypt, which along with other European news agencies, regularly submitted to the censorship of the British Consulate and the British Censor. The popular press stood solidly by Uraabi when the officers revolted in 1882, openly siding with his demands. Some of the more passionate press went to the extreme of leveling its attacks against Khedive and his family. AlMufid turned out to be among the most ardent supporters of the revolution, openly admiring the Egyptian peasant whom it described as a landlord forced to act as a slave and the head of the house forced to play the servant’s role. Part of its anti-European campaign was also directed at Syrians in government positions, calling for their removal. Thus, European pressure created several fissures among the ranks of the press that lacked the ability to mount any cohesive or united campaign. Only alMahrouseh among the Syrian press called for calm, to no avail. Selim Naqqash defended his paper against al-Mufid’s attacks, claiming that alMahrouseh’s pro-French line never exceeded the boundaries of admiration for French culture and civilization. However, al-Mufid’s attacks against Egyptianized Syrians and their papers persisted, almost diverting the nation’s attention from abuses by the European expatriate communities. Many Syrians began to return to their original birthplace, which caused the official Uraabist paper, al-Taif to lament the departure of this “friendly community.” The Revolution and its men, however, turned to be more

10_303_Ch2.qxd

40

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 40

Chapter 2

menacing toward the press than the government itself. Some journalists hired by some of the more sensationalist papers, fearing reprisals, quit their posts. Such was the fate of Adib Ishaq who worked for the Egyptian government and wrote for Misr. Al-Burhan, which regularly sided with Khedive, fired Sheikh Hamzeh Fathallah. Another paper, al-Zaman, was closed for mounting personal attacks and insulting the authorities. Only al-Mahrouseh survived by remaining loyal to the government, but was suspended for a period of three months in June of 1882 when Uraabi Pasha became alarmed by its closeness to the palace. The revolutionary government persecuted most papers keeping only the most loyal, such as al-Mufid and al-Taif, alive. The two specialized in attacking Khedive and his family, thus serving a useful purpose in the eyes of the Uraabists. AlMufid was particularly despised because of its distorted, often unfounded, description of lewd behavior of the former ruler, Khedive Ismail. At the same time, Al-Mufid would carry out sensational attacks against the British, calling the sitting Khedive a coward and a weakling. The Syrian papers by that time had disappeared, to be replaced by shortlived Egyptian papers such as al-Fustat, al-Safir, and al-Najah.18

ABDULLAH AL-NADIM AND THE URAABIST PERIOD Of all these papers during the Uraabist period, the most dazzling paper emerged to be al-Taif. Its editor, who demonstrated great talent as an essayist, was the most famous orator of the revolution, Abdullah al-Nadim. He made a name for himself at first as a contributor to al-Mahrouseh and al-Aaser Al-Jedid, and as the editor of a distinctive literary magazine, alTankeet wa al-Tabkeet, which appeared in the June of 1881 as a humorous and nationalist weekly. But he shone in al-Taif as a social critic condemning such evils as bars and dancing halls, which sprouted in Cairo under the protection of the foreign powers. Al-Taif then switched to purely political articles and news stories when the Uraabist Revolution began. The main function of this paper turned out to be showcasing the Revolution and its main actors, and eventually, reporting the debates of the House of Representatives and quoting its members. The paper also indulged itself in attacking the legacy of the exiled Khedive Ismail, by portraying him as a usurper of private property, richly deserving his fate of humiliation and exile. Al-Nadim finally earned the animosity of Tawfiq because of his stern and personal attacks on the legal ruler of the land, forcing the authorities to close the paper permanently in May of 1882. But by June of the same year, the Revolution had expired at the hands of the British ending with the arrest and removal of all those who held positions during Uraabi’s tenure as Minister of the Armed Services. The British invasion

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 41

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

41

forced a split in the ranks of the Egyptian press creating two camps, a pro-Uraabist group published in Cairo and an anti-Uraabist group published in Alexandria. Al-Waqai and a revived al-Taif dominated the capital’s journals, while al-Iitidal, published by the re-emerging Sheikh Hamzeh Fathallah, appeared in Alexandria with contributions by the anti-Uraabist Adib Ishaq. Al-Taif was based at one of the Uraabist military camps during the war, producing such credible coverage of the war that other Cairene papers copied its news. The revolutionary press came to an end with the capture of Cairo, but it was considered a rich collection of eloquent publications characterized by violent rhetoric and incisive political and social commentary. Some of this same press encouraged the rise of Islamic and Coptic charitable institutions and began the practice of publishing short stories and printing scientific and literary tracts in its printing offices that were sold cheaply to an eager public. Since official publications like Rowdhat al-Madares were no longer published during this period, others rose to take their place. One such publication was al-Muqtataf, founded by the trio of Yaaqub Sarrouf, Fares Nimer and Shaheen Makarious, which covered interesting scientific, literary, and historical stories in the manner of previous government-sponsored journals. At first, maintaining high standards of reporting and objectivity, the press during the revolutionary period degenerated into personal attacks and invectives. At the same time, the Uraabist press emphasized economic subjects for the first time in the history of journalism demanding the establishment of national banks.19

THE POPULAR PRESS UNDER BRITISH OCCUPATION Egypt came under considerable scrutiny and reorganization first at the hands of Lord Dufferin, Britain’s Ambassador at Constantinople who spent six months in the country, and later under Sir Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer in later years. Dufferin’s main contribution to British-dominated Egypt was to create a powerless consultative assembly made up of appointed and elected representatives and at the same time to lay the foundations for a free and unfettered press. The new policy in effect rendered the 1881 press law ineffective according to some British authorities, until Egypt’s tradition of freedom of the press became vastly superior to that of any other North African or Asian country. Yet reality contradicted this opinion. The Egyptian press was multifaceted but hardly independent or free, and Khedive Tawfiq maintained a cool attitude toward the press, never attempting to influence or create any journals. Mukhtar Pasha, the Turkish Sultan’s representative at Cairo, was known to extend financial support to some papers, while France befriended journals

10_303_Ch2.qxd

42

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 42

Chapter 2

willing to pursue an anti-British line. Surprisingly, British authorities at first refrained from establishing their own papers, devoting their energies instead to courting public opinion in Britain and abroad. Thus, Cromer appointed Alfred Milner (later Lord Milner) to a position at the Egyptian Ministry of Finance with the real assignment of overseeing the flow of positive information designed to improve the image of the occupation in Britain’s political circles. Milner became very adept in soliciting articles from British government employees for European and British publications. But contrary to Cromer’s 1903 report in which he claimed that there was no turmoil involving the Egyptian press during the previous twenty years, the state of journalism deteriorated under British control. Barely one week after the imposition of British rule, two nationalist papers were closed, al-Zaman and al-Safir, the latter ostensibly because of close ties to the Uraabist camp. Despite Cromer’s claims of uneventful development, the British authorities actually interrogated the publishers of a number of papers, such as al-Wattan, Iskandariyah, Miraat al-Sharq, al-Burhan, and al-Ahram due to their criticism of government policies. Neither did the foreign press receive a better treatment, with the Egyptian Gazette at one time receiving a warning and forced to pay a fine for articles written on August 9 and 11 of 1883. Even al-Wattan, with its pro-British line and anti-Uraabist disposition did not escape punishment. Some of the criticism was directed at the French press, with Le Bosphore Egyptien suspended for objecting to Cromer’s policies and publicizing internal differences between the Attorney General and Deputy Minister of the Interior, both of whom were British. Le Boshphore was considered dangerous to the public peace because it published an Arabic as well as a French edition, and for printing a declaration by alMahdi of the Sudan. This flyer, in which al-Mahdi called on the Egyptians to rebel against their oppressors, not only brought down British wrath on the paper, it also caused a rift between the British and French governments.20 Similar tensions developed between the British and al-Ahram, so Cromer came up with the idea of direct manipulation of the press, or fighting the press by using some of its own papers. Thus, the trio of Sarrouf, Nimer, and Makarious who ran a literary journal of high standards, al-Muqtataf, were instigated to created a rival to al-Ahram daily. This turned out to be al-Muqattam, which was first licensed in April 1888, as a political and economic paper. Described by al-Shaab in its 1912 history of Egyptian papers as a purely English journal, always praising the British administration to the extent of opening up its pages to translated editions of the High Commissioner’s reports. Al-Muqattam was also said to have been financially supported by the British-dominated Ministries of the Interior and Defense. In January of 1893, the paper aroused the wrath of students who stormed

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 43

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

43

its offices because of its callous attitude toward all that was Egyptian. AlMuqattam expanded its direct criticism of the Khedive and the Ottoman government, causing the former to seek its censure by British authorities. When other papers such as al-Wattan and al-Ahram failed to provide adequate response to al-Muqattam’s vituperations, pro-nationalist leaders came up with an idea similar to Cromer’s, namely fighting the press by creating another friendly press. A number of respected citizens such as Hassan Pasha Aasem, Ibrahim al-Hilbawi, and Latif Pasha Salim al-Hijazi sought the support of the Prime Minister, Riadh Pasha, in establishing a paper dedicated to the task of condemning the occupation and teaching younger generation to resist and reject its values. A new paper, al-Muayyad, was founded in December of 1889, and entrusted to one of the premier journalists of his day, namely Sheikh Ali Yousef. A disciple of Afghani, Yousef had already made a name for himself as the editor of a literary journal, al-Adaab. The new paper was allied with Riadh Pasha and sought to empower the nationalist Muslim leader quietly and peacefully. Al Muayyad also opened its pages to prominent nationalist writers such as the young Mustafa Kamil. Among its memorable articles dealt with Islamic topics, as well as studies regarding Austrian colonization in the Sudan. Such were its treatment of topics impinging on Muslim-Western contacts all over the globe that it became widely read all over the Eastern World and was eventually banned from entering other countries such as the Sudan. Both al-Muayyad and another paper printed on its premises, al-Miqyas, addressed the national question as a struggle between Egyptian Muslims and the British, opening themselves to charges of religious incitement. Another paper was founded in August 1892, as a weekly dedicated to educating the public through humor while pledging itself to serve the nationalists and Khedive Abbas II. This was al-Ustath, founded by the orator of the Uraabist Revolution, Abdullah al-Nadim, which, due to its strong attacks on the foreign communities and its religious tone was ordered closed by Cromer and its editor expelled from Egypt. The British, however, were unable to mete the same treatment to al-Muayyad.21 The Egyptian press proved itself worthy of the defense of the nation at every subsequent crisis in British-Egyptian relations. Al-Muayyad vigorously opposed British military campaigns to subdue the Sudan and the absence of Egyptian direction and control of military activities. The government retaliated by suing the paper over the publication of military telegrams addressed to commanders in the field, but failed to win its case. Then the Fashoda incident, with British-French confrontation over control of a piece of Sudanese territory considered Egyptian in the eyes of the press, aroused hopes that the French would make their withdrawal contingent upon British evacuation from Egypt. Al-Muayyad, as well as alAhram and al-Wattan aroused their readers with a series of articles on the

10_303_Ch2.qxd

44

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 44

Chapter 2

history of the occupation and unfulfilled British promises of evacuation. Mustafa Kamil repeatedly wrote and lectured against the idea that France would come to Egypt’s rescue, downplaying the influence of the foreign powers over the direction of British policy. Kamil repeatedly claimed that the Fashoda incident demonstrated France’s total withdrawal from the Egyptian Question. There were other papers of note during this period, papers that were not deemed worthy of inclusion in Cromer’s memoirs, which participated in the nationalist press campaigns of that period. One such paper was Himaret Manbati (Manbati’s She-Donkey), a humorous and satirical weekly that often exceeded the limits of decency by directing its attacks against Jews and Greeks, even vilifying the editors of alMuayyad and al-Muqattam. A more serious example of responsible journalism was provided by al-Manar, which took its place next to al-Muayyad and al-Ahram as a foremost example of respectable journalism, though of a dissimilar orientation. Founded by noted Muslim scholar Rashid Ridha in March of 1898, al-Manar made the education and mental development of girls and boys its main objective. As to its political direction, the paper stated that it was Ottoman in its predilections, Hamidi in its dialect and dedicated to the defense and services of the Sultan. Ridha made it clear that it was the wish of his teacher and mentor, Imam Muhammad Abduh, to have a neutral paper, unattached to any political party. The paper also followed Abduh’s instructions against attacking the occupation regime. As to the occupation authority itself, by the end of the nineteenth century it mattered little what anyone published except for al-Muayyad Arabic daily and French weekly editions. Somehow, by the end of the century, alMuayyad appeared to be backsliding in its pursuit of British enemies of the nation, prompting Mustafa Kamil to publish a new journal in 1990, known as al-Liwaa. The paper was dedicated to serving the nation and Islam, uniting Egyptians among themselves and with other Muslim nations, promoting commerce and industry while striving to provide young Egyptians with a nationalist upbringing and education. Regular features in al-Liwaa were listed as The Public Forum, Europe and Islam, Manners and Behavior, and International Mail. One prominent feature always focused on stories of nationalists and nationalism all around the world. Destined to become later the flagship of a prominent party, al-Liwaa thus began as dedicated to Egypt’s beloved Khedive, and offering prayers to the Ottoman Sultan. Al-Liwaa was also an innovative paper. It was only the second paper to use electrical equipment in its publishing house, and the first to incorporate itself as an independent and freestanding journal according to European procedures of the time. According to some accounts, its budget was only third after those of al-Ahram and al-Muqattam. In retrospect, the only controversial aspects of its editorial policy were its excessive zeal toward Turkey and its Caliphate, believing strongly that the

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 45

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

45

Caliphate strengthens the Islamic faith and the separation of mosque and state serves only to the weaken both. Another objectionable policy was alLiwaa’s rejection of granting women any rights, although it did not pursue this as strongly as did other advocates of veiling and segregation of women known by the name of Mahmoud Salamah. Yet, al-Liwaa spearheaded a drive to popularize public education and the need to create a national university, always maintaining that education was a unifying issue around which every Egyptian rallied. The paper also called enthusiastically for celebrating the centenary of Muhammad Ali’s rule over Egypt as a way of reviving national symbols and evocation of Egypt’s recent history. As it turned out, the celebration became a memorable occasion in which Mustafa Kamil spoke publicly and Khalil Mutran, the Syrian poet and essayist, read his poetry, the two events being described eloquently on the pages of al-Ahram. The celebrations took place at Alexandria, which was flooded with visitors from Egypt’s provinces and the remotest Sudanese villages. To further encourage the Egyptian patriotic spirit, Kamil continuously called for the development of native crafts and the opening of vocational schools in order to promote the industrial spirit in the land. Kamil continued to revive discussions of the idea of liberty and constitutionalism as a reminder to the public that the struggle should not be confined to the achievement of political liberation alone.22

AL-AHRAM IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY No discussion of the history of journalism in Egypt of the nineteenth century is complete without focusing on the grand dame of all journals, which survived into the next century, namely Al-Ahram. Founded by two brothers, Selim and Bishara Teqla in 1875, the paper established its own niche in the world of Egyptian journalism by declining to adopt the emotional and sensational tones of most of the genre of popular journalism. The two Lebanese brothers (then known as Syrians) were fleeing the censorship laws of the Ottoman Empire, which were applied in their original homeland, hoping to take advantage of Khedive Ismail’s enlightened views of the role of the press in national development. The paper saw the light as a family enterprise in the basement of the Teklas’s home at Alexandria, where it remained until its removal to Cairo in 1900. Unlike other Syrian papers, al-Ahram provided an open forum for advocates of Egyptian nationalism, even when pointed expressions of Muslim loyalties infringed on its preference for a more secular tone suited to its own Christian background. Both Imam Muhammad Abduh and Mustafa Kamil were among the paper’s regular columnists and other luminaries wrote for the paper in later years.23 The Teqla brothers were educated and

10_303_Ch2.qxd

46

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 46

Chapter 2

blessed with a strong business acumen, and remained impressed with Western social values. Even in its early years, the paper stood out as a great example of news journalism at a time when opinion journalism dominated the field. They were the first to build a paper on a sound business base, giving them the opportunity to afford subscription to foreign news agencies such as Reuters and Havas, as well as to finance their own correspondents abroad. The paper began as a weekly, but turned out its first daily in 1881, struggling hard not to be involved in Egypt’s ideological dilemmas.24 Al-Ahram’s early issues, nevertheless, demonstrated some impatience with British policy, although most of its coverage related to non-political Egyptian trends. The paper appeared at times as if it were a member of the official press, although it was not spared any government warnings when reproducing sensitive articles from leading foreign journals. But it earned early respect, at least for its regularity and professional standards. Always ready to cover international events, al-Ahram excelled in its coverage of the Russo-Turkish War, siding with the Sultan and praising the performance of his soldiers. As an example of its favoring the Turko-Egyptian side in this war, the Teqlas created a small paper, Haqiqat al-Akhbar, which published only telegrams from the front, the income of which was evenly divided between al-Ahram publishing house and the fund to assist Ottoman soldiers.25 During the Uraabist Revolution, al-Ahram suffered similar attacks to those directed at members of the Syrian-dominated press. Other papers clamored for the closure of Syrian papers, especially the pro-Uraabist alMufid, which also called for the removal of Syrians from government positions. Al-Ahram was finally forced to close in 1882 and its publishers migrated out of the country, along with most of the Syrian publishers. The tide turned eventually when British forces invaded Egypt in 1882 and most of the revolutionary press were silenced or disappeared from view. Al-Ahram returned from its exile in September of 1882 and took up where it left off with renewed interest in innovative journalism techniques such as introducing interviews with government figures for the first time. The paper came back with fierce attacks on Uraabi and his officers and with words of praise for Khedive Tawfiq. Colored pictures of British high-ranking officers began to adorn its pages, another innovation unknown to the press until that time. Among its important interviews was one between its foreign correspondent in London and Rivers Wilson, the man who ran Egypt at the time and who gave a poor picture of Egypt’s fiscal condition. The paper even began to receive accolades from deputies in Alexandria and letters from the provinces grateful to it for its zeal in protecting national interests. The most grateful to al-Ahram’s efforts proved to be France, which bestowed favors on the paper in appreciation of its defense of French interests in Egypt. Al-Ahram’s pro-French stand, however, did

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 47

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

47

not diminish its nationalist credentials that zealously guarded Egyptian interests despite being tagged as a Christian paper by its enemies in the press community. British authorities in Egypt were among the paper’s great detractors, however, often suspending it for a month at a time for offenses directed at the Khedival authority or the British administration. Considered the foremost nationalist paper in Egypt, it enjoyed the widest circulation especially among the ranks of the educated and supporters of the Nationalist Party. Al-Ahram earned the favor of that party particularly as it instructed deputies against falling into the trap of British constitutional maneuvers over and over again. Advising the deputies against authorizing payments for the army of the British occupation, for instance, was one of many stands that the paper took, earning it the title of the opposition’s foremost journal for a period of ten years.26 By 1908, the paper passed into the youthful hands of Gabriel Teqla, while still twenty years old. As a sign of its sound business management, the younger Teqla ended the paper’s dependence on foreign news agencies by financing his own correspondents and wire services in various parts of the world. He also increased his staff to around 350 employees.27

THE NEW CENTURY OPENS ON A STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE PAPERS Egyptian public opinion was a force to be contended with by the early part of the twentieth century. Khedive Abbas, like his immediate ancestors before him relied more on the loyalty of certain newspapers than on the support of Islamic nationalist leaders like Mustafa Kamil. Whenever he desired to line up the Egyptian public behind him, Abbas used to resort to the editor of al-Muayyad, Sheikh Ali Yousef. By the year 1900, the Khedive began to change his tune. Due to radical changes in the Egyptian-British-Turkish equation as the British-commanded Egyptian army subdued the Sudan and the French succumbed to the British challenge at Fashoda, the Khedive began to cement his relations with the British. By pursuing this objective, the Khedive alienated Mustafa Kamil, who began to fashion an independent Islamic nationalist policy much more effective than the previous al-Wattani party. The Khedive became apprehensive about the rise of the constitutional movement and turned a cold shoulder toward his old mouthpiece, al-Muayyad. The signing of the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale in 1904, which revealed France’s lack of commitment to the idea of ending British occupation of Egypt, convinced the Khedive of the need to change alliances. The break between Khedive Abbas and the Nationalists was apparently brought about as a result of a conversation with Mustafa Kamil, who blamed the Khedive for siding with his protégé

10_303_Ch2.qxd

48

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 48

Chapter 2

Sheikh Ali Yousef in his marriage scandal. Kamil argued that the editor flouted public morals with his actions and thereby alienated himself from Egyptian public opinion. When the Khedive expressed his clear contempt for Egyptian public opinion, Kamil decided to break with him and switch his support to al-Liwaa.28 With the start of the new century, fissures appeared in the Islamic nationalist front and its papers. The rift appeared first when the editor of alMuayyad visited Britain and responded to his warm welcome there with the statement that London was indeed the political Mecca of all Egyptians. But the real decline in the prestige of al-Muayyad and the concurrent rise of al-Liwaa were due to Sheikh Ali Yousef’s marriage scandal. A famous footnote to Egypt’s social history during that period, the scandal revolved around the secret, though Islamically legal marriage of the Sheikh to the aristocratic daughter of al-Sayyid Abd al-Khaleq al-Saddat. The father opposed the marriage strenuously and sued in court to end the union not on grounds of illegality, since the bride was of age, but on the basis of the husband’s incompatibility. The father raised a point about Sheikh Yousef’s humble origin, but also complained that the groom pursued a dishonorable profession. The story stirred up public opinion and various sectors of Egyptian society, who sided mostly with al-Sadat. British authorities, represented by Cromer, sided with Ali Yousef and pressured the courts to reverse the initial judgment, which called for the annulment of the marriage. The matter was so sensitive that most pro-British papers refused to take sides, while most of the Coptic papers declined to comment on such a purely Islamic issue. Most of all, no one publicly debated the social qualifications of a man who had attained so much political power. The press remained mute so as not to alienate public opinion, not once daring to discuss the issue of pedigree and compatibility in marriage. Such was the low public esteem of journalism that al-Sadat’s lawyer publicly declared that the press was only honorable if it were put in the service of honorable causes. The profession was vile, he added, because it violated Islam’s emphasis on privacy and its disdain for published advertisements for alcoholic beverages and nightclubs. The court agreed that the publishing profession was not based on a high degree of education. Subsequently, the court’s verdict was not overturned and the marriage contract was annulled. The only paper that stood by Sheikh Yousef was al-Manar.29 Another sensational story involving the press during that period related to Imam Muhammad Abduh and his progressive jurisprudential interpretation of Sharia injunctions. Abduh issued a fetwa sanctioning eating of poultry without the benefit of Islamically approved slaughtering laws in his capacity as the Mufti of Egypt. The Khedive, who resented Abduh’s close ties to the British administration, unleashed some smaller papers against him, the most notorious being al-Taher, edited by

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 49

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

49

noted attorney Muhammad Abi Shadi Bey. The paper called for the removal of Abduh from his religious position, using this opportunity in order to remove him as one of the Khedive’s dedicated opponents in alAzhar and the administration of charitable trusts. The Khedive felt that it would be desirable to divide and weaken Abduh’s followers of enlightened clergy and government officials. Most papers, with the exception of al-Liwaa defended Abduh. A minor satirical paper, Al-Himarah (The SheDonkey) exceeded all others in the vulgarity of its campaign, publishing a photo of Abduh surrounded by Western women. This incident did not escape the reach of the law when the editor was finally brought to justice and imprisoned in 1902.30

CROMER AND THE PRESS In Lord Cromer’s reports on his years in Egypt, the press elicited limited commentary. The pro-consul’s 1905 report dismissed the state of the Egyptian press in six lines. In his 1906 report, however, he made the claim that he supported freedom of the press all along even though the press did not express public opinion because of its ornate writing style and offensive language. The press, he stated, alienated most of its supporters, including Khedive Abbas II. He favored placing some legal constraints on the institution since it lacked any merit and failed to provide credible discussions of judicial, fiscal, and educational matters. The foreign press in Egypt, in his view, was praiseworthy because of its writing style and moderate tone. Cromer’s statements were due largely to Mustafa Kamil’s campaigns against him in the Egyptian and European press abroad following the 1906 massacre of Dinshaway. Kamil’s articles in the Parisbased Le Figaro eventually resulted in Cromer’s removal from office. Cromer’s greatest nemesis was al-Liwaa, which survived his blows at the native press, as well as the Khedive’s displeasure with its unrelenting criticism of his actions. The paper began to alarm Cromer after it succeeded by its sarcastic coverage in discouraging the Khedive from attending the annual parade of the British armed forces. The paper also began to follow Cromer’s every move, particularly his trip to the provinces in 1905. The paper criticized the trip as symptomatic of Egypt’s general decline when the British High Commissioner was allowed to advise and discuss the state of the land with local notables as if he was the true ruler of Egypt. Al-Liwaa was also credited with stirring anti-British feeling during the Taba dispute of 1906 when the nationalists sided with Ottoman Turkey in this boundary dispute and only al-Muayyad supported British claims.31 But Dinshaway was more serious as it involved a hunting incident resulting in British attacks on unarmed Egyptian peasants. Convinced that

10_303_Ch2.qxd

50

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 50

Chapter 2

the villagers’ retaliation to the shooting of their pigeons was inspired by the relentless criticism of the press, the British decided to teach the Egyptians a lesson. They set up a military court to try the offending peasants and carried out penalties of hanging or flogging before the assembled villagers of Dinshaway. Condemnation by European and British public opinion led to the appointment of Sir Eldon Gorst in place of Cromer who was pushed into retirement.32

EXPANSION OF THE NATIONALIST PRESS The Dinshaway incident proved to be a great boost to al-Liwaa, which, under the direction of Kamil, organized a shareholding company in order to produce two Western-language journals (a French one and an English one) in Egypt. At the same time Kamil persuaded Le Figaro to allow the simultaneous publication of articles of Pierre Loti about Egypt in Paris and in alLiwaa’s French edition in Egypt. One of al-Liwaa’s editors was sent to France for special training. When Gorst arrived in Egypt, he confronted powerful papers, each with a specific orientation either for or against the occupation, such as al-Ahram, al-Muqattam, and al-Muayyad. Others like al-Mahrouseh remained predisposed toward the Khedive, opposed to al-Muayyad and alMuqattam but not particularly harsh toward the occupation regime. Then there was the revived al-Wattan under the direction of Jundi Ibrahim Bey, which was friendly to the High Commissioner and in permanent war with the Islamic papers. Misr by that time was still Coptic and predisposed toward the British while strongly opposed to any constitutional idea. Another paper, al-Baseer with its emphasis on commercial news praised the authorities whenever Copts were favored by them.33 Dinshaway made its mark on political life as well. In the aftermath of increased Egyptian agitation against the British, the Khedive made peace with Kamil and nationalist forces came together from their previous existence as a shadowy and small movement into a new political group, namely al-Wattani Party. Any new political party during that time began by creating its own paper. The Islamic and proOttoman policy of al-Wattani Party, which demonstrated preference for the Ottoman loyalty over Egypt’s own interest during the Taba affair, resulted in the rise of a rival party, al-Ummah founded by large landowners, moderate intellectuals, and future leaders such as Saad Zaghloul and Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid. Al-Ummah created its own paper, al-Jaridah, which proceeded to express the views of these new territorial nationalists and constitutional gradualists.34 According to contemporaries, al-Jaridah was founded upon Cromer’s encouragement who also generated support for it in the provinces and among the country’s notables. One reason for reaching such a conclusion was that the paper’s shareholding company was financed by

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 51

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

51

leading dignitaries such as Mahmoud Pasha Suleiman, Hassan Pasha Abd al-Raziq, and Ibrahim Pasha Abduh, most of whom were friendly toward the occupation regime. Al-Jaridah, however, turned out to be a strong defender of nationalist causes and a modicum of moderation. Its initial stock was worth twenty thousand Egyptian Guineas, and it quickly distinguished itself by avoiding personal disputes. The editor, al-Sayyid, chose his terms carefully, referring to the Khedive as the holder of legal authority and the British High Commissioner as the holder of actual authority. Its news was always verifiable, leaving its pages open to publishing outside criticisms and maintaining cordial relations with various interests and papers. The journal explained its philosophy in its first issue by quoting article 3 of its incorporation articles that stated that it was a purely Egyptian paper dedicated to the defense of various Egyptian interests, opposed to religious and radical strife and committed to the pursuit of moderation under any circumstances. Nevertheless, al-Jaridah, expressed strong skepticism about Turkish intentions, always dissecting any news from Turkey. The paper’s main stated goal was to achieve some harmony between the occupation and Egyptian notables until such a time when the nation was ready for self-rule.35 The Egyptian nationalist movement never lost its ardor, even after the death of Mustafa Kamil in 1908. The movement was energized by the success of constitutional developments in Turkey in 1908 with the rise of the Committee of Union of Progress (CUP). The constitutional issue dominated the pages of the popular press. This forced Gorst to grant an interview to alMuqattam in which he confessed that what took place in Turkey was utterly unrelated to Egypt’s readiness for self-rule. Egypt already had its regulatory law of 1883. But if the intent of the current constitutional call was the creation of an unlimited constitutional government similar to that of Britain and other European states, then he had only one answer, namely that conditions necessary for administering the land according to such rules were simply lacking. He added that the thought of introducing such drastic change would be a sort of foolishness or madness. Instead, he offered Egyptians the opportunity to assist Britain in the expansion of the jurisdiction of provincial and local councils. Thus, the entire constitutional debate was unfurled on the pages of the press. Gorst’s remarks were quickly analyzed and criticized on the pages of al-Liwaa, resulting in the reopening of the topic by members of the Shura council. The demand for a regular constitution, thus, became an established and uncontested national objective. By 1908, the cabinet of Mustafa Fahmi Pasha resigned after thirteen years of service and loyalty to the British. It was replaced by a new cabinet headed by Boutrous Ghali Pasha, an appointment that elicited a strong attack by al-Liwaa, claiming that after only three days in office the cabinet came to attend the burial ceremony of what was left of the principle of freedom. Perhaps resentful of

10_303_Ch2.qxd

52

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 52

Chapter 2

a Christian-led cabinet that was pro-British, the animosity toward Ghali was also fueled by a change in the editorial leadership of al-Liwaa. The paper was now led by Sheikh Abd al-Aziz Jaweesh who constantly attacked the British Director of Education and British suppression of the Sudan, which he referred to as another Dinshaway. Brought repeatedly before the law, he never retreated from his strident tone or his ability to use his passionate writing to stir up nationalism in Egypt and other Islamic countries. When the authorities tightened censorship laws in order to deal with constant barrages from the press, the subject of extending the Suez Canal Concession for another forty years was proposed, inciting the press and general public to a new revolt. Al-Liwaa led the attack, citing the political implications of this extension, which was viewed until that time purely as a financial matter. The opening salvo was fired by the leader of al-Wattani Party, Muhammad Farid, in an article titled “The Suez Canal Question: Political Considerations.” By explaining the relationship of the proposal to guarding the rights and dignity of Egypt, al-Liwaa and others succeeded in forcing the rejection of government’s proposal. Scuttling the extension of the Suez Concession proved to be a great victory for the press, and the first genuine Nationalist achievement since the beginning of the occupation in the view of the general public. It was at that juncture that Ibrahim Nassef al-Wardani succeeded in assassinating Boutrous Ghali on February 20, 1910. During his trial, al-Wardani listed among his grievances—which forced him to take this action—Ghali’s signing of the 1899 Sudan Agreement, his service as the head of the special Dinshaway court, issuing the repressive publication law and, his enthusiasm for extending the Suez Canal Concession.36 Ghali’s assassination resulted in serious reversals. Freedom of expression and publishing was curtailed, and national unity was badly weakened. Despite vocal denunciation of this act on the part of the Wattani party and all papers, the Egyptian Gazette laid total responsibility on al-Liwaa and its incendiary editorials. Al-Muqattam published Arabic translations of these articles. Both al-Muayyad and al-Wattan (Coptic) laid the blame on the Wattani Party. New laws were passed threatening students who participate in demonstrations with expulsion and members of secret societies with imprisonment. Al-Liwaa was singled out for a first and second official warning, which caused it to sue the government in court. This event brought out the wrath and sympathy of the press, with al-Muqattam claiming that al-Wattani party was a revolutionary organization with stores of hidden weapons ready to take over the country. The government responded to these verbal attacks by placing al-Liwaa under a public guardian as its publisher, the Wattani party, refused to be under government direction. The party then abandoned the paper allowing its equipment to be seized by the authorities. The Wattani Party retaliated by fi-

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 53

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

53

nancing the publication of another paper, al-Alam, which was later suspended, to be followed by al-Iitidaal, al-Shaab, and al-Adl.37 Following the death of Kamil in 1908, the popular press experienced its first bout of religious sectarianism. A feud began in May of 1908 between Islamic papers such as al-Muayyad and al-Jaridah and Coptic papers that launched an investigation into Muslim-Christian parity in government employment. Both of these papers were soon engaged in a contest with the Coptic paper, al-Wattan, with Sheikh Jaweesh supplying most of the inflammatory articles. Scores of Copts used the occasion to march on the French Consulate to complain against Jaweesh, a Tunisian national. AlWattan pursued the Sheikh with its own unrestrained attacks, calling him an enemy of the British, the Europeans, the Copts, the Syrians, and all sensible Egyptians. In the meantime, the Copts gained the upper hand by dispatching Qiryaqus Mikhail as a representative of the Coptic press and spokesperson for Coptic interests to London in 1910. Received warmly in the British capital, he managed to instigate the publication of twenty-one articles in various papers on the topic of religious feuding in Egypt. The British press managed to wage a campaign in defense of the Christians in Egypt from September 1910 until September 1911, resulting in the suppression of the treatment of national issues.38 Coptic-Muslim relations suffered further with the convening of the Coptic Conference in Asyout in 1911, under the leadership of the Bishop of Asyout but without the approval of Pope Kyrolos V. The conference published a series of demands, such as increased quotas of Coptic appointments to legislative councils, eliminating patronage from civil service jobs, establishing Sunday as the official Sabbath along with Friday, and allowing for a system of tax credits benefiting Christian schools. A comparable call for the convening of an all-Muslim conference was made by Muhammad Fahmi al-Nadhuri, which was attended by Riadh Pasha. The conference called for a debate with the Copts but rejected most of their demands.39 Al-Wattan, however, continued with its confrontational attitude, at one point opposing governmental policy of subsidizing the reprinting of Arabic classics and generating a sharp debate with the Islamic press.40 It should be noted here that public resentment of the imposition of severe press laws, unseen since 1881, was usually accompanied by other grievances. Thus, a demonstration of ten thousand people to protest repressive laws on March 26, 1909, was soon followed by other protests. On March 31 and April 1 of the same year, additional demonstrations took place to protest rumored negotiations between Boutrous Ghali’s government and the World Zionist Organization regarding the possibility of settling Jewish immigrants in Sinai and irrigating it with waters of Nile.41

10_303_Ch2.qxd

54

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 54

Chapter 2

Repressive laws against the press finally succeeded in closing al-Alam permanently after two suspensions in November of 1912. The cause of this drastic measure was an article by Muhammad Farid in which he criticized the Ottoman government for losing the Balkan War. British authorities in Egypt decided that the article might arouse the feelings of Muslims and turn them against the Sultan’s government. Only al-Muqattam justified this action blaming the works of Muhammad Farid and Jaweesh for bringing back the hated press law of 1881. By the end of 1912, al-Shaab became the official voice of the Wattani party, but it ceased to operate in 1914 in protest of the government’s severe laws against all members of the press establishment. Al-Shaab claimed that because of fear of censorship the authorities forced the press to distort public opinion trends and led to the reduction on the number of Muslim papers, favoring only those that represented the Copts. Only al-Muayyad remained standing while increasing the coverage of the Ottoman question. Since it became a shareholding company, it specialized in this question and published many commentaries by Rashid Ridha. By 1913, it too closed its doors after its editor, Sheikh Ali Yousef, became a leader of the Wafaiyah Sufi order. Its publishing equipment was sold in 1916. Thus, by the time Egypt confronted World War I, papers of its three main parties were either closed by government order, or were weakened by the departure of their editors or due to fiscal mismanagement. Only a handful survived in Alexandria and Cairo, such as al-Ahram, al-Muqattam, al-Ahali, and al Baseer.

CONCLUSION Egypt’s popular or national press began during the reign of Khedive Ismail, although some literary and political writers were familiar with journalism through involvement with the official press. Major private papers developed as a voice of the people and became closely identified with secret political groups or national movements. This was a stark differentiating factor separating it from the functional and formal government press. The term “popular press,” however, can be problematic since most of these papers were often in the service of the Khedive or indebted to one of the powers. Whichever way they are described, they were a remarkable phenomenon given Egypt’s precarious international position and the inherent weakness of its native government. The popular press in Egypt owed a great deal to Khedive Ismail’s vaunted view of his reign as the most enlightened in the East. Part of his vision for his country was to develop institutions similar to those operating in Europe, including private papers. The papers themselves were a symptom of modernity but were also channels for the transmission of

10_303_Ch2.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 55

Opinion Journalism and the Beginnings of Egyptian Nationalism

55

modernizing values. Most papers devoted some of their pages to literature in translation and articles based on foreign journals. The public was educated further by this window on Western life and mores. By the time Sheikh Jamal al-Din al-Afghani arrived in Egypt in the late 1870s, he became a prime mover behind the independent press movement. He recognized the power of public opinion and its ability to change the course of politics in Egypt. He inspired several from Egypt’s rising intellectual class to use the press as a political instrument, not just for the publishing of news. Political passion forced its way early into the pages of the press and personal diatribes were not an uncommon feature of the press. The press also began to pay a patriotic role when Ismail manipulated it into defending his policies as Egypt’s national press. With the removal of Ismail and the succession of Khedive Tawfiq to the throne, the press became aware of Egypt’s vulnerable economic condition. This brought on an interest in fiscal matters and necessitated keeping a watchful eye over foreign control of the taxing system. When the British invaded Egypt, the popular press listened to people’s grievances and tried faithfully to voice complaints of the poor villagers in the provinces and the humiliated bureaucratic gentry in the cities. But one cannot make the claim that the officers’ regime, which followed the Uraabist revolt, was any more respectful of public freedom as the British regime, which brought it to an end. The Uraabist period turned out to be a taste of things to come, when Nasserite Egypt less than a century into the future duplicated the spirit, if not the total performance, of the military authorities toward the press. The press came into its own as a national institution when Egypt fell under the rule of Lord Cromer and Sir Eldon Gorst. Playing the game of triangular powers—namely the British, the Khedive, and the Egyptian public and informal parties—the press became a pawn and sometimes king in an elaborate chess game with the future of Egypt as the prize. The British did not lack for a mouthpiece among the press and became progressively harsher as the popular press pressed for more reforms. The constitutional issue, the Sudan question, as well as Egypt’s relationship to Ottoman Turkey consumed the attention of generations of journalists. The political press representing various political parties became hugely successful as it gave eloquent expression to new views and ideas. Islamic journals in particular gained a following in countries outside of Egypt. The development of an ideological orientation among members of the press inevitably produced an atmosphere rife with personal attacks and inter-journalistic feuding. Some of these battles degenerated into attacks on religion, a development that suited British sectarianism and the pursuit of the philosophy of divide and conquer. The Coptic press was often motivated to make exaggerated accusations toward the Islamic national

10_303_Ch2.qxd

56

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 56

Chapter 2

press and fan the flames of religious fanaticism on both sides. Cromer, who was initially dismissive of the national press, lived to regret his words when he was pilloried on the pages of nationalist papers and the French press overseas for his role in the Dinshaway incident. Throughout the turmoil, Khedive Tawfiq pursued an uncertain policy toward the press, at some point befriending Mustafa Kamil and his nationalist papers, at another totally fearful of the power of the written word. But the dawn of the twentieth century brought with it severe repression in the wake of Boutrous Ghali’s assassination, as well as the rise of moderate and rational papers advocating gradualism and measured constitutional changes. Interestingly, the one single ethno-religious group that escaped the sectarian verbal warfare between the Christian and the Islamic press was the Jewish community. Greatly valued for its support of the national cause and its loyalty to Khedive Tawfiq, the nineteenth-century Jewish community produced papers that were neither communal nor anti-Islamic. Among these were Misr al Fatah and Abu-Nadhara, which defended national and even Islamic movements. The Jewish press was clearly part of the national movement and remained as such until Zionism reared its head following the signing of the Balfour Declaration.

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 57

3 E

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

E

gypt entered the Liberal phase of its twentieth century history with the conclusion of the 1923 constitution. Although still under the domination of British colonial authorities, with British bases in the Canal zone, a powerful British Ambassador and effective British control over the southern half of the Anglo-Egyptian condominium, all the trappings of political democracy were there. Political parties such as the triumphant Wafd were now serious contenders for power. While the Wafd led the pack, there were also the Liberal Constitutionalist party, al-Wattani, alUmmah and later the Saadian Block, al-Kuttlah al-Saadiyah.1 Two enormously influential underground movements, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Communist Party, emerged during this phase although their roots extended back to the nineteenth century. A neo-fascist party, Misr al-Fatah, responding to changes on the international scene, also came into being during this period although it became famous only in the 1930s. The political picture was variegated, with constant conflict and accommodation between the palace, notably kings Fouad and Farouq, and between the British authorities, the political parties, and the underground movements. Egypt also had full parliamentary life, though women were still excluded from the franchise. Finally, there was the press, which, following World War I and the Revolution of 1919, separated into various strands beyond the previous division into the official, the popular or private, and the foreign press. Whereas the private press was beginning to be subdivided into its pro-nationalist, pro-British, pro-Christian varieties, the Liberal phase was dominated by the party press. Some papers, nevertheless, maintained political independence and a cultural orientation, 57

10_303_Ch3.qxd

58

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 58

Chapter 3

down to the Revolution of 1952. Publications like al-Ahram and al-Hilal attained prominence because of their relative objectivity and high literary standards. Al-Ahram, despite the development of the pictorial and fashionable press emphasizing the life of high society, retained its high sales level and respectability.

SECULARISM Something changed in the state of her majesty’s court, however. The Liberal phase was no longer dominated by journalists who were either religiously inclined or graduates of the eminent Islamic university, al-Azhar. This can be explained by reference to a variety of developments having to do with education, the influence of Western missionaries, and British determination to cast Egyptian culture in a different mold. Here, it is not enough to stress the multiple effects of the secular nature of Egyptian liberalism since the country remained overwhelmingly Islamic. Certain dramatic changes were already taking place in other areas of Egyptian life that changed the nature of the press institution forever. Among these was the appearance of rival institutions of higher learning, which destroyed al-Azhar’s monopoly on the training of young minds. Even though Western missionaries began the trend of opening elementary and high schools during Khedive Abbas’s reign, and despite the presence of multiple opportunities for study abroad, the availability of higher educational opportunities at home changed the perspective of Egypt’s elite. The rise of Egyptian secularism began as a nationalist project with emphasis on the use of Arabic as the medium of instruction in most schools and institutes instead of English, and the substitution of Arab teachers for British staff in most schools. The 1923 Constitution pushed this revolution further by devoting articles 17, 18, and 19 to the general state of education. Article 17 stated that education was a right that was free of government control unless it interfered with the social order or public morality. Article 18 ordained that the general state of education must be subject to the law. Article 19 stipulated that elementary education was compulsory for all Egyptian boys and girls, and was free of charge. By 1923, Egypt had already enjoyed the services of something known as the Public University (al-Jamiaat al-Ahliyah), which operated until 1925 alongside other higher institutes of learning. It operated free of charge, but the level of its curriculum was imprecise, which permitted other institutes of higher learning to continue absorbing secondary school graduates. When the authorities took the decision to convert it into a regular university, a debate ensued between advocates of a public or government university. Eventually, the decision was made to hand the Public University to the authori-

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 59

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

59

ties by placing it under the direction of the Ministry of Higher Education. This became the Egyptian University, or King Fouad University, on December 12, 1923, and was located at the suburb of Giza. Both al-Azhar University and the Higher Arabic Language Academy (Majmaa alLughah al-Arabiyyah) remained as the highest providers of learning alongside the national university. Another development with grave implications for Egyptian nationalism and its intellectual direction took place in 1919. This was the founding of the American University at Cairo (AUC), which Egyptians later viewed as signifying grave and sinister designs on the intellectual integrity of the tradition of Arabic learning. The AUC, a sister school to the much older American University at Beirut (AUB), was the creation of the Presbyterian Board of Missions. It began with colleges of literature, the sciences, education, and oriental studies. One of its first efforts was the publication of the magazine al-Tarbiyah alHadithah (Modern Education). In addition, an unsuccessful effort at introducing a non-Islamic type of learning developed in 1926, when a grant of ten million dollars was offered by the Rockefeller Foundation in order to subsidize a government-sponsored institute of Pharaonic studies. This was conditional upon the appointment of an American director, but the Egyptian government turned down the offer for fear of antagonizing advocates of an Islamic-Arabic identity.2 Thus, the strengthening of the secularist trend was not only the result of the rise of the Wafd party, it was also the effect of changes in the general educational map of Egypt. The development of an Egyptian workers’ movement, which later turned into the Socialist, (later the Communist Party) contributed greatly to this development. The publications and membership of this movement offer another insight into Egypt’s tolerance of freedom of the press during the first half of the twentieth century.

UNUSUAL FEATURES OF EGYPTIAN SOCIALISM The Socialist-Marxist movement in Egypt had always exhibited unusual characteristics. Among the first was its extraordinary capacity to interact and struggle with and against various ideologies and national political movements and schools. Thus, a special wing of the Wafd party came to be recognized as the Wafdist Leftist Vanguard. The Socialist movement later struggled against Nasserism and was almost destroyed by it, except that it infiltrated this philosophy and claimed credit for some of its achievements. Rifaat al-Said, a veteran of this movement, wrote that the Egyptian Socialist movement found its way to the body and thought of Nasserism despite Nasser, and perhaps without his knowledge. Another feature of this movement was its capacity to generate wide popular support and create a niche

10_303_Ch3.qxd

60

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 60

Chapter 3

for itself among Egypt’s masses. This proclivity to move with the populace, always seeking popular approval and support, exceeded its limitations as a small communist party. The first workers’ unions in 1922 were partly the creation of the communists, leading to the first massive demonstration against the Wafd government. Similarly, this small Communist Party was behind the creation of the National Committee of Workers and Students, which shook the system to its foundations in 1946 when it demanded the departure of British troops from Egypt’s major cities. Another effort, The Movement of Supporters of Peace in 1950, and al-Ansar Militias in 1951, led the national armed struggle against the British, preparing the way for the launching of the Free Officers’ movement.3 But the most controversial feature of the Socialist movement was the preponderance of foreigners and Jews in its ranks—since it was truly internationalist in character—dedicated to the unity of the working class. Egypt proved to be fertile grounds for the recruitment of foreigners to the socialist and communist ranks since it maintained an open-door policy toward immigrants of all types beginning with the reigns of Said Pasha and Khedive Ismail. In its rush to create a modern economic infrastructure, the Egyptian government allowed for the creation of foreign monopolies and granted foreigners legal, fiscal, and social privileges above and beyond what was permitted to native Egyptians. The special status of foreigners led to a strong determination to avoid naturalization as Egyptian citizens. Some of these foreigners who lacked privileges, however, gravitated toward the only internationalist movement open to non-Egyptians, namely the socialist movement. Part of the reason for the success of this political organization to reach out to foreigners was the special autonomous existence enjoyed by the expatriate communities. Enjoying their own newspapers, schools, printing shops, and culture, these foreign enclaves maintained strong links with their mother countries, including membership in branches of political parties operating overseas. Thus, the expatriate Italian community included in its ranks communists, socialists, and fascists, all linked to parties of the motherland. The Armenian community counted Marxists and nationalists among its members, and the Russians had a variety of Bolshevik groups. The latter community produced a Bolshevik bulletin titled Maryak (The Seas), which was printed at Helwan. Some of these same foreign nationals infiltrated the Egyptian nationalist party. The Uraabist movement boasted a close relationship with the head of the Italian workers’ union, and during the 1919 Revolution, a French Jewish national, Leon Castro, was in the spotlight as a close friend and confidant of Saad Zaghloul. Castro’s newspaper, Liberte, was certainly Wafdist as much as it was Jewish. Additional developments pushed some of these foreign communities to take concrete political action, such as the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and Misr al-Fatah parties, which did not

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 61

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

61

augur well for Egypt’s foreign residents. The rising tide of European fascism and the battle of El-Alamein created additional anxieties. Foreigners were welcomed by leftist parties in Egypt originally because of their ability to translate theoretical communist tracts. Eventually, the foreigners’ desire to capture leadership roles in the radical movement made them a burdensome element to the rest of the nationalist leadership.4 Marxism began to be discussed on the pages of leading Egyptian journals by the 1890s, long before the Bolshevik Revolution changed the realities of Czarist Russia in 1917. Articles in al-Ahram in 1892 were devoted to stories about Leo Tolstoy and a comparison of his socialism—in reality anarchism—to that of the rest of Europe. Other stories dealt with discussions between a French socialist leader and the head of a French commercial bank. Yet another story during the same year discussed recent splits within the ranks of the German socialists. Then, by October of 1892, an article signed by Najeeb Haddad, an Egyptian, seemed to lament Egypt’s loud attacks on what little impact communism was making on the pages of the native press. By 1894, leaflets commemorating the Paris Commune of 1870 and calling on Egyptian workers to unite in defense of social revolution, or in defense of communism, were reprinted on the pages of alHilal. Soon after that, Egyptian workers newly acquainted with the industrial mode of production began to imbibe the lessons of the struggle from their Italian, Greek, and Armenian coworkers and to create labor unions and secret affiliations. Al-Ahram described the work of a Secret Society of Railroad Workers, which planned massive strikes after witnessing at close range the 1894 strikes of foreign cigarette wrappers and those of Greek workers in the Suez Canal Company. A new practice was launched by tramine workers seeking donations from various cafés by passing around a red box. Cairo and Alexandria during that same period witnessed large demonstrations of unemployed workers who raised signs reading, “We need bread or work.”5 The reaction of much of the press to these events was largely hostile. AlMuquttam, which always projected the viewpoint of the British occupiers, directed its criticism at the Egyptian government and accused it of neglecting its duties. Al-Jaridah, the newspaper of the Egyptian right wing of the nationalist movement, lashed out at the workers as a class in 1911, describing their strike as a new and dangerous socialist direction spreading from one person to the other and from one country to the next. The same paper accused workers of aping the actions of foreign laborers, complaining that these events were the result of the spreading winds of socialism that were overtaking the world. Only al-Liwaa, voice of the Wattani party, was somewhat sympathetic, reminding the ruling authorities in 1910 that strikes were simply a sign of how far Egyptian intellectual development had reached. In other words, the paper added, what had happened on the

10_303_Ch3.qxd

62

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 62

Chapter 3

day of these strikes was simply a look into the shape of the future. A serious effort by labor leaders to organize a workers’ party in 1908 preceded these strikes when a declaration issued by Muhammad Ahmad al-Hassan, founder of Al-Maqassed al-Mushtarakah lil-Ummal (The Workers Common Objectives Party) called Egyptian and foreign tradesmen to join the ranks of his party. He also called for the creation of a daily paper, alWaddhah, his name being later associated with al-Nitham, another leftist paper. The editor of al-Nitham was one of the better-known communist activists, Rafiq Jabbour, who served on the central committee of the Communist Party. The declaration and call to action were published in alArham and al-Liwaa. The party was launched a year later under the leadership of al-Hassan and participated in the major events of the Revolution of 1919 in support of Zaghloul’s leadership. The party, however, maintained its independence from the Wafd. When workers held a general strike to protest Zaghloul’s exile, they still publicized their own demands for a minimum wage of fifteen piasters a day, an eight-hour workday, a six-day workweek and ending the persecution of unionized workers. The battle between the police and striking workers intensified after Zaghloul’s return, and around eighty-one strikes were organized from December 1919 until the end of 1921. Thus, it is possible today to view the Revolution of 1919 as two, rather than one uprising: The first was for independence or political justice, the other for social justice.6 The workers’ movement did not fail to capture the imagination of socially motivated Egyptian workers. Among the early sympathizers with this movement were well-known writers Wallie al-Dean Yakan and Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad. But others have used the newspapers to declare their sympathies with workers even earlier than that. The Syrian writer Shibley al-Shemayyel who shocked readers with his earlier exposition of the Darwinian theory, wrote in 1899 in al-Baseer describing differences that separated the misery of the poor from the exploitation of the rich. By 1907, he was writing in al-Muayyad, extolling the virtues of Marxism.7 Socialism in its Fabian, gradualist variety soon found its way to Egypt and became the single most important school of though associated with Salamah Musa, a rising intellectual maverick of that period. In his 1913 book, Socialism, Musa defended this ideology as being something greatly misunderstood and misrepresented. He explained his Fabian philosophy as being centered around what a socialist wished for, namely that the country be allowed to move gradually from public ownership of water and sunlight to the public ownership of streetcars, bakeries, theatres, factories, and housing.8 By 1915, a landmark was reached with the publication of the first work on socialism by a Muslim Arab, titled The History of Socialist Ideologies by Mustafa Hussien al-Mansouri.9 Even Muhammad Farid, the successor to Mustafa Kamil in the leadership of al-Wattani

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 63

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

63

party, turned out to be a strong supporter of workers’ rights. He attended several meetings of the Second International and created Jamiyat al-Salam al-Aam bi-Wadi al-Nil (The General Peace Society of the Nile Valley). He later became an advocate of unionization and brought that concern to the Wattani Party, which induced al-Liwaa to write several articles defending the objectives of socialism. Several student leaders were influenced by this school of thought that led some, like Issam al-Din Hafni Naseef, Majdi al-Din Hafni Naseef and Noor al-Din Taraf, to clash with Zaghloul, demanding that the Wafd party ally itself with the European left against British imperialism. By 1921, Mahmoud Husni al-Uraabi who later became an ardent communist, translated into Arabic a serialized version of a book by the leader of the British Labor Party, Ramsey MacDonald, in alAhram.

EXPATRIATES AND EGYPTIAN COMMUNISM Egypt’s non-Egyptian residents during the early part of the century came from various social groups including tradesmen, government officials, merchants, and medium and large landowners. Among the largest of the expatriate communities was the Greek, which had its own communist formation until the 1960s. Another community was that of the Bolshevik Russians, some of whose members being former shipmen on the destroyer Potemkin who fled to Egypt following the 1905 Revolution. Among its members were Edward Zeidman who was born in Odessa and became a target of Egyptian police when London’s security apparatus called for placing him under surveillance. Zeidman owned a bookstore at Alexandria that was used as a center of distribution of Bolshevik literature. Another prominent Russian was Teodor Rosenstein who also edited the Wattani Party’s French-language newspaper. After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, he returned to Russia and became first a secretary to Lenin, then a Minister Plenipotentiary to Tehran. Italian communists were even more active in Cairo and Alexandria and were considered as committed to this ideology as the communists in Italy. Among these was a well-known agitator described in the Egyptian security reports as “Joseph Rosenthal, a dangerous anarchist.” Egyptian government reports mentioned that at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Armenian community of about forty thousand people was also rife with communism. Prominent Egyptians maintained an interest in Russian events also. Muhammad Abduh maintained a correspondence with Leo Tolstoy, a fact little known to the majority of the Egyptian public. There were even few experiments with Communist-style separatist movements during the tumultuous events of 1919. One such footnote to history that earned a

10_303_Ch3.qxd

64

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 64

Chapter 3

permanent spot in the Egyptian folkloric memory was the Republic of Zifti. This incident was only the most famous of these Russian-inspired Communist republics such as the Mattariya, Minya, and Farscour republics. But Zifti was the most famous of these, an independence movement set up by a young man with leftist leanings, Yousef al-Ghindi. After calling all peasants in his area to a general meeting, they elected a revolutionary committee to run the affairs of the diminutive republic. Pledging to grant justice to each citizen, the peasants volunteered to dry-up swamp lands and fortify existing bridges. Some groups volunteered for police duties to guard the borders of the republic. More interestingly, Zifti had a small printing machine that was put to good use by publishing daily reports. When government authorities dispatched a company of Australian soldiers to surround the “republic,” they were leafleted by an English-language flyer reminding them that Egyptians were only like themselves rebelling against the British, demanding independence, bread, and liberty. The “republic” lasted for about nineteen days before it was finally crushed.10 When the Bolshevik current was finally formalized as a party in 1919, it was known as the Egyptian Socialist Party. Although its first slate was made up of Arabs, the Muslim Brotherhood in hindsight insisted that foreigners, primarily Jews like Rosenthal, were the moving spirits behind this party. Although the Wafd government did not rush to outlaw this party, Islamic circles confronted the communist current head on. Many reasons account for this, including the party’s foreign background, its declared atheism, and particularly its attacks on Islam. One of the party’s founders, Mahmoud Husni al-Uraabi, aroused the ire of the Islamic establishment when he wrote in a magazine, al-Hayat al-Jadidah in 1928, that al-Azhar should be converted into a seminary devoted to the teaching of theological studies as was the practice in Germany and Turkey. Azharite scholars were such a large army, he complained, that if directed properly they would have been able to move the country forward.11 In some of the most vitriolic articles directed at the Communists’ foreign connections, a known Azherite scholar, Sheikh Muhammad al-Ghanimi al-Taftazani, wrote in al-Ahram in 1921 that the Socialist Party should spread its venom in countries other than Egypt and would be best advised to take its message to its beloved Bolshevik Russia. These articles fortified the Muslim confrontational posture in addition to a fetwa issued by Sheikh al-Islam in Istanbul claiming that socialism was contradicted by Islamic teachings. Yet, some of the early members of the party were Azharites, such as Abd al-Rahman Fadhel and Sheikh Safwan Abu alFath, who presented socialism as though it were the teachings of Prophet Muhammad himself.

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 65

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

65

EARLY DISAGREEMENT WITH THE COMINTERN The Socialist party was born officially on August 28, 1921, at Cairo, under the names of Mahmoud Husni al-Uraabi, a communist, Muhammad Abdullah Anan, a Social Democrat, Ali al-Anan, a Hegelian leftist, and Salamah Musa, a Fabian. The party avoided the communist label because of specific laws of the 1923 Constitution, which directly called for fighting Bolshevism and Communism. The party deliberately sought the support of various socialist formations in a manner that was repeated in future years by al-Tagamuu party. The fledgling party, however, did not escape demands made upon it by the Russian leadership of the world communist movement. At first, Moscow demanded purging the party of the “opportunists,” meaning non-communists, and then to change the party’s name to that of the Communist Party of Egypt. Rather than purge the “opportunists” like Musa and Anan, the party moved its headquarters to Alexandria. When Al-Uraabi attended the Fourth Comintern Conference to lobby for official admission to the world movement, he was opposed by the director of the credentials committee, a comrade Katayama, who demanded opening the membership to any communist currently outside the party, and changing the party’s name to the Egyptian Communist Party no later than January 15, 1923. Katayama insisted on the admission of non-Egyptians to the party despite al-Uraabi’s pleading that Egypt had specific considerations that militated against an open door for foreign nationals. But the Japanese comrade won, which led to some resignations and flooding the ranks of the party with those defined as any communist residing in Egypt.12 The party’s foreign connections inside and outside of Egypt were first noticed by Zaghloul when he was still in Paris. In a secret letter to the 1919 Revolution’s leadership, he expressed anger at the leaflets being distributed in Egypt, calling for friendship with Germans and Bolsheviks. After the party was dissolved and driven underground in 1923, the Comintern used the opportunity provided by the imprisonment of the Egyptian leadership to force its own influence over newly vacated positions. Names like Baheel Kousa, Avigdore, Constantine Weiss, and Joseph Berger began to emerge as the new leadership, further isolating the party from the Egyptian masses. When Egyptian delegates traveled to receive training at some of the Comintern’s schools, they discovered that they were the only purely Arab-delegation. Most of the schools’ administrators and translators turned out to be Arab Jews from other countries. The Egyptians raised the banner of “Arabisatsia,” but were locally tried as anti-Semitic and chauvinists and sent to distant factories to labor and learn the proper conduct of the proletariat. A more serious dispute developed between the

10_303_Ch3.qxd

66

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 66

Chapter 3

Egyptian party and the Comintern following Stalin’s 1925 speech about the state of the colonies, in which he designated China and Egypt—or class II colonies—as ready for forming a revolutionary block of workers and petite-bourgeois groups, meaning peasants. The Egyptian party disagreed, favoring organizing their activities as a national front party. When the Goumindang party in China betrayed the workers and was condemned by the Sixth Comintern meeting in 1928 as a failed national bourgeoisie, somehow the Egyptians were implicated in the same deviance and were asked to announce the Wafd’s betrayal of the working class. The Egyptians refused since they were fully embroiled in the anti-British struggle to obtain a constitution and establish their status against the hegemony of minority groups. This resulted in the expulsion of the Egyptian party from the Comintern in 1935.13

THE COMMUNIST PRESS Egyptian socialists and communists were always interested in opinion journalism to maximize their contacts with the masses. Not only did they publish papers whenever they could, they also issued a constant stream of secret leaflets. At first lacking the means to acquire a license for their own paper, the Communists leased a weekly paper devoted to literary and social topics by the name of al-Shabeebah, which came out in July of 1922. By 1925, the party leased the permit of a paper known as al-Hisab, which was edited by veteran political organizer Rafiq Jabbour.14 Al-Hisab, which always proclaimed on its front pages that it was founded for the defense of workers and peasants, published Jabbour’s articles under the pseudonym of Muhammad Sadiq Antar. Several papers followed such as al-Tatawur, alMajallah al-Jadidah, al-Malayeen, al-Fajr al-Jadid, Hurriyat al-Shuub, Um-Durman, al-Dhameer, and al-Jamaheer. Three publishing houses were later owned by the communists, namely Dar al-Qarn al-Ishreen, Dar al-Fajr and Dar al-Nashr al-Sudaniyah.15 Some of these appeared in the 1940s after the communist movement experienced major splits. Among these offshoots was the Workers’ and Peasants’ Vanguard, which was responsible for publishing al-Fajr al-Jadeed and al-Dhameer. Another group, Iskra, (al-Sharara) produced al-Jamaheer after joining the Democratic Club, referred to in Arabic as al-Harakat al-Dimocratiyah lil al-Taharur al-Wattani, or HADATO.16

THE JEWISH FACTOR The Communist Party succeeded in the creation of a substantial labor union organization, numbering around 2,500, joining the International

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 67

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

67

Trade Union Federation by 1923. Under the guidance of a communist lawyer, Antoun Maroon, the union achieved great successes.17 This organizing effort clashed with al-Wafd’s attempt to create a workers base of its own. The Wattani party had already organized eleven unions and the Communists were distinguished by bringing foreign and Egyptian workers under one umbrella headed by Joseph Rosenthal. This intense competition to recruit workers was aggravated by a takeover of major factories in Alexandria by communist workers in 1923 and undertaking major strikes in 1924. The government cracked down on the communist labor organization by 1925, crippling most of its branches.18 Despite this confrontation, the party continued to expand secretly into various towns and cities. Al-Mansourah branch became a virtual communal program that offered literacy classes, instruction in French and music, the latter producing a workers’ musical band offering free entertainment during weddings. There was also a health clinic that earned the gratitude of the local municipal council, causing it to grant free water and electricity to the communist headquarters. Several provincial towns saw the rise of communist branches, experiencing a new service, prison visits, for the first time. When activists faced prison sentences, Maroon devised a very effective defense consisting of reminding the court that a worker is expected to labor twelve hours a day, receiving ten piasters only. This amount would never cover the needs of a beast of burden, let alone a worker and his family, he always said. Despite this élan, which infused most of the party’s activities, it found itself subject to popular criticism because of the influx of Jewish members and organizers to its ranks. Several reasons accounted for the migration of European-born and native Egyptian Jews to the party, not the least of which was the presence of an enthusiastic pro-fascist Italian community in Egypt, which frightened the Jews. There was also an Egyptian neo-fascist party, Misr al-Fatah, and new stirrings among Muslim activists. Jews, more than anyone else, began to respond to these events. First there were Jewish anti-fascist organizations such as the Essayistes, who published a French paper, L’Efforte and a more leftist journal, La Gerbe. Then came an organization dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism, Lisca, which targeted French Lycee schools and Egyptian and Jewish elite circles alike. Out of these activities, a Jewish leftist current materialized. By the 1930s, the Egyptian Communist Party was made up of three types of membership: Older members, new Egyptian members, and foreigners who originated in anti-fascist circles. Most of the latter groups were Jews, but the Egyptian movement remained separate from international communist organizations. Several splits developed as a result of the party’s decision to support the U.N. Partition Resolution (181) on Palestine, which met with a strong wave of popular condemnation. Most of these divisions were headed by Jewish members, such as HADATO, which was

10_303_Ch3.qxd

68

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 68

Chapter 3

led by its general secretary Henri Curiel, known by the code name of Younis. Marcel Israel, known by the code name Mursi founded a smaller group called People’s Liberation. A third group, The New Dawn, was known for its secret organization and a triumvirate leadership of Raymon Koweik, Yousef Darwish, and Sartel Salomon, known later after declaring his Islam by the name of Ahmad Sadiq Saad. A Trotskyite smaller group was no more than a flash in the pan.19 The most important group turned out to be Iskra (The Spark) founded by Hillel Schwartz in 1942, known by the code name of Shandi, which attracted prominent Egyptian intellectuals, such as Sherif Hitata, Ilham Seif al-Nasr, and Muhammad Sid Ahmad.20 Despite these divisions, the communist movement in Egypt during the 1930s and 1940s flourished spawning clubs, publishing houses, strikes, labor groups, all of which left a strong impact on Egypt’s social and political development. Among these groups were Art and Freedom, Bread and Freedom, the Union of Peace Supporters, Youths for Popular Culture, the Committee to Promote a New Culture, the New Generation Movement, Culture and Leisure, the Union of Female University Graduates, the Preparatory Committee of the Federation of Labor Unions, and the Israeli League to Combat Zionism (al-Rabitah al-Israiliyah li-Mukafahat al-Sahiouniyah). Most of these groups came together in one party on January 7, 1958, but it lasted for only one month. Its final fragmentation into the Egyptian Communist Party and HADATO came on the eve of Nasserite persecutions that began on January 1, 1959, and ended in 1964.21

ZIONISM AND JEWISH LIFE The Jewish community in Egypt had never experienced a ghettoized existence as in much of Eastern Europe. Due to its deep historical roots and the Ottoman millet regulations, it managed to enjoy religious and administrative autonomy, as well as national assimilation. Modern Jewish immigration to Egypt, beginning in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, changed that picture drastically. This change, however, was visible over a long period of time, beginning in 1821, when the Greek–Turkish War drove a large number of Jews from Iraq, Syria, Greece, and Italy. The influx of Jews to Egypt was encouraged by Egypt’s rulers from 1840 to 1854, as a way of infusing European talent into the country. The newcomers were a great contrast to the poorer and older Karaite community. The torrent of European immigration, Jewish and non-Jewish, increased as a result of Egypt’s accelerated modernization program. When Egypt was placed under a British-French receivership regime, Europeans came into control of the Egyptian economy and were protected by a special legal system. Newly arrived Jews, most of whom held European citizenship,

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 69

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

69

benefited from this system. Under these regulations, the Jewish community was represented by three elected millet councils, two in Cairo and one in Alexandria. By 1925, a reorganization occurred with one super council emerging, consisting of eighteen elected members and an elected grand rabbi. The head of that council, until 1943, represented by Yousef Cattaoui, enjoyed wide powers consisting of organizing community-government relations, managing the taxes and contributions of the community, as well as, overseeing the community’s temples, religious trusts, and cemeteries. Early Jewish papers, such as al-Shams, always encouraged general participation in these elections and announced them regularly. This system also instituted regular contributions by members of the community allowing it to play an important role in Egyptian life through its various institutions. One manifestation of this communal cohesion was the proliferation of newspapers, clubs, schools and charities servicing Jewish social and cultural needs.22 Jewish interest in modern education began early and subsequently opened the door to foreign influence and loyalties. The first Jewish school to offer a modern curriculum and to instruct its charges in French was Ibn Maimon School, which opened its doors at Cairo in 1892. Jewish schools in general began to benefit from the curricular and material aid provided by the Paris-based Alliance Israelite Universelle, founded in 1860. The alliance acquired a distinct political tone as it attempted to maintain links between various segments of the Jewish diaspora by strengthening their Jewish identity along Western and Zionist lines. Most of these schools were totally autonomous having been founded by individual Jewish philanthropists. Saad Malki, the well-known journalist and editor of a paper called Israil, ran one such school in 1924 that was founded by the Green family. Indeed the Jewish press played a large role in calling on parents to send their children to community schools since these stressed the teaching of the Jewish religion, preventing members from forsaking their faith. At the same time, al-Shams often criticized the Jewish community for neglecting to teach the Torah, calling on it to emphasize “Israeli history” in the land of Egypt and to strengthen the Jewish identity in the same manner in which Christian missionary schools contributed to the creation of a Christian generation of students.23 Al-Shams, which first appeared in 1934, was an Arabic weekly magazine devoted to issues pertaining to the Jewish heritage and was not identified with Zionist causes. Its favorite theme was to persuade the Egyptian government against involvement in the Palestine question, claiming that other issues demanded its full attention.24 Israil, on the other hand, was more open in its advocacy of Zionist objectives. Established in 1919 by Albert Mosseri, the paper appeared in Arabic, French, and Hebrew, the Arabic edition having stopped appearing in 1934. That was when Malki

10_303_Ch3.qxd

70

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 70

Chapter 3

decided to publish Al-Shams (appearing as Al Chams in French) as a voice truly representative of the concerns of the Jewish community. Al-Malki, however, often expressed gratitude to the Zionist ideology for saving Jewish youths by offering the highest form of idealism to the entire Jewish nation. Israil advocated the creation of a Zionist state in Palestine, rarely broaching Egyptian nationalist issues.25 Some papers remained focused on the affairs of Egyptian Jews and often took offense at the strident Zionist tone of some publications. Albert Mizrahi’s al-Tiseerah, for instance, publicly accused one of the Jewish papers of employing a member of the Stern gang, which operated in Palestine. He also claimed that the Societe Orientale de Publicite, owned by Isaac Nachamoli during the 1940s and which held exclusive control over the paper trade during the war years attempted to withhold print paper from Egyptian publications sympathetic to the Palestinians. Other Zionist papers were Majalat al-Ittihad al-Israili, La Juive, and Majallat al-Kaleem. The latter published by Yousef Kamal, catered to the older Karaite community. There were non-Zionist papers that feared British wrath if it covered Palestinian news. The most important of these were al-Maimoun and al-Haqiqah. Some of Leon Castro’s papers were deeply committed to the Wafdist cause, while others projected Zionist views. His La Liberte was considered a Wafdist paper, and as such was not expected to stir up the Palestine question. His other paper La Revue Sioniste, expressed pro-Zionist views since its founding in 1917.26 Even before the conclusion of World War I, Zionist reports to the World Zionist Organization in 1917 indicated the existence of active Zionist groups in Cairo, Alexandria, and most other cities.27 But some sectors of the Jewish community, particularly those with Communist or Wafdist leanings, remained unmoved by the Zionist call. These advertised their positions on the pages of newpapers in order to reach a large audience. On October 6, 1946, Sawt al-Ummah, a Wafdist paper, published an antiZionist declaration by the Israeli League to Combat Zionism, an organization of communist Jews who affiliated with Iskra. Ezra Harari, the League’s secretary, wrote that his group aimed to struggle against racism, colonialism, and the latter’s descendent, Zionism. He condemned Jewish immigration to Palestine, describing Zionism as the most dangerous movement in the history of the Jewish people and an obstacle to the resolution of the Jewish question. In other declarations, the League condemned Zionist terrorism in Palestine, Zionist nests in Egypt, and Zionist activities in Egypt’s clubs and schools. The league also attacked the practice of raising donations in order to help transport Egyptian Jews to Palestine. The League, however, met an early ending when Egyptian authorities in 1948 disbanded the group and ordered its leadership to leave the country. On October 25, 1946, the leader of Egypt’s Jewish community, Rene Cattaoui, son of Yousef Cattoui, wrote in an editorial in the first is-

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 71

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

71

sue of the magazine Tarikh al-Israiliyeen fi Misr, expressing hope that the publication will devote its pages to an accurate depiction of Jewish life among the ranks of the generous Egyptian people. Tarikh, he wrote, will endeavor to publish the history of the Jewish community from its inception along the banks of the Nile until the modern period. Indeed, before the rise of populous movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Misr al-Fatah, Jewish immigrants were afforded a decent treatment by the authorities. Arriving in Egypt by World War I after their expulsion from Palestine by Ottoman authorities, the small community of East European Jews was met warmly by an Egyptian government delegation. They were housed in special camps and shelters and were supported by official funding. They were also availed of special bakeries, a temple, a hospital and some park lands. The Jewish community, before and after this migration, began to leave its mark on the Egyptian economy. Taking advantage of Egypt’s capitalist opportunities, Jews were able to contribute to the country’s economic growth and to enrich themselves in the process. Some of their early activities involved the creation of major concerns, as a company by the name of Wadi Um Kimbo, devoted to land development and the introduction of lucrative cash crop agriculture. The company’s board of directors consisted of Robert Rollo, Yousef Cattaoui, Leon Suares, Henri Mosseri, and Ralph Harari. This was but one of several massive land reclamation schemes undertaken by companies that were predominantly Jewish. There were also cotton-ginning companies, clothes-manufacturing companies that produced for the famous Shemla Stores in Cairo, and Cicurel Stores, which were established in 1887. The Cattoui family also created in 1907 the United Egyptian Salt Company Limited, and in 1934, the British Imperial Chemical Company. The Mosseiri family created the Egyptian Hotel Company, which built some of Egypt’s most famous hotels such as Mina House, San Stephano, and Savoy. Jewish families also owned banks and sugar refining companies. Indeed, just a cursory listing of Egyptian-Jewish enterprises from the end of the nineteenth century until 1948 runs for several pages.28

POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY According to some authorities, Egypt’s modern Jewish community fared well because of its excellent relationship with the royal descendents of Muhammad Ali Pasha and with British higher authorities. The founder of the Cattaoui line in Egypt, Yaaqub, was very close to Khedive Abbas I, while Khedive Ismail attracted a large number of Jews to his court. By the time Khedive Tawfiq mounted the throne, the Cattaoui, Mosseri, and Harari families were particularly welcome at the court and a Jewish

10_303_Ch3.qxd

72

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 72

Chapter 3

lawyer, Murad Farag Liyashaa managed the Khedive’s affairs. By 1913, when Khedive Abbas II adopted a special constitution leading to the establishment of a legislative assembly, Yousef Aslan Cattaoui, later the head of the entire Egyptian Jewish community, was appointed to that assembly. The first Jewish member of this institution, he later represented the district of Um Kimbo for three consecutive terms in the Egyptian parliament after 1923. By 1927, he was appointed to the Egyptian Senate, where he served until he resigned his post in 1938. Cattaoui also had the distinction of being the first Jewish cabinet minister in Egypt, being chosen as the Minister of Finance in 1924 by Prime Minister Ahmad Ziyour. He later served as the Minister of Transportation. It is noted also that his wife, Ida Cattoui, was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Nazli and Queen Faridah after her. Cattoui’s eldest son, Aslan, was a close friend of King Fouad and succeeded to his father’s senate seat after the latter’s death in 1942. There were other Jewish members of parliament, including Chief Rabbi Nahoum. Zaki Uraabi, who served in the Egyptian Senate, was later nominated by the Free Officers to the preparatory committee charged with writing the country’s first postroyal constitution.29 But Egypt’s Jewish community was not made up entirely of rich elite. Its working class, as was shown earlier, left its imprint on the Egyptian socialist and communist movement. Its rightist wing, made up largely of professionals and members of the petite bourgeoisie, was attracted to Zionism and the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine. In many ways, this was due to Egypt’s position as a waystation or a point of entry to Palestine. The presence of a wealthy and substantial Jewish community in Egypt spiked the interest of European Jewish immigration leaders. By 1917, several Zionist clubs and organizations, which sprouted all over Egypt beginning with Bar Kochba Zionist Organization founded by Joseph Marco Baruch in 1896, came under one umbrella group known as the Zionist Union. The establishment of the first official branch of World Zionist Organization was founded by distinguished members of the community, like Jacques Mosseri and Joseph Cicurel in 1921. Leon Castro served as a member of the organization’s executive committee.30 The Revisionist Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880–1940), who served as a war correspondent in Egypt in 1914, developed great interest in forming a Jewish brigade to serve against the Turks with the British army. He ended up training Jewish soldiers in Burj al-Arab, west of Alexandria, who became known as the Mule Corps and later saw action at Galliopoli. His obsession was to help create a larger Jewish unit to serve permanently with the British. Finally a Jewish company known as the Judeans was created in London in 1917 and saw action in Palestine with General Edmund Allenby in March of 1918.31 The Jewish company stopped in Egypt on its way to Palestine where it was given a great re-

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 73

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

73

ception by enthusiastic Jewish crowds in Cairo and Alexandria.32 One of the early instances of mainstream Egyptian indifference to Palestinian sensitivities was the acceptance of the cabinet of Ahmad Ziyour of an invitation for participation in the inauguration ceremonies of Hebrew University at Jerusalem in 1925. The one Egyptian official designated to represent the government was Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid, president of the Egyptian University and known for his advocacy of the idea of Egypt as a nation-state. His participation in these ceremonies led to compliments by al-Ittihad al-Israili. Al-Sayyid’s visit was particularly resented by the Islamic establishment, particularly since the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Sheikh Muhammad Bakheit, had turned down the same invitation earlier.33 Neither was the Jewish community totally capable of insulating Egyptian public opinion from Palestinian news, such as when Arab-Jewish clashes over access to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem resulted in riots and bloodshed in 1929. While the cabinet of Mustafa Nahhas took this occasion as a convenient opportunity to remind the public that Egypt always protected its minorities, papers like al-Ahram and al-Muqattam expressed sympathy for Arab rioters. But Israil wrote that these two publications incited the Egyptians to rebel, particularly since these Christian-Syrian papers had absorbed too much anti-Jewish propaganda from their foreign schools. Israil also accused one of the Palestinian leaders of the riots, Jamal al-Husseini, of belonging to the Central Committee of Russia’s Communist party.34 Among the strange cases of the pro-Zionist press in the period before the 1952 Revolution was that of a literary magazine known as al-Kateb al-Misri. Produced first in October of 1945, it was edited by Taha Hussein and boasted contributions on literature and the arts by such luminaries as Saheir al-Qalamawi, Tawfiq al-Hakim, Hussein Fawzi, Salamah Musa, and Louis Awadh. Its reputation in the Arab World and in Egypt led to its expansion into two other French language editions, Les Valeurs and La Revue du Caire. Al-Kateb came under heavy attack by other papers, accusing it of representing the Zionist line. Misr al-Fatah was particularly critical of Taha Hussein and his deliberate attempt to maintain his silence whenever news of major violence in Palestine broke out. The magazine, though enormously successful and enlightening, was considered to be providing indirect assistance to the Zionist movement in Egypt by either deliberate avoidance of Palestinian issues or simply providing shallow analysis of Palestinian stories. Published by a firm that seemingly had no connections to other publishing houses with obvious Jewish ownership like Cohen, Mizrahi, Weinstein, Danino, Asher, and Rosenthal, Al-Kateb was, nevertheless, owned by two Harari brothers. This particular fact and its continuing publication during the war years when print paper was withheld from pro-Palestinian papers, exposed al-Kateb to accusations of being pro-Zionist.35

10_303_Ch3.qxd

74

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 74

Chapter 3

THE ISLAMIC RESPONSE It can be easily argued that the Islamic press was the oldest in Egypt, if not by virtue of Afghani’s papers, at least because of the Islamic spirit that infused much of the press, even official press, since the dawn of the nineteenth century. Both al-Waqai al-Misriyyah and Rawdhat al-Madares, which were edited by Tahtawi and then Ali Fahmi Bey, were keenly interested in the life of the Prophet Muhammad, fighting harmful innovations and publicizing news of all occupied Muslim countries outside of Egypt. Rawdhat al-Madares also paid attention to the Islamic education of women. Abduh’s and Afghani’s al-Urwah al-Wuthqa, which appeared later in the century, and Rashid Ridha’s al-Manar, which appeared in 1898, carried on with the message of a reformist and enlightened Islam. The Islamic trend continued with the appearance of al-Islam in 1894, Misbah al-Sharq in 1898, al-Hayat in 1899, Makarem al-Akhlaq in 1900, and al-Maraat fi al-Islam in 1901. Al-Liwaa made its debut in 1900.36 Considered the voice of Islamic nationalism while still under Mustafa Kamil’s direction, the journal took a turn to the right after Kamil’s death in 1908 and the accession of Sheikh Jaweesh to the paper’s editorship. Born in Alexandria but of Tunisian origin, Sheikh Abd al-Aziz Jaweesh not only opposed Abduh’s efforts to reform and expand al-Azhar’s curriculum and improve its teaching methods, he also embroiled al-Liwaa with an ongoing battle against some segments of the Coptic press. Perhaps not as influential or widely read as Ali Yousef’s al-Muyyad, which earned the title of “The Times of the East,” al-Liwaa became the platform from which Jaweesh made his call for the creation of the Muslim Young Men’s Association.37 The rise of a genuine Islamic press, though, had to await the appearance of the Muslim Brotherhood, which carried none of the pro-Ottoman package of earlier papers. If Jaweesh expressed the extremism of those who favored an Ottoman-centered Islamic universalism, the Brotherhood came to stand for an Arab-centered Islamic ideology. Both minimized the legitimacy of narrow Egyptian nationalism and the Brotherhood became an ardent foe of political liberalism, which changed the face of Egypt, as well as an opponent of what the Islamic establishment, represented by alAzhar, stood for. Himself not an Azharite, Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood’s founder, was the recipient of secular education in Dar al-Ulum. His first profession was as a teacher of Arabic in the city al al-Ismailiyah. Some Egyptian historians today claim that the idea of an Islamic organization emanated from the thought of Rashid Ridha, who envisaged such a group to be capable of spreading the message of true Islam throughout the Muslim world. Several other Islamic organizations emerged during the same time such as the Brotherhood. These included Jamiyat al-Hidayah al-Islamiyah, Jamiyat Nashr al-Fadhail al-Islamiyah, Jamiyat Ihyaa

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 75

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

75

al-Sunnah, and The Muslim Young Men’s Association. The latter became one of the strongest advocates of the return to Islam and its principles, comparing the virtues of Islam against Western culture, and calling for the restoration of the institution of the Caliphate. But the Young Men’s Association never pursued a serious political line, which left the door wide open for the Brotherhood to seek a popular following and convert itself into a powerful political force.38 Several factors accounted for the rise and the rapid success of the Brotherhood at this juncture of Egyptian history. The first of these was the overall impact of the British occupation on Egyptian life and Islamic culture. In addition to its infringement on all that was sacred in Egyptian life by introducing secularism and Westernization into the country and its educational institutions, the occupation was viewed by many Egyptians as tinged with Christian secularism. By the 1920s and 1930s, Egyptians were becoming increasingly aware that Islam was no longer the focal point of people’s lives. Thus, resistance to the occupation was viewed as a multi-level effort that must begin with resistance to a foreign ideology and alien culture. This explains general Egyptian rejection of British reformism, which was considered one more attempt to transform native culture and perpetuate foreign control over Egypt.39 Failure of Egyptian political leadership to provide a viable alternative to British and Egyptian royal authorities also narrowed the Egyptian’s ideological choices. If there was any hope of clinging to Islamic universalism, which centered its ideology on Egypt, the death of alWattani leader in 1908 put an end to that. Kamil’s death, as well as that of his successor Muhammad Farid and the decline of the prestige of Jaweesh, left an Islamic ideological vacuum behind. Jaweesh, who simply moved closer to the secularism of al-Wafd, left the Egyptian political arena without any force capable of challenging the Wafd.40 Another explanation for the emergence of a strong Islamic current, despite the success of the Revolution of 1919, was the disillusionment of a substantial segment of the Egyptian public with the accomplishment of that revolt. The Wafd never lost its luster throughout the 1920s and part of the 1930s, but it eventually experienced a palpable institutional decline leading to general public skepticism regarding its ability to achieve the national agenda of independence, democracy, and development. This skepticism was heightened by political instability, the Wafd’s incessant skirmishes with the British and the palace, and several constitutional crises. The Wafd itself became riddled with internal struggles and ideological splits, leading to the public’s despair about its ability to run the affairs of the country properly. This crisis of confidence deepened with the demise of Zaghloul in August of 1927. Added to this was the conflict between the major secular parties, especially the Wafd and the Liberal Constitutionalists, which placed individual interests above national interests. This struggle in particular alienated the youths of the

10_303_Ch3.qxd

76

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 76

Chapter 3

country who resorted to demonstrations and strikes in order to impress their views on the leadership of the country.41 But beyond the disillusionment with party politics, which some Egyptians considered to be a fruitless and endless game, other changes in the general Egyptian intellectual environment stirred up the underlying Islamic sentiment. One of these, and perhaps the only phenomenon with far-reaching consequences, was the end of the Caliphate institution at the hands of Ataturk. To most Egyptians, it seemed as though all the limbs of the Muslim Umaah were torn from its main body at a time when various Arab states fell under the control of different colonial regimes. Only a few years after the elimination of the Caliphate, the Jewish-Arab conflict over Palestine, a land of special Islamic significance, began to stir the emotions of the Egyptians and to appear on the pages of their major publications.42 In reaction to this onslaught on their sacred universalist institution, Egyptians made an effort that proved fruitless to create an alternative unifying structure or designate a new caliph in place of the cancelled Ottoman personage. This effort began at al-Azhar where a large conference was held on March 25, 1924, under the leadership of the Islamic university’s rector, calling for the election of a successor caliph a year later. A special magazine, The General Islamic Conference for the Caliphate in Egypt, was issued and was edited by the rector’s secretary and the head of the society for the cooperation of Muslim scholars, Sheikh Muhammad Farraj al-Minyawi. The magazine produced several issues then stopped. In the meantime a movement developed in order to declare King Fouad the new caliph, while a similar movement to vest the title in Sherif Hussein of Mecca and another one in India failed to achieve the desired result. These Islamic mobilizational efforts led some leaders eventually to act on Jaweesh’s call for the creation of a structure for Islamic youths, which turned out to be the Muslim Young Men’s Association, founded in 1927. Headed by Abd alHamid Said but with encouragement by al-Banna, the Association intensified general interest in an Islamic solution. A year before its founding, al-Banna had already begun to publish his first paper, Majallat al-Fath alIslamiyah, which was edited at first by Sheikh Abd al-Baqi Sorour and Muhyi al-Din al-Khatib before he undertook the management of the paper himself.43 Islamic self-confidence was further jolted by the publication of two studies that purportedly cast shadows on Islamic orthodoxy. Both of these efforts projected secularist trends that were reminders of the impact of Western education on the intellectuals and the desire of some members of that class to link the fate of Muslim lands with that of Europe. First came the work of a renegade Azharite, Sheikh Ali Abd al-Raziq’s Al-Islam wa usul al-hukm, which questioned in 1925 the theological necessity of the Caliphate. It argued that Islam was a purely spiritual faith that was not in-

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 77

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

77

tended to play an executive, administrative role in the lives of the faithful. The following year, another former Azharite and perhaps Egypt’s greatest man of letters, Taha Hussein, had published Fi al-Shir al-Jahili. Hussein called for the application of the modern critical method to the foundations of Islamic beliefs, such as the birth and existence of Abraham and his son, meaning Ishmael, which were unsupportable by any facts other than their mention in the Bible and the Qur’an. Applying Rene Descartes’ method of philosophical doubt to God’s holy books dealt another blow to Al-Azhar itself as the bastion of Muslim education. Al-Azhar reacted strongly to Abd al-Raziq’s book, voting to expel him from the ranks of Islamic scholars and to confiscate his work. Hussein, on his part, was almost expelled from his university post, were it not for the determined stand of the Egyptian University’s president, Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid. But al-Azhar’s inability to stem these movements at their inception was at once the cause and symptom of the intellectual rebellion. This venerable institution, which succeeded so well in rallying the faithful to its side in the past, was unable to live up to its reputation at the beginning of the twentieth century. Al-Azhar became the focal point of political struggles and intrigues. King Fouad, for instance, was somewhat successful in winning the scholars of this institution to his side in his confrontation with nationalist forces. Neither did Al-Azhar succeed in expressing nationalist objectives and demands, remaining oblivious to the deep inroads that the foreign occupation has made in the Egyptian philosophy of education. According to a later critic, Shekh Mahmoud Shaltout, al-Azhar at the time was obsessed with linguistic debates, keeping up with what was written in the margins of ancient texts, and sanctifying ancient opinions and concepts over and above any demands for the application of new ideas and modern critical thought. Due to this overwhelming rigidity, there were many calls for reforming the institution and its curriculum. But the stagnation of Islamic teaching was not the only problem facing the Islamic camp. Some consideration must be given to the spreading influence of various Sufi schools and centers of worship since these played a large part in popularizing myths, legends, and fabricated stories that steered the faithful away from authenticated Islamic teaching. Sufism became more concerned with rituals, such as visiting saints’ graves, and with frequenting religious festivals, as well as with promoting practices bordering on witchcraft rather than with philosophy. Religious scholars with a reforming bent also were unhappy with Rashid Ridha’s increasingly rigid Islamic views, which placed him close to the conservative Islamic school. Egyptians who looked to his publication, al-Manar, (first published in 1898 but folded soon after his death in 1935) to carry on with Abduh’s message of enlightened reform, were deeply disappointed with its crusade for the Caliphate and its increasingly traditionalist direction.44

10_303_Ch3.qxd

78

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 78

Chapter 3

According to historians of the Islamic movement, some of the blame for the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood must be placed on the shoulders of the Egyptian feminist movement. Not content with entering higher education and creating their own organizations and press, Egyptian women also began to encourage the abandonment of practices hitherto conceived of as the essence of Islam, such as the veil and polygyny. The spread of bars, nightclubs, and disreputable establishments that were catering to the large number of the British military in the country was quickly blamed on the loosening of morals by the feminist movement. But even more alarming than women’s activities was the inception of a Christian missionary movement that targeted Egypt. Dating back to the reign of khedives Said and Ismail when Egypt consciously sought to Westernize and Europeanize society, the missionary movement sought to encourage conversion by offering to provide a range of humanitarian institutions such as hospitals and orphanages. The missionaries’ most dangerous activity, however, was their involvement in education by creating a Christian university capable of offsetting the influence of Al-Azhar. Since missionary activity at first targeted minorities, such as the Copts, the general Muslim population did not feel alarmed quickly. For about half a century, Western Christian missionaries were critical of the hierarchic institutional structure of the Coptic Church and managed to win over some of its following. But in 1906, the Cairo Evangelical Conference was held with an agenda that specifically targeted Muslims and devoted its efforts to a discussion of “the Muslim question,” and how to confront it in a manner that would neutralize its opposition to Christian missionary activity. Other similar conferences followed, and were encouraged and tolerated by British authorities but hotly opposed by Muslims, particularly the Muslim Young Men’s Association and a year later, the Muslim Brotherhood. Another development that concerned Islamic and national public opinion was Western and foreign capitalist control of the economy. Egyptian capitalist investment in the country during the first half of the twentieth century was no more than nine percent of the total. As a result, Egyptians in general suffered from a high unemployment rate since foreign investors did not employ native workers much of the time. Egyptian workers felt that most of their economic trouble was to be blamed on foreign “non-Muslim” capitalists, ignoring for the most part the country’s weak pro-labor legislation. Impoverishment of the working class extended to the agricultural sector where six percent of the population owned thirty-nine percent of agricultural land. This inequitable distribution of land resulted in large migration of unemployed agricultural labor to the cities. The newly arrived agricultural proletariat were the most alienated from the veneer of Western and secular life overtaking the cities at the time.45

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 79

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

79

THE NEW ISLAMIC PRESS Throughout the twentieth century, several Islamic institutions and groups attempted to change the course of Egyptian history. Only the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, succeeded in mounting a successful media campaign to publicize its issues and causes. Because other Islamic formations were either too short-lived or were driven underground, their journalistic efforts rarely bore fruit for an extended period of time. Perhaps because of this fact, only the Brotherhood’s press turned into a barometer of Islamic sentiment regarding Palestine.46 The first official paper carrying the name of the Brotherhood was al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, a weekly paper that appeared in 1933. The paper was licensed to al-Banna’s brother, Ahmad Abd al-Rahman al-Banna, and was distinguished by its cultural and religious focus. It was closed by 1938, only to be replaced in 1942 by a weekly paper under the same name that continued to appear until 1948. The first paper offered a steady stream of exegetic articles on Quranic surahs and hadith. The later version of the paper was edited by Saleh al-Ishmawi, the General Secretary of the Brotherhood.47 By 1938, another weekly newspaper, alTaqrir, was published by one of the Brotherhood’s activists, Mahmoud Abu Zeid. Al-Taqrir was vocal in its call for the abolishment of political parties and establishing an Islamic system of government, including the restoration of Quranic punishments known as al-hudud. The paper also repeatedly called for al-Azhar’s control of the Revolution of 1919 in order to set it on the proper Islamic course.48 The Brotherhood issued a more political paper, al-Natheer in 1938, also licensed to Abu Zeid, and edited by Ishmawi. The same editor, thus, was in charge of the Brotherhood’s two papers because by 1938 new laws required that the publishers and editors of papers be holders of higher academic degrees. Ishmawi was a graduate of the Egyptian University’s College of Commerce, while Abu-Zeid was a trained lawyer. Unlike al-Ikhwan, al-Natheer was bolder, expressing a definite political line. By launching this new paper, al-Banna declared it was time to shift from words to a call for action and committing to the struggle. He argued that the Brotherhood’s interest in politics was very much in accordance with Islamic teachings. For him, he wrote, Islam was a system of worship and a matter of leadership, prayers and the jihad, a state and a religion, and a Qur’an and a sword. Indeed, two swords and the Qur’an were used as a logo for some of the Brotherhood’s papers. Al-Banna used to write that Islam did not preach “render unto Caesar’s what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s,” but rather “Caesar and all what he had belonged only to the all-conquering God.”49 Al-Banna expressed his deepest feelings regarding Egypt’s invasion by foreign enterprises on the pages of al-Ikhwan. Even though the paper was

10_303_Ch3.qxd

80

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 80

Chapter 3

devoted to religious issues, he wrote to remind Egyptians of the need to boycott the foreigners, refusing to have any commercial contacts with them. Al-Banna was also vocal in his call for the patronization of native products and projects and the promotion of the nationalist economy.50 In its first issue, al-Nather published an article by al-Banna’s father, Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Saati, in which he warned all his readers to prepare themselves for battle with their equipment and weapons. “If you find a foreign body within you, then cut it out, or a malignant body, then remove it,” he wrote. He addressed his readers, “Oh, Soldiers,” entreating them to get ready for the rest of the nation were deaf in their ears and blind in their eyes. The Brotherhood continued to conceal or partially reveal its justification of violence all the way down to the 1952 Revolution. But a great attention was paid to providing Islamic journals with a sound economic base. In addition to the other enterprises created by the Brotherhood, such as the Islamic Transactions Company, the Mining and Stone Masonry Company, The Engineering and Commerce Company, and alIrqi Farm Company, there were three companies devoted to publications. These were the Brotherhood’s Journalism Company, the Brotherhood’s Printing Company and the Arab Advertising Company.51 The Brotherhood’s determination to publish fiscally sound papers, however, did not prevent other weaknesses from overtaking its publications. The Brotherhood experienced government pressure to cease publishing over the years, as well as ideological splits within its own ranks, which affected the papers. Such was the result of the internal split of 1940, which resulted in an extreme rightist faction, known as Shebab Muhammad. Since Mahmoud Abu-Zeid was involved in this schism, he took the license of alNatheer with him. This ended the paper’s affiliation with the Brotherhood. Another paper, al-Daawa, which came out first in 1951 and continued to be published on an irregular basis until 1954, became identified as the movement’s major paper. Published under the name of Saleh al-Ishmawi, al-Daawa continued to appear in very limited numbers until the imprisonment of its publisher in 1981. When Ishmawi died in 1983, the paper’s permit expired. Al-Daawa was officially edited in the 1970s and the early 1980s by the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Omar al-Talmasani.52 In the 1950s, al-Daawa began to appeal to the ranks of factory workers, hoping to recruit them to the movement. This was a new development given the fact that the 1948 military order outlawing the Brotherhood mentioned only the organization’s activity among students, peasants, and office workers. But fearing the threat of isolation, al-Daawa went all out in the early 1950s to espouse a pro-labor line. It was in the early 1950s also that al-Daawa became Sayyid Qutb’s platform from which he preached his most ideological messages.53

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 81

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

81

THE BROTHERHOOD AND THE PALESTINE QUESTION It would be fair to state that Egyptian public awareness of the Palestine question began as a result of Egyptian Jewish embrace of the Zionist cause. Although some resisted the lure of Zionism, the Balfour Declaration galvanized many sectors of the Egyptian Jewish community into action. That in itself, particularly visits by some of the architects of the Zionist movement to Egypt in the early 1920s, excited the emotions of the general Egyptian public. The British government in Egypt was not above drafting or impressing Egyptian peasant labor to serve with its armies in Sinai, Iraq, and Palestine.54 Lufti al-Sayyid’s participation in the inaugural ceremonies of Hebrew University created a storm of criticism. Then came the Wailing Wall incident of 1929, barely a year after the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood, resulting in great agitation on behalf of the Palestinians. It is this incident, more than any other, which brought home the threat to the Palestinian Islamic holy places. News of the clashes between Palestinians and Jews resulted in demonstrations in Egypt and attacks on Jewish businesses, leading the government of Muhammad Mahmoud Pasha, a Liberal Constitutionalist, to threaten Palestinians residing in the country with expulsion. But further mobilization of Muslim forces followed when, after the Wailing Wall incident was referred to international arbitration, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, convened the General Islamic Conference at Jerusalem in 1931. Two prominent Egyptians who participated were not Islamists, but were definitely among the most ardent defenders of Arab Palestine at the time, namely Abd al-Rahman Azzam, then a member of the Egyptian parliament, and Muhammad Ali Aloubah Pasha, an Awqaf Minister in the Wafdist cabinet of Mustafa Nahaas. A strong supporter of Palestinian rights and a Liberal Constitutionalist member of the Senate, Aloubah, as well as Ahmad Zaki of the Islamic Young Men’s Association, represented the Palestine case in the wall incident before the International Court of Justice. After the Islamic Conference of 1931, al-Husseini arrived in Cairo to seek further support for Palestinian rights.55 Although Islamic sentiment in general was deeply aroused by events in Palestine, the Muslim brotherhood while still a fledgling organization was still at the beginning of articulating its social and political agenda. Al-Banna, for instance, wrote in Al-Ikhwan al Muslimun on November 29, 1934, defining the Brotherhood as “a comprehensive idea containing all the reformist meanings, since it is a Salafi (traditionalist) movement, a sufi reality, a political committee, an athletic group, a scholarly and cultural league, and an economic corporation.”56 In the

10_303_Ch3.qxd

82

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 82

Chapter 3

first issue of another paper, al-Natheer, which was considered officially part of the Brotherhood, al-Banna wrote a lead editorial in 1938: We shall move from the confines of the private call to that of a public call, and from the call to verbal struggle only to the call to verbal effort accompanied by real struggle and work. . . . Some may say that by doing so we are straying away from our way by engaging in politics. . . . In reality, we are taking another step in our Islamic way, Muhammadan plan and Quranic regimen, for it is not our fault that politics is part of religion or that Islam is inclusive of the rulers and the ruled.57

Being political, however, did not mean acceptance of the necessity of forming political parties or working with a parliamentary system. There was a difference, al-Banna wrote, between freedom of expression and giving counsel—which was sanctioned by Islam—and being fanatical in defense of one’s opinion and encouraging divisions within the Muslim nation, for Islam condemned such behavior. He even called for the abolishment of all political parties and creating one political body.58 The jihad was a sacred duty of all Muslims, and al-Banna waxed eloquent describing this obligation. Brothers: A nation that excels in making death and knows how to die an honorable death will be granted a good life in this world and eternal wealth in the other. What really destroyed our dignity was loving this world and hating the act of death. So, prepare yourselves for a great deed and honor death so that life may be granted unto you. Know also that death is inevitable and happens only once. So, if you died in the service of God, you would have won this world and earned gratitude in the next, and nothing will befall you, except what God has written for you . . . work to achieve an honorable death so that you may win total happiness. May God grant you and grant us the honor of martyrdom in His cause.59

Thus, al-Banna rejected the idea of forming political parties, sanctioned the jihad as the ultimate form of Islamic activism, but approved political engagement in the name of Islam. For fifty years, the Brotherhood remained a movement, not a party, and left a powerful imprint on Egyptian political life. In his first address to the Muslim Brotherhood on the eve of World War II, titled “Between Yesterday and Today,” he decried the European colonial onslaught on various parts of the Arab world in the wake of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, citing several examples including Palestine, which was turned into a British colony. He lamented the fact that Britain allowed itself to turn this country into a Zionist national home.60 He then reminded his readers again of the nature of their organization: Brothers: you are not a charitable society or a political party or a committee created to pursue defined objectives. What you are amounts to a new spirit

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 83

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

83

running through the heart of this nation . . . a new light to scatter darkness through the knowledge of God, a loud voice repeating the Prophet’s call. . . . If you are asked what are you calling for? Say we are calling for the kind of Islam to which Muhammad had called for, and government is part of it and freedom is one of its obligations. And if you are told this is politics, tell them this is Islam and we do not recognize any divisions. And if you are told that you are advocates of revolution, tell them we advocate for the truth and for peace.61

Unlike today’s Islamic groups who reject Arab nationalism or any other nationalism in favor of Islamic universalism, the Brotherhood always reiterated its defense of Arab lands and their people. In a 1941 letter to King Farouq, Prime Minister Mustafa Nahaas Pasha, and various Arab and Islamic rulers, al-Banna elaborated on his vision of what Arab and Islamic ties should look like. If the Egyptians followed an Islamic line, he argued, then Arab unity would be strengthened, followed by Islamic unity. On another occasion, he stressed that Arabs are Islam’s first people and its chosen people, for the Prophet had said, “If the Arabs are demeaned then Islam will be demeaned.” Islam, he added, will never rise without total agreement among the Arab nations, for every inch of Arab territory is considered part of our land and the essence of our homeland. Al-Banna honored the Arab tie because of Islam, being unable to separate the two from each other. He went out of his way to stress the Arab root of this religion, saying that Islam developed as an Arab religion and reached other nations through the Arabs. God’s holy book was revealed in the Arab tongue, he would say, and nations came together around this language as Muslim nations. He believed that Arab unity was a precondition of the restoration of Islam’s glory and the creation of its physical state.62 It is clear from the above statements that the Brotherhood’s stand on Palestine preceded the creation of the state of Israel. The Brotherhood’s view of the Palestine question stemmed both from the Arab nature of Palestine, as well as its religious affiliation. Palestine was not merely another country under the control of a Western colonial power. It was always defined by the Brotherhood as a purely Islamic question to which the jihad principle applied. This view, first adopted by the Brotherhood and later emulated by the Egyptian Islamic groups of the 1970s, at one point threatened to drive a wedge between them and the secularist PLO. Only with the rise of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the 1980s did the Brotherhood experience perfect harmony of beliefs with a powerful wing of the Palestinian national movement. But, it would not be possible to overlook the fact that the intensification of the Palestinian struggle against the British Mandate and Zionist forces in Palestine coincided with the development of the Brotherhood as one of Egypt’s most potent political movements, hence

10_303_Ch3.qxd

84

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 84

Chapter 3

neither was able to ignore the other. Because of Palestine’s Islamic status, it could not be sidelined by Egypt’s Islamic movement. Indeed, both alIkhwan al-Muslimun and al-Natheer devoted many pages to coverage of the Palestine question during the 1930s and 1940s, thereby educating generations of Egyptians about the realities of the Palestinian struggle. Palestine was seen as sacred territory, with Jerusalem as the embodiment of that sacred status. It was incumbent on all Muslims who took their faith to heart that the place from which Muhammad rose to heaven should be protected at all costs. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s and particularly as a reaction to the Palestinian Arab revolt of 1936, the Brotherhood used its papers to educate the Egyptian public about the nature of the Zionist threat in Palestine. By 1938, al-Banna began to caution his readers about Zionism’s own threat to Egypt itself. Writing in al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, he warned that Egyptian inaction would allow the Jewish-Zionist presence in Palestine to extend to the Egyptian border, and by that time any effort would be too late. He reminded a 1945 meeting of the Brotherhood’s leaders that Egyptians should secure their eastern borders by resolving the Palestine question in a manner acceptable to Arab demands. That was the only way to secure Egypt’s boundaries and to protect its interests, he added. He repeated this line in his testimony before the Anglo-American committee, which stopped at Cairo in 1946 by stating that the Muslim Brothers opposed Jewish immigration to Palestine since this constituted a political and economic threat to Egypt. The editor of several of the Brotherhood’s papers, al-Ishmawi, wrote in al-Ahram in 1945, that the creation of a Jewish state along Egypt’s eastern borders threatened Egyptian independence, commerce, and virtues. Al-Banna used his papers in 1946 to warn the Egyptian government against overlooking the Jewish blueprint for settling Sinai, recommending that the government sponsor Egyptian settlement there by building factories and universities. During the 1948 ArabJewish War, a member of the Brotherhood’s General Guidance Council recommended on the pages of the press that the Brothers should postpone performing the pilgrimage to Mecca and donate their money for the jihad effort in Palestine.63 Thus, the Brotherhood used a religious argument, as well as an argument based on Egypt’s strategic defense with which to mobilize Egyptian public opinion in support of the Palestinians. It appears that there was more to the Brotherhood’s call for the defense of Palestine than merely the country’s religious status. The Brotherhood was convinced that Jews have always targeted Islam since they see themselves as standing to gain from the destruction of the Muslim world. The only way to achieve this was to weaken the Islamic faith. The Jews, in the thinking of the Brotherhood, were determined to separate Islam from the Palestine question because they realized that only the Islamic religion was capable of standing in

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 85

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

85

their way. What galled the Brotherhood was that at the time when the Jews were planning to create a state based on religious beliefs, they concentrated on banishing religion from the life of Muslims. But some of the Brotherhood’s zeal for Palestine cannot be separated from their nationalist commitment to Egypt, which they also expressed in religious terms. Palestine was regarded as Egypt’s first line of defense; therefore, defending it equaled the act of self-defense. Abd al-Ghani Said wrote in al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun in 1946 that Zionism and imperialism aimed at seizing all Arab and Islamic lands. Subsequently the presence of Jews in Palestine was a danger to all neighboring countries. The Brotherhood believed that Palestine by itself was a poor and small country incapable of absorbing the large number of Jews immigrating to its land. Palestinian markets were inadequate for the absorption of Israeli manufactured goods, which will inevitably find their way to neighboring Middle Eastern countries. The Brothers also realized before any other Egyptians that Jews regarded Sinai as sacred territory, their promised land, which they hoped to add to their state. In reaction to this, the Brotherhood resorted to the tactic of reminding the Egyptians of what the Qur’an said about Sinai, stressing its holy character. It was even suggested that resorting to a secular argument about Sinai’s strategic importance to Egypt was simply another way of motivating those with a low level of religious consciousness.64 Islamic papers intensified their rhetoric against Jews and settlement plans in Palestine during the 1950s. On the level of action, the Brotherhood became involved in the Palestinian issue in the 1930s. Abd al-Rahman al-Banna, Hassan al-Banna’s brother, visited Palestine in 1935, where he met with the Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The movement’s perception of Zionism and Judaism being two sides of the same coin narrowed its choice of Palestinian interlocutors to the Islamic faction only. This contact signaled the beginning of a campaign to raise funds for the Palestinian struggle, staging an informational campaign to educate international Muslim communities about Palestine, staging demonstrations against the Jewish presence in an Islamic state, and sending telegrams to the Egyptian authorities demanding action. AlNatheer wrote often as soon as it was published, calling attention to the manner in which Jewish investments in Palestine were creating a new way of life that was forcing the Arabs to change their culture and to submit to Zionist influence and power. Greatly moved by the news of the Arab Revolt of 1936, the Brotherhood supported the creation of the Arab Higher Committee, which rose to provide Palestinian national unity in the wake of these events. A book describing events in Palestine and their implications for Egypt titled Fire and Destruction was published by the Brotherhood detailing British atrocities in that country and calling on Muslims to perform the jihad obligation on behalf of Palestine. Widely distributed in

10_303_Ch3.qxd

86

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 86

Chapter 3

the provinces and major cities, the book was finally censored. Al-Banna also announced that it was permissible to divert part of zakat (religious contributions) to Palestinian fighters. In an effort to reinforce its attacks on Jewish settlements in that country, the Brotherhood began to alert the Egyptian public to the role of Jewish communities in Egypt, spearheading a drive that was also joined by Misr al-Fatah to boycott Cairo’s Jewish stores. This was followed by listing these stores and their addresses. Another booklet, which enumerated the names of Jewish papers all around the world, was also distributed. Violent demonstrations were organized annually beginning in 1945 to commemorate the Balfour declaration, which also provided an occasion to lambaste British policy in Palestine. When the Mufti sought asylum in Egypt, the Brotherhood’s papers bombarded the authorities with demands for granting him this request. More importantly, the movement rejected the idea of resolving the Palestine question through negotiations since any agreement reached by an individual Arab state weakened the remaining belligerent states. A steady flow of telegrams bombarded the headquarters of the United Nations in 1947, claiming that the idea of creating a Jewish state on any piece of Palestinian territory would lead to massacres. In the wake of the U.N. Partition Resolution (181) issued on November 29, 1947, an open rebellion developed throughout major Egyptian cities, during which time the Brotherhood issued a call titled: “General Appeal from the Muslim Brotherhood to Arab and Islamic Peoples and Governments.” The appeal, which appeared on the pages of al-Daawa, condemned the U.N. resolution, considering it part of a wider Zionist conspiracy. The Brotherhood then called on all Arab and Islamic governments to withdraw from the U.N., en masse, and to get ready to defend Palestine as the first line of defense of all Arab states. Al-Banna followed these public declarations with the creation of what came to be called The Nile Valley Committee. A joint effort with other Islamic figures, the committee was charged with raising funds and procuring weapons for volunteers willing to fight in Palestine. There was a huge demonstration also, joined by al-Azhar and Egyptian University students, during which al-Banna openly declared the Brotherhood’s intent on taking part in the Palestinian struggle and to assist those Arab governments interested in saving Palestine.65 The Brotherhood managed to create branches of its own at Gaza before that territory was attached to Egypt following the 1948 War. It was reported that there were at least eight such branches in various parts of what came to be known as the Gaza Strip, including a head office at Gaza itself. A local leader, Kamil al-Sharif, who was a prominent citizen of al-Arish, doubled as a liaison with the movement’s Egyptian higher command and proved to be a valuable link for the Brotherhood’s future activities in Palestine.66 The proximity of al-Arish to Gaza and to Egypt heightened the sig-

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 87

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

87

nificance of this region to the military plans of the Brotherhood. Military contacts between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Brotherhood preceded 1948. A small contingent of Egyptian fighters joined the trickle of Arab fighters who joined the Palestinians in the 1936 Arab Revolt. These Islamic fighters arrived in Palestine to participate in the rebellion of Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam in 1935, then stayed for the big revolt of 1936.67 The Brotherhood, it seemed, had always had a secret army. According to a story in al-Masri, the voice of al-Wafd, which appeared in January of 1948, the Cairo police have stumbled accidentally on a small group of men undergoing military training in the Muqattam area. This resulted in a brief engagement and the seizure of weapons and explosives. When questioned, the leader of the Brotherhood’s group, Sayyid Fayez, hitherto unknown to police authorities, claimed that the weapons were being collected for the Palestine War and the young men were receiving training for participation in that war. He also made the claim that the weapons were purchased from Bedouins in the Sinai region. The group was eventually released but the police began to observe similar groups with renewed interest. The story broke out at a time when the Palestine question and its reverberations in Egypt appeared daily on the pages of the press.68 Even though the government of Mahmoud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi had forbidden the Brotherhood from joining the Palestinian War effort earlier, the Islamic movement succeeded despite his orders in infiltrating some of its small units into Sinai and in launching attacks on some Jewish settlements. These events took place before the formal entry of the Egyptian armed forces in Palestine after May of 1948. To the Brotherhood, this was their way of assisting the people of Palestine against their Jewish enemies before the formal war against the newly declared state of Israel, born on May 15, 1948, had even begun.69 The war between the police and the Brotherhood’s secret army, meanwhile, escalated in Egypt. Akher Saaha, reported in November of 1948, another sensational event involving the Brotherhood. This developed when two of its members were accused of assassinating Ahmad Khazendar, chief of the Appellate Court, because of an earlier judgment against one of them regarding an attack on British soldiers at a nightclub. The Khazander killing uncovered the two assassins’ links to al-Muqattam group and to the larger secret army of the Brotherhood. The Supreme Guide, al-Banna, was arrested as a result of this incident, only to be released a short while later. During these trials and following the assassinations of politicians such as Premier Ali Maher and others, the courts became sensational platforms for the glorification of these violent acts. As the war in Palestine widened, public passions against Jews and Zionists raged. The Brotherhood was accused of intentionally setting fires to Jewish residences at Cairo by June of that year, and by July, two large Jewish stores were dynamited. A pattern developed, whereby as news of the Arab front in Palestine worsened, the Brothers vented their frustration

10_303_Ch3.qxd

88

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 88

Chapter 3

against the Egyptian Jewish community. The last week of July and the first week of August of 1948 proved to be particularly lethal with continuous explosions in Jewish areas of business, targeting large companies like Gatino, the Delta Commercial Company, Marconi Telegraphic Station, and the Eastern Advertisement Company. A huge cache of weapons was captured at an Alexandria farm belonging to Sheikh Muhammad al-Farghali, chief of the Brotherhood’s military unit in Palestine, and a little later a chance encounter with a Jeep led the police to some of the Brotherhood’s secret cadres and documents. There was enough evidence in these captured possessions to permit the imprisonment of al-Banna himself upon his return from the pilgrimage to Mecca. Released a short while later, he tried but was unable to stem the tide of violence among his followers who were now incensed at being the object of a police campaign instigated by the palace. To the young militants of the Brotherhood, events in Egypt reflected the total bankruptcy of Arab regimes in their confrontation with Israel. By the end of 1948, neither al-Banna nor any other leader would be able to contain the rage of the militant membership. University students were particularly humiliated by the terms of the Egyptian-Israeli Armistice Agreement, and by the fact that Egypt was the first Arab country to end the war in this degrading manner. One of their demonstrations to protest the armistice agreement brought out the police in large numbers and live ammunition was used. A battle developed in front of the medical college, one of the Brotherhood’s strongholds, leading to the use of explosives by the students. One of these scored a direct hit on Salim Zaki, Cairo’s chief of police, as he directed the battle from his car. Since emergency regulations were in place because of the Palestine War, an order was issued suspending al-Daawa, followed by a cabinet decree to disband the Brotherhood in December of 1948. In the memo submitted to the cabinet calling for the dissolution of the Brotherhood, thirteen charges were detailed against them, beginning with the illegal possession of weapons. They were also accused of plotting to seize the government, assassinating a Wafdist enemy of the group, dynamiting King George Hotel at Ismailia, attacking the police, and most importantly, extorting subscriptions and donations to al-Daawa from commercial enterprises. The decision of Nuqrashi’s cabinet to dissolve the Brotherhood was devastating. It included closing the organization’s branches wherever they were found, seizing its documents, publications, and financial assets and prohibiting all meetings and fundraising activities. Any meeting of more than five members of the organization was proscribed. As a result, thousands of the Brothers were sent to detention centers, about a hundred and fifty government employees were exiled to Upper Egypt, and about one thousand students were expelled from various high schools and universities. In December of 1948, a student, Abd alMagid Ahmad Hassan, succeeded in assassinating Premier Nuqrashi,

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 89

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

89

which led to unprecedented harsh treatment of the imprisoned Brothers under the orders of Ibrahim Abd al-Hadi’s Saadian government. Torture practices were extended to members of the families of the accused, including women, but all of this failed to move the religious establishment to speak on their behalf. Instead, Sheikh al-Azhar and the senior Islamic scholars, as well as the Mufti of Egypt, the country’s highest religious authority, condemned the militants’ actions and justified their punishment. Even al-Banna denounced these activities calling the offenders neither Brothers nor Muslims, to the horror of those in government jails. The general condemnation of the movement’s violent acts was joined by leading intellectuals. Taha Hussein wondered about the reason behind stacking weapons in the homes of the living and the tombs of the dead. He added that those who claimed that Islam justified their acts, Islam never prohibited anything more strongly than it did killing. In al-Banna’s last message, titled “Words and Separating Good from Evil” (“Al-Qawl wa al-Fasl”), he asserted again that the weapons seized from the Brothers were destined for Palestinian fighters and the Arab Higher Committee in Palestine. He also claimed that the decision to ban the Brotherhood was taken under the impact of a tripartite memo authored by British, French, and U.S. representatives in Fayed, a British base in Egypt. He wrote that the decision was made simply to cover the government’s failure in Palestine and in preparation for the resumption of Anglo-Egyptian talks. The message, however, remained a handwritten manuscript until after his own assassination on orders from the palace on February 12, 1949. Before his elimination, though, he was enticed by the government to denounce his own brothers in a variety of declarations, such as “They Are Neither Brothers nor Muslims.”71 Even the Brotherhood’s Palestinian strategy failed to achieve its goals. Although the Brotherhood’s special army performed honorably in contributing to the defense of Jerusalem and Bethlehem before the signing of the first Arab-Israeli ceasefire, and in providing provisions for the besieged Egyptian forces at Falujah later on, it remained under control of regular Arab armies after these joined the war. And even though the Islamic units performed in a disciplined manner under the leadership of their own war hero, Ahmad Abd al-Aziz, their effort was not officially recognized within Egypt. In September of 1948, al-Banna was still arguing that the only solution to the Palestinian dilemma was to allow for the creation of an independent Palestinian government and army while inviting volunteers from Arab and Muslim lands to join its ranks. When his plan failed to receive support, he turned to the idea of jihad as the only way capable of solving problems of Islamic and Arabic countries, declaring the jihad against Jews to be a sacred duty. The Brotherhood’s forces continued to fight in Palestine despite the banning of the parent organization in December of 1948.

10_303_Ch3.qxd

90

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 90

Chapter 3

Most of these troops returned to Cairo following the assassination of alBanna, only to be remanded to government jails and detention centers.72 By 1950, the Wafd government rescinded the order of dissolving the organization and allowed it to operate again. The Brothers were free and outside detention centers when the 1952 Revolution took place. While alDaawa was allowed to be published again in January 1951, one of the main ideologues of the Brotherhood carried on the work of al-Banna and others in articulating the Islamic case against the Jews. This was Sayyid Qutb, who used the pages of al-Daawa to call for greater sacrifice for Palestine. In a 1953 article titled “What Did You Accomplish for the Heroes of Palestine?” he castigated Egyptian authorities for their inability to contain the British presence in Egypt. Written after the Revolution of 1952, and perhaps reflecting the developing tension between the Brotherhood and the Free Officers, the article provided a great example of the terse and pugnacious writing style of the man who articulated a philosophy of Muslim activism and violence. Qutb complained that the government still believed that Egypt was at peace with Britain and maintained diplomatic, political, and economic relations with it. Egypt, he marveled, still conducted joint Anglo-Egyptian searches for weapons and chased Egyptian guerillas together. He wrote that he did not accuse the cabinet of treason but only of being disinterested in fighting. He wrote that he knew that the feudal conditions under which the government operated abhorred the notion of a people carrying arms. He knew that the cabinet was frightened of the people and therefore meant to encircle them. He concluded by calling on the guerillas to seek death in order to be granted life or martyrdom. In another article in September 1953 titled “What Have You Given for the Heroes of Palestine?” he addressed his remarks to the Palestine issue. He regretted, he wrote, that the widows and families of those who died in Palestine were not compensated. This indicated that the spirit of the former British inspector general of the Egyptian armed forces was still misguiding the current Egyptian army. This indicated, he added, that the spirit of the British High Commissioner was still steering the wheels of the government. This indicated, he repeated, that the White English when they left government service did not leave a vacancy behind. They left their positions to the Black English who took over their duties and sang their songs. In another article during the same period titled: “Our Battle Against the Jews,” he claimed that Jews were still enticing people to forsake their religion so as not to be able to resist them. He then related in detail the Prophet Muhammad’s struggle against the Jews of Medina to prove his contention that Jews always begin by attacking the belief system. First, the Muslim faith was attacked by the Jews, but later it was attacked by the Crusaders. Yet Jewish intrigue against the Muslim nation never ceased, for it came later in the form of Orientalist Scholars and their

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 91

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

91

descendants who occupied prominent intellectual positions in Muslim lands. The main function of these Jews was to weaken the Muslims’ selfconfidence. Today in the Muslim world, there was an army of foreign agents disguised as professors, philosophers, doctors, and researchers and sometimes even writers, poets, artists, and journalists who carry Muslim names. All of them were united in their determination to weaken the Muslim faith. He called on Muslims as they get ready for the final battle to know the Qur’an. It was there that one understood the meaning of Muhammad’s journey from the Sacred Mosque (Mecca) to the Furthest Mosque (Jerusalem) and the desire to unite all the monotheistic faiths and proclaim Islam as the latest in this chain. Muhammad became the heir to all the previous holy sites, which explained the Israeli desire to seize the Aqsa Mosque in the Holy City. Writing in March of 1953, under the title “Let Us Know Who We Are,” he raised questions about the Arab identity. He asked rhetorically if Egyptians were just a people isolated behind the twenty-third parallel or were just a people bounded by the boundaries of the Nile River? Or were they an Arab-Egyptian people tied to the Arab nation in multiple ways? And if so, what were these ties? Were they a socialist nation or an Islamic nation? The constitutional committee about to redraft the constitution, and the committee to study educational policy should answer these questions before starting their work. Finally, an article titled “To Those Who View Jihad as a Heavy Duty” called on Muslims to take up this sacred duty. The Jihad was a sacred obligation on all Muslims even if the number of their enemies was twice their size. The believers should not fear but should place their faith in God and remain in battle, since they possessed a power that exceeded their visible material power. The desire to perform the Jihad duty, he insisted, liberated the Muslim from the bonds of this earth and brought him closer to eternity and closer to freedom from oblivion.74

THE BROTHERHOOD’S CONCEPTS OF PEACE AND JIHAD The Brotherhood was able to indulge in this rhetoric under the full gaze of the authorities because of the way it defined itself and its philosophy. According to Article 2 of the Political Constitution of the Brotherhood adopted in September of 1945, the organization was “a comprehensive, all-inclusive Islamic committee working for the same objectives of righteous Islam.”75 Although it was legally viewed as a charitable organization, subject to civil laws governing similar groups, the Brotherhood presented itself as an Islamic committee, allowing greater latitude in propagating its message and recruiting its members. Such a designation made it necessary for the Brotherhood to strive for an exact and accurate

10_303_Ch3.qxd

92

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 92

Chapter 3

summation of its beliefs and objectives. These were finally defined as uniting the Muslim nation around the ideas of the Qur’an, bringing Muslim factions together and building an Islamic society along the proper Islamic lines. The Brotherhood also believed that communicating the right Islamic message would inevitably lead to laying down social justice foundations, developing the national wealth, and raising the standard of living according to Muslim teachings and principles. But since Islam was a universal religion, the Brotherhood had always sought two objectives: The liberation of the Islamic homeland from all foreign influence and the creation of a united Islamic state based on Islam’s social, economic, and political system. The Brotherhood authored several works on the basic outline of its thinking, the jihad being the most prominent topic. Most of the discourse was provided by al-Banna and was based on credible Islamic sources such as the Qur’an, the sunna (the Prohpet’s speeches and life history), as well as the jurisprudence of the founders of the Islamic interpretive schools and the Thaheri (after Imam Dawoud bin Ali Khalaf) and the Shoukani (after Imam Muhammad bin Ali bin Abdullah) schools. Al-Banna defined the jihad as an obligation of praying and fasting. To the Brotherhood, however, peace was the negation of jihad. But to Sayyid Qutb, it became an important principle on which the holy struggle was based. The jihad, according to him, was related to propagation of the faith and as such was an obligation on all Muslims, anytime and anywhere around the globe. Qutb went a step further by writing in his book Islamic Studeis (Dirasaat Islamiyah, Dar al-Shuruq, 1983) that concluding peace with an enemy who deviated from Islam and cooperated with others in harming Muslims and driving them from their homes was itself a deviation from the faith.76 He then added: Since Britain, the U.S. and Russia have cooperated in driving us out of Palestine—all Muslim lands are ours—and since France had participated in harming and killing us throughout North Africa and still does so,—then Islam prohibits us from concluding peace treaties with any one of them. Any state which concludes peace with one of them is considered acting outside the confines of a very clear Islamic text.77

No popular political movement was as effective as the Muslim Brotherhood in addressing and educating the public about Zionism and its implications for Egyptian security and national development. Indeed, this was the first popular organization to focus on the question of Palestine and to call for the application of the jihad to that struggle. The Muslim Brotherhood was also among the first in reviving Egypt’s Arab identity, and along with Misr al-Fatah, in confronting the Zionist threat in the region. More importantly, the Brotherhood succeeded in uniting the Arab nationalist current with the Islamic movement in a manner that made the

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 93

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

93

two difficult to disentangle.78 Indeed, it would be possible to argue that the Brothers should be considered a continuation of the Arab intellectual nationalist trend advocated by Rashid Ridha, Shakib Arislan, and Abd alRahman al-Kawakibi, all of whom connected Islam and Arab nationalism to each other.79

THE SECULAR LIBERAL PRESS One of the unusual features of Egyptian journalism at the beginning of the twentieth century was that it gave rise to political parties, and not the other way around. Since the papers were the only tools of nationalist activism, they became the base form that nationalist forces coalesced into parties. A second related explanation for the prominent role that the press played in national life was that whenever British authorities used press laws against anti-British papers, the Khedive used to retaliate by using the same laws against pro-British papers, especially against al-Muqattam. These tactics permitted the nationalist press to form and shape public opinion, which became the nucleus of nationalist political parties. This was the manner in which the Constitutional Reform Party (Hizb al-Islah ala al-Mabadei al-Dusturiyah) developed from the group that published al-Muayyad, as much as al-Wattani Party was the arm of al-Liwaa and its program. Soon after, al-Ummah Party, headed by Lutfi al-Sayyid, became the active policy group of al-Jaridah, which preceded it by some time. Only al-Wattani Party succeeded in overtaking its paper, a feat unmatched by the other parties.80 Al-Wattani managed to publish a number of papers in addition to its widely read al-Liwaa, and its English and French papers targeting Egypt’s foreign communities. Al-Muayyad was owned by its individual publisher, Sheikh Ali Yousef, and al-Jaridah retained the distinction of being the only paper published by a shareholding company for quite some time.81 In the period between the two world wars, however, more papers engaged in nationalist agitation but without closely associating with political parties. Amin al-Rafii began to publish al-Akhbar in February of 1920, which emerged as the strongest defender of nationalist causes. Al-Ahram also shed some of its reserved attitude at this period and began to express support for Egypt’s nationalist demands. The arrival of the Milner Commission in 1920, to investigate the causes of instability in the country resulting from the 1919 Revolution, permitted the press some room to express its views. The new group that split from the Wafd began to publish alSiyaseh in 1922, with Muhammad Hussein Heikal as its editor. Greatly concerned with following a median course rather than to continue in the old Wafd’s intransigent ways, the paper opened its pages to the likes of

10_303_Ch3.qxd

94

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 94

Chapter 3

Taha Hussein, called for modernizing Egyptian life, and took up the issue of women’s rights. The paper also became intolerant of parliamentary foibles and used a critical style that was new to Egyptian journalism. As to the Wafd party, it was able to claim the support of several papers rather than one official paper speaking in its name. Among its most important papers was al-Balagh, published by Abd al-Qadir Hamzah in 1923. Among its literary contributors was Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad, one of Egypt’s foremost literary figure and intellectuals. Hamzah had the distinction of being one of the early university-educated journalists having received his law degree in 1903. He also enjoyed a wide editorial experience before alBalagh, having edited such papers as al-Ahali, al-Jaridah, and al-Mahrouseh. The Wafd then published Kawkab al-Sharq in 1924, edited by Ahmad Hafiz Awadh, a well-known literary figure of the period, who proclaimed his objective to be working toward the realization of that great nationalist desire, namely the simultaneous liberation and full independence of Egypt and the Sudan. He also favored creating closer ties to Islamic countries, especially Eastern countries. Then he shocked his readership by suddenly severing his Islamic ties, describing Islam as a worn-out faith, which the older politicians regarded as a political school of thought. There was no Muslim world he stressed, but rather a collection of states with their own distinct set of national interests. By 1924, new divisions within the nationalist camp developed, giving rise to the Ittihad party and its non-descript paper, and al-Shaab party with a paper by the same name. Al-Shaab had the distinction of providing space to new literary and secular figures such as Abd al-Qadir al-Mazini.82 By the late 1920s, other Wafdist papers appeared, such as al-Jihad and Rose al-Yousef, which were soon replaced by the more durable al-Masri, the closest to being the official voice of al-Wafd. It was first published by Mahmoud Abu al-Fath, Karim Thabet, and a rising journalist, Muhammad al-Tabii. By 1938, it was sold and became the property of prominent Wafdist, Abu al-Fath.83 Several papers were closed, however, as a result of the three-year suspension of the constitution by the government of Muhammad Mahmoud. By 1930, papers supportive of al-Wafd, such as Al-Balagh and Kawkab al-Sharq were closed because of their criticism of the dictatorial policies of the Liberal Constitutionalist cabinets.84 A new trend changed the face of Egyptian journalism in the late 1920s, which was the rise of weekly magazines. This began with Al-Siyaseh Al-Usbuiyah, published by the Liberal Constitutionalists in 1926, covering literary, scientific, historical, legal, and political topics. The weeklies were usually issued by the publishers of daily papers and were adorned with photographic representations. There was the weekly al-Balagh, which featured a lot of literary material by al-Aqqad and Sabri Abu-Alam, and which included some caricatures. Later, there were Akher Saaha and Rose

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 95

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

95

al-Yousef, the weekly, which also featured comical pictures. By 1933, Taha Hussein and Ahmad Hassan al-Zayyat, a future minister in the 1970s, published a literary journal, al-Risaleh, concerned with translations and reviving the old Arabic classics. A similar paper, al-Thaqafah, was published in 1939 by a private committee for translations, and was also devoted to culture.85 Al-Kateb al-Misri, another literary paper with contributions by the best writers of the day appeared in 1944. The same year saw the publication of two important papers, al-Kuttlah and Akhbar al-Youm.86 Al-Kuttlah which was the voice of the Saadian faction, split from the Wafd party. Akhbar al-Youm was a different weekly journal. Owned and edited by the Amin brothers, Mustafa and Ali, it was one of the first to present an independent type of journalism in the manner of al-Ahram, but which still took strong political stands. The paper was distinguished by its antagonism to al-Wafd whether it was in or out of the government. The paper was also known for its advanced journalistic innovations in the areas of production and news scooping and for providing entertaining material, which added to its readability. Influenced by American styles of journalism, the paper used prominent writers such as the foremost journalist Muhammad al-Tabii and novelist Tawfiq al-Hakim.87 Al-Kuttlah, on the other hand, was intended by its founder, Makram Ubayd, to be an opinion paper when news journalism was on the rise. The paper was very influential although it was not revived after its closure by the authorities in 1949 due to the emergency of the 1948 Arab-Jewish War. Edited by Ahmad Qassem Judeh, it drew to its pages a generation of young writers like Jalal al-Din al-Hamamsy and Talaat Younan.88 Another paper was published by the Wafd vanguard in 1945, Sawt al-Ummah.89 By the 1940s, al-Hilal had spawned other magazines similarly devoted to literary and cultural articles. These included al-Mussawar, a purely social magazine devoted to covering news of the upper class, al-Ithnein, which included short stories, news of theatre and the movies, as well as the French-language Images. The latter was a pictorial targeting the foreign community. The women’s press, which began in large numbers around the turn of the century, had dwindled to one major magazine in Arabic and one in French. Most of the early magazines, such as Labibah Hashim’s Fatat al-Sharq, Rose Haddad’s Hawaa al-Jadidah, and Huda Shaarawi’s al-Misriyyah, folded because of economic reasons. But the star of feminist journalism turned out to be Durrea Shafiq, who began publishing Bint al-Nil, in Arabic and French (La Femme Nouvelle) in 1945. The magazine lasted until it was closed in 1956 following several disputes with the Nasserite regime. By the 1940s, al-Masri was influenced by British standards of journalism and was still acclaimed as the most authentic and respected of Wafdit papers. Al-Ahram, with its long history stretching to 1876, had overcome its strident tone in support of the 1919

10_303_Ch3.qxd

96

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 96

Chapter 3

Revolution, to emerge as the most neutral of Egyptian journalism. Striving for absolute objectivity and the strenuous verification of its news, it was often compared to the Times of London. It was also commonly viewed as the official voice of the Egyptian government despite its openness to views of the political opposition. Al-Muqattam remained the voice of the British authorities in Egypt.90

OWNERSHIP, WEAKNESS, AND ISOLATIONISM OF THE PRESS By the 1930s and 1940s, most newspapers and weekly journals were privately owned, even if they represented the political viewpoints of various parties. Some have always been owned by families, even when the pattern of ownership was that of a shareholding private company limited to members of their families. Al-Hilal publishing company was owned by the Zeidans, and al-Ahram by the Teqla family. Akhbar al-Youm was owned by Mustafa and Ali Amin, while Rose al-Yousef was owned by the family of its editor, Fatimah al-Yousef. Al-Masri, although the most affiliated with the Wafd, was owned by the family of Mahmoud Abu al-Fath, and another pro-Wafdist voice, al-Balagh, was owned by the family of Abd alQadir Hamzah. A few party-owned papers survived until the final closure of all publications by the Free Officers’ regime in January of 1953. The opposition press, however, was constantly subjected to various forms of pressure by the government especially when the constitution and parliamentary life were under attack. There was pressure in the form of withholding subscriptions, lavishing or withholding advertisements, and secret funding of individual journalists. The latter allegation was used by the Nasserite government later as a means of discrediting all members of the media.91 Until the mid-1940s and the creation of the Arab League of States, which was greatly concerned with the Palestinian theater, most mainstream journals were stuck in a groove of identity issues, both cultural and political. The same could be said of minority and political fringe journalism, except that the quest for an identity in their case forced them to focus on the Palestinian question. Most of the liberal journals were in the throes of a severe identity crisis, which, under the impact of lingering colonial influence, led to great determination to define their nationalism as either Egyptian, regional, or Islamic. The centrist parties desired a modern nation-state, bereft of its Arab and Islamic ties and anchored in the liberal political tradition. Both the Ummah party and its mouthpiece, al-Jaridah, vigorously opposed the lingering pan-Islamic trend that persisted despite the demise of the Wattani party. Another trend, the Pharaonic school, saw its mission in the struggle to define Egyptian na-

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 97

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

97

tionalism as reviving the glories of ancient Egypt. This strand of Egyptian nationalism was greatly isolationalist and hotly opposed to both Islamic and Arab nationalism. This school was represented by al-Siyaseh and its editor, Muhammad Hussein Heikal, who, as the leading ideologue of the Liberal Constitutionalists, called for the revival of Pharaonism as if it were a new religion.92 Egyptians were called upon to defend Egypt’s narrow interests only, with the Wafd and its journals leading the pack in the struggle to achieve genuine independence and constitutional democracy. Wafdist papers also continued the call for the independence of the Sudan, making the Nile Valley part of the definition of their territorial nationalism. At the same time, the Liberal Constitutionalist press defined the battle lines in the social and literary struggle to determine the nature of Egyptian nationalism.93 It was the observation of Tareq al-Bishri, one of the more astute students of Egyptian constitutional development, however, that unity of the two sides of the Nile Valley was never the true intent of Egyptian political parties. Since the creation of the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium in 1899, the sole objective of the Egyptian national movement was the evacuation of the British from Egyptian soil and advancing the status of Egypt alone. He added that not a single Egyptian political party during the first half of the twentieth century sought to add Sudanese nationals to its ranks, nor did it ever stage political activities in the Sudan. Neither did the Wattani party, he stressed, nor Misr al-Fatah, whose commitment to the Sudan never extended beyond the adoption of the slogan, “The Empire of the Nile Valley.” Even the Egyptian Communist Party, which included some Sudanese individuals during the 1940s, ended up in the trench lines with the rest of the Egyptian, not the Sudanese, revolutionary authorities. The same could be said of the Muslim Brotherhood, which opened up to the Sudanese in the context of its adoption of the Islamic universalist project, only to let them go when it was confronted with the repression of the Free Officers’ regime. It would be more instructive, wrote al-Bishri, to view the Egyptian-Sudanese relationship in the context of the dual Anglo-Egyptian tie. Thus, the question of the Sudan in Egyptian politics was never that of unity between the two countries, but was a significant facet of Egypt’s security concerns while still under British influence. This strategic fear was related to the headwaters of the Nile, which were situated in Uganda and Ethiopia but which ran throughout the territory of the Sudan. Al-Bishri reminded his readers of the famous words of Al-Ahram’s chief editor, Dawoud Barakat, in 1924: “Egypt can only be colonized by the use of the police and water.” This issue created two responses among moderate and extreme Egyptian nationalists. The first were satisfied with signing an agreement with the British in 1929, under the government of Muhammad Mahmoud, regulating the distribution of the waters between the two countries. The second

10_303_Ch3.qxd

98

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 98

Chapter 3

group, dissatisfied with a mere paper agreement between a weak and a strong party, sought nothing less than total British evacuation from the Sudan. By the 1950s, al-Bishri reminded us, the Palestine question substituted for the Sudan as the touchstone of Egyptian vulnerability.94 But until then, most of the press, along with parliament and its two chambers, were occupied with the Sudan issue, the Fourth of February crisis, during which the British threatened King Farouq with dismissal if he refused to name Mustafa Nahhas to the premiership, the abrogation of the Treaty of 1936, and the government’s censorship laws against the press. By the mid1940s, events in Palestine began to attract the gaze of most Egyptians.95 But long before that, Palestine and its people were the focal point of the extreme ideological and minority press. In addition to the Muslim Brotherhood and leftist papers, much of the Egyptian Jewish press never allowed the Zionist plan for Palestine to vanish from its sights. The women’s press began to publicize the Palestinian struggle against Zionist immigration and the British Mandate government during the General Strike of 1936, which resulted in the Arab Revolt of the same year. As a reformist group, Huda Shaarawi’s Egyptian Feminist Union, though closely allied with the Wafd government for a while, could not ignore these events. In addition to calling for donations for the benefit of Palestinian victims by sending telegrams to the British government and to the League of Nations, several articles began to illuminate most facets of the Palestine question on the pages of the Union’s official journal al-Misriyyah. A weekly paper, this journal was very useful for its elaboration on the political program of the official representative of the Palestinian struggle, the Arab Higher Committee, and its exiled head, Haj Amin al-Husseini. The paper offered sound analysis of the recommendations of the 1937 Peel Commission, which attempted to diffuse the Palestinian crisis. Reflecting the views of the Arab Higher Committee, the paper criticized the role of other Palestinian political parties like al-Difaa. By 1938, the Egyptian Feminist Union convened the Cairo Arab Women’s Conference, which provided another opportunity to blast British policy in Palestine and greet openly a visiting delegation of Palestinian women. Misr al-Fatah, under the leadership of Ahmad Hussein, despite its emphasis on an Egyptian Pharonic empire, could not overlook the atrocities of its enemy, Britain, in Palestine as something threatening to Egypt’s security. Hussein wrote in 1938, that “whoever owns Palestine will control Egypt, for Egypt’s natural defense line is not at al-Areesh, as some have thought.”96

CONCLUSION The most notable change following World War I and the Revolution of 1919 was the proliferation of privately owned papers. With the rise of new

10_303_Ch3.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 99

The Press Defines the Liberal Phase

99

parties, the press became more energized and closely attached to political groups. The press became the main source from which most political parties developed a clear indication of the strengthening of opinion journalism. But the most sensational press turned out to be the minority press, particularly papers of the leftist and Islamic movements, as well as the Egyptian-Jewish press in its various forms. The women’s press, always advocating reforms and pro-Palestinian policies, also came into being. Some journals, such as al-Ahram, remained the modicum of neutrality, always offering the best of news journalism with the exception of the period of 1919 Revolution. Even some pro-Wafdist papers like al-Akhbar, projected an objective and opinion-based journalism at the same time. Perhaps a reflection of the intense struggle over the definition of the nation’s identity and its nationalism, or due to the open arena provided by the Constitution of 1923, the press enjoyed an unprecedented expansion and diversity. In addition, during the 1940s, the element of entertainment gained significance in some papers like Aaker Saaha and Rose al-Yousef, and the appearance of weekly editions by the same daily papers made its debut. But the state of the press in the 1930s and 1940s was defined by its extreme emphasis on political debate and literary content. As Wafdist, Liberal Constitutionalist and pro-Pharonic, Islamic, pro-Zionist, and leftist papers clashed with each other over the future course of Egyptian policy, the papers became the major source of public information and dispenser of ideas and news. Each group of papers emphasized a distinct and welldefined agenda, quarreling both with the authorities and among each other. The leftist papers became a forum advocating workers’ rights but suffered from the stigma of being foreign-controlled and directed. The Jewish press became increasingly identified with Zionist interests and the narrow concerns of the Jewish community. The pro-Wafdist, Liberal Constitutionalist, and Pharaonic press stressed the advantages of a limited form of Egyptian nationalism that had little to do with the Arab world. The same press, however, emphasized the Sudan question as the only guarantee for Egypt’s water security. The Islamic press adopted the Palestine question and the leadership of Haj Amin al-Husseini as part and parcel of Egypt’s nationalist strategy for the security and safety of its Sinai frontier. The Muslim Brotherhood presented the Palestinian question in an Islamic grab, using the jihad argument and hatred for the British and their impact on Egyptian national culture as the incentive behind the call for support of the Palestinians. Indeed, the competition between those papers closely identified with the political parties and movements revolved around culture as much as it did around politics. The more the press became open to prominent literary authors, the more the public’s identification with the wider world of Arab letters became pronounced. Despite the interest in translated works, the average Egyptian reader and the rising generation of novelists and

10_303_Ch3.qxd

100

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 100

Chapter 3

writers expected original and creative works of literature. The newspapers, weekly magazines, and others provided a mass readership for these writers, which inevitably strengthened the Arab identity. Some of Egypt’s most prominent literary figures cut their teeth on the short stories published by the papers. Thus, the press seemed to be working at cross purposes, at once advocating a strong, but territorially-limited nationalism while showcasing the best fictional and literary works of Egypt’s new authors, which drew attention to Egypt’s wider Arab universe. By the middle of the 1940s, the press seemed to have weathered its most intense clashes with the authorities particularly under the rule of the Liberal Constitutionalists. Only the Muslim Brotherhood and its press remained ensnared in a web of violence and intrigue with the authorities over the twin issues of its secret army and its determination to play a military role in the Arab-Jewish War of 1948. This forced the suppression of its movement and paper, al-Daawa in the late 1940s. Fearing a successful military bid by the Brotherhood to seize power, the government degenerated into a deadly game of assassinations and counter-assassinations that presaged the final events of 1952. By the late 1940s and the early 1950s, Sinai emerged as Egypt’s Achilles heel where the country’s security was concerned. But by 1952, a new regime emerged with radically different views about the role of the press in a liberated, though not liberal, political system.

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 101

4 E

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

T

he Egyptian press overcame punishing blows by various governments following World War II, only to survive them and enjoy perhaps its best period on the eve of the 1952 Revolution. The press not only had access to the highest counsels in government, its slant on the news pushed the ruling authorities to adopt positions that threatened their very existence. But if the glow of her majesty’s court was fully apparent by 1952, the institution was far from being fully representative of all classes of the people. Neither was it popular in the official halls of power. Veteran journalist Muhammad al-Tabii, long associated with Akhbar al-Youm and alMasri, experienced King Farouq’s contempt for the press whenever he met him face to face. The King indeed viewed members of the press as either there to spy on him or keep watch over him. Al-Tabii reported that whenever a reporter would be detailed to accompany the monarch on a journey, the King would go out of his way to avoid any contact with that individual. One reason for this was the full freedom to report on the monarchy’s scandals and views. For instance, al-Ahram posthumously published the memoirs of Mussolini’s son-in-law and his Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, in which the Italian official reportedly was told by an Egyptian statesman that the King leaned toward the Axis powers and detested Britain. The monarch was also notorious for his manipulation of members of the government and the press into publishing his positive views regarding one political figure or another.1 The other remarkable fact about this period was that any citizen was allowed to publish a paper following notification of the authorities in accordance with prevailing press laws. The diversity of the press became a 101

10_303_Ch4.qxd

102

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 102

Chapter 4

reality despite the occasional assault by the authorities in the form of confiscation, suspension, or seizure of papers. According to credible statistical studies during that period, the number of papers issued in Egypt until September 20, 1946, reached 527 publications, of which 373 were in Arabic. The number of daily papers was twenty-seven. According to another study of the period ending in 1950, daily papers fell to twenty-two, of which twelve were issued at Cairo. Most political forces were able to express their views through the press. There was the Wafdist press, the press of the Liberal Constitutionalists, a pro-Palace press, as well as the press of fringe groups such as Misr al-Fatah, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Communists. The independent press had also managed to establish itself during that period, even though its independence was often compromised by affiliation with one political center of power or another. This diversity created competition in scooping the news and covering controversial social issues of the day, such as the absence of social equality, labor rights, the problem of education, the feminist question, and the general public health situation. In addition, some papers felt sufficiently powerful to be able to dissent from the views of their official party affiliates, as was the case of al-Masri and its opposition to the Wafd party when the latter attempted to muzzle the press.2

CHANGES IN THE FINANCING OF PAPERS As a result of the development of large publishing and printing companies, the number of privately owned papers throughout the 1940s, even when these were the official or semi-official voice of a political party, increased. The Muslim Brotherhood owned Al-Ikhwan Publishing House and al-Ikhwan Printing House, while some of its papers were individually owned. Al-Banna himself owned al-Shihab even while the more prominent papers of the movement were owned by the aforementioned companies. The same pattern was observed in the ownership of Communist papers, most of which were owned by the party, while Al-Fajr al-Jadid was in the name of Ahmad Rushdi Saleh. This trend contributed visibly to the concentration of family wealth in some of the papers. Thus, in addition to the Teqlas and Zeidans, now there were the Amins and Abu alFath. A new development concerning the cost of production also changed the nature of the journalism profession converting it into a business following World War II. Because of the spiraling cost of production and the price of paper, printing ink, and other materials, as well as the tendency toward increasing circulation figures, most papers became heavily dependent on advertising. Not only did this situation have an intimidating effect, discouraging some papers from criticizing powerful political and

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 103

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

103

economic practices, it also allowed interested parties to pad their advertising accounts with some papers in order to prevent them from publicizing certain stories. A great example of this was the Suez Canal Company, which used to pay large sums of money to mainline papers at the beginning of each year under the guise of buying advertising in order to assure itself of their silence. Some of the large capitalists in the country were immune from journalistic oversight and investigative reporting because of their economic and political power. Some companies that exercised a monopoly over the production of print paper such as the British Oriental Advertising Company headed by Henri Chaim, a prominent member of the Jewish community, withheld paper supplies from anti-Zionist papers. The shortage of paper after World War II was so severe that the Ministry of Commerce issued a directive in March of 1948, limiting the size of daily papers to six pages, with permission to increase it to eight pages only every three months. Weekly papers and magazines were allowed thirteen pages. This limitation on paper was rescinded by the Wafd government in 1950.3

THE COMMUNIST PRESS AND PALESTINE One sign of the tolerance practiced toward the press was the long leash afforded to minority press by the authorities. The most startling case here was the freedom enjoyed by the leftist press all the way until its suppression in 1953. Some leftist papers survived the revolutionary onslaught a while longer, continuing to operate in a very restricted manner.4 The communist press was punished along with the others for criticizing the Free Officers’ military rule, but in the late 1940s, the communists boldly criticized Egypt’s Palestine policy and sought to defend Egypt’s innocent Jewish community, while at the same time rejecting Zionism and its record in Palestine. Among the most internationally conscious papers was al-Fajr alJadid, which took great interest in Arab unity, as well as the newly-formed Arab League of States and the Zionist threat to Arab Palestine. By March 1946, Zaki Hashim, writing in this paper, was insisting that the creation of the Arab League was a positive step, referring to it as one of the major achievements of the Wafd government. The League was viewed as an expression of the desire of Arab nations to take their rightful place within the international family of nations. This step will enable the new organization to better deal with major national issues—the foremost among them being the Palestine question. If the League succeeded in liberating Palestine from the threat of imperialist Zionism, which intended to exploit and enslave the country’s native population, then this would be a great achievement tantamount to ridding the world of a strong center of

10_303_Ch4.qxd

104

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 104

Chapter 4

imperialist exploitation. But the author warned that the League should represent the interests of the Arab people, and not only occupying itself with the enrichment of the few and the exploitation of the innocent. In September of the same year, Ahmad Said—known also as Sadeq Saad and a leader of a newly formed communist faction—attacked the League directly. He accused the organization of overlooking the economic interests of the Arab people and the extensive imperialist penetration of the Arab economy. The reason, he asked? Because this League was an organization of ruling classes and not of common people. Therefore, he concluded, resolving these economic issues can only be achieved by liberating the Arab people from colonialism through the strategy of the popular armed struggle. Al-Fajr al-Jadid also provided a tri-weekly column, titled “The World’s Movement in Two Weeks,” which was edited by well-known intellectual Anwar Abd al-Malik, and which frequently attacked the League as a British tool. The league was a substitute for Britain’s refusal to deal with the Palestinian question and its denial of the Sudan issue, it was stated. By December of 1945, the attack on the League grew stronger, with accusations of lack of seriousness in confronting Zionism, which was the creation of imperialism. In January of 1946, the paper began to target the League’s secretary-general, Abd al-Rahman Azzam, by publishing an article from the Palestinian leftist paper, al-Ittihad, which made the claim that most liberated Arabs did not support Azzam or the League’s plan to confront the forces of imperialism. From that point on, Azzam was repeatedly attacked by the paper for his stands, such as his testimony before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, where, the paper claimed, he forgot that there was such a thing as British colonization of Palestine. Azzam seemed to ignore the fact that colonization was the reason for the entrenchment of Zionism in Palestine. These attacks did not signal the party’s disenchantment with all that was Arab, but with the Arab regimes masquerading as defenders of the Arab people. Al-Fajr was committed to Arab unity and demonstrated that commitment by opening its pages to progressive writers from Arab countries.5 More importantly, al-Fajr al-Jadid, highlighted the question of Palestine and Zionism because of the Jewish background of its editors. It was essential to explain to its readership that its defense of Palestinian rights was a strong commitment on its part and that the party distinguished between Jews and Zionists. The latter were particularly condemned because they were sponsored by colonialist and imperialist elements, while the paper always defended the Arab character of Palestine. The paper also strongly condemned Jewish immigration to Palestine and the prospect of establishing a Jewish national home on its soil, which was the position of the Palestinian Communist Party. Yet, this strong attack on Zionism did not stop the paper from condemning attacks on Egyptian Jews. Calling

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 105

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

105

these attacks racist, the paper pointed a finger at the Muslim Brotherhood and Misr al-Fatah as the two parties responsible for directing violent and destructive demonstrations against Jewish stores and private residences. The only beneficiaries from these destructive acts, the paper insisted, were the Zionists. It was claimed that these incidents were suitable materials for the gristmill of the Zionists and their claims against the Arabs. The Zionists now had proof that Jewish minorities were not safe in the midst of Arab majorities and that their only hope was to gather in one single country like Palestine. Also in 1946, the paper opened its pages to the Jews of Iraq who sent in declarations under the name of “The League Against Zionism in Iraq,” condemning the Zionist project on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. The article called for ending Zionist immigration to Palestine, creating a democratic government in that Arab land, and putting an end to the transfer of Arab lands to Zionists. The League identified itself as an organization of Arab Jews. In another declaration by the same group, a call was made to refer the Palestine question to the Security Council since the Zionist intimidation was merely a camouflage for the objectives of British colonialist designs. Another communist paper, al-Dhameer, took up the Palestine question in full by 1945. Writing in October of that year, Kheiry Mahmond—a.k.a. Yousef Darweesh—equated Palestinian resistance to Zionism with the Spanish Republicanist stand against fascist forces in 1916. In a work titled, “You Will Not Pass,” he claimed that Zionism and fascism were nurtured by the same soil, since fascism was also the instrument of capitalism for the exploitation of struggling people. Similarly, he went on, Zionism has often found ready soil among the Jews of Arab countries in places where fear ruled and put its roots there. He wrote that Zionism will never be the solution for the crisis of sixteen million Jews, since the Jewish question can never be separated from the struggle of various people and various religious faiths. The author also called on Arab labor delegations to the Conference of International Labor-Unions, meeting at Paris, to prevent the election of Zionist labor representatives to the organization’s executive committee. The paper provided interviews with two representatives of Palestinian unions at that conference, Poulos Farah and Mukhles Amr, and also praised the activities of Palestinian leftists. In one issue of alDhameer, in November of 1945, eight stories were published on the front page detailing news of various Arab efforts outside of Egypt to combat Zionism.6 Al-Dhameer, as well as most of the other publications, faced suspension at the behest of the Ismail Sidqi cabinet in July of 1946. The same government closed all leftist organizations and attempted, but failed, to convict communists of conspiring against the state. When the dust settled, Sawt al-Ummah, the voice of the Wafd, launched a strong campaign in defense

10_303_Ch4.qxd

106

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 106

Chapter 4

of the communists. Writing in January of 1947, the paper published the true story behind the communist trials, detailing step by step, Sidqi’s fabrication of evidence against the leftists. Writing under the title “The Secrets of the Great Case Against Communists,” the paper described Sidqi’s heated campaign as a Hitlerite Crusader campaign. The paper claimed that this campaign was not any different from Hitler’s persecution of democratic forces under the guise of fighting communist elements. Indeed, by the mid-1940s, some kind of an alliance brought an element of the communist party to support Wafdist policies, to the extent that they were known as the Wafd leftists. But after the suppression of most papers in 1946 and their revival in 1947, a new paper al-Jamaheer, a weekly, was issued by Iskra, the latest communist formation. At first its contributors signed off under assumed names, leaving only the name of the editor, Mahmoud al-Nabawi, to appear without a pseudonym. Al-Jamaheer later on became the voice of HADATO, the latest communist organization to emerge from the integration of smaller units. Al-Jamaheer turned out to be the most eloquent platform from which to communicate the views of Egypt’s communists regarding Palestine. The leftist movement was said to be committed to presenting the Palestine question from its various complex vantage points. Addressing the Anglo-American Committee, which came to Egypt as well as other Arab countries, in search of information for its reports and studies regarding the future of Palestine, AlJamaheer wrote in May of 1947 that the Palestinian people simply wanted to be rid of Western colonization, exploitation, and intimidation. What the Palestinian people desired was a democracy of equality in which all citizens, Arabs and Jews, shared. Palestinian independence, the paper wrote, demanded constant struggle in order to achieve unity and dismiss the impact of Zionism as well as Arab reactionism.7 Al-Jamaheer also published a comprehensive study on the Palestine question in May of 1947, on the occasion of the beginning of discussions of the Mandate system at the U.N. The study concluded that Palestine was stricken by two disasters, Zionist reactionism and Arab reactionism, and both had a stake in the continuation of colonialism. The paper’s theoretical page defined Zionism and supplied the history of Jewish persecution in Europe. Al-Jamaheer concluded that Zionist liberation was a racist movement. Zionism will eventually live up to the expectations of its imperialist creators by converting Palestine into a strategic point from which to mount attacks against the Arab liberation movement. Palestine under Zionism will become a fortress of colonialist power and a place in which Arab labor and peasantry will be exploited by Arabs and Jews alike. That exploitation, the paper added, will take the shape of plundering Arab natural resources such as petroleum and minerals. What was the solution, the paper inquired? The answer came in the

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 107

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

107

form of a three-way division of the Jewish question. First, there was the issue of persecuted Jews in various countries. These should join in their people’s struggle for democracy. Second, there was the question of homeless and dispersed Jews. These should be assured of the right of return to their original countries, for it should be made clear that Palestine cannot be the solution for the Jewish question. And if Palestine is persistently presented as the solution for the Jewish question, this was found to obfuscate both issues. Third, the Palestine problem can only be resolved through a joint struggle between Arab and Jewish masses in order to expunge Anglo-American colonization and create a free and independent state. Then, in an article in May of 1947, aimed at the reactionary Egyptian government, the paper criticized the authorities for persecuting movements opposed to Zionism while closing their eyes to the real Zionists who were threatening the nation’s interests. More importantly, al-Jamaheer led the way among Egyptian-Jewish organizations in educating the Egyptian-Jewish community against the evils of Zionism. Thus, the paper announced the creation of the Israeli league Against Zionism, whose founder, Ezra Harari, was featured in a lengthy interview. The league, Harari clarified, was determined to spearhead the struggle against Zionism’s deceptive propaganda that was spreading among various “Israelis” residing in Egypt. He stated that Zionist propaganda was widespread and that it had already succeeded in poisoning the atmosphere between Arab and Jews in a land where Jews existed at peace with their Egyptian colleagues for generations. When asked who were the leaders of the Egyptian Zionist movement, he answered that most were among the wealthiest Jews and businessmen.8 In the following issue, al-Jamaheer published on May 5, 1947, a special appeal from the Israeli League Against Zionism, which it claimed was issued in the form of a letter distributed throughout Egypt. The letter read as follows: Mothers . . . we wish to protect your children from the glittering Zionist lies which aim at dispatching your children to live in Palestine in the midst of an antagonistic majority and under a system based on persecution. Jewish men and women: Zionism is trying to drag us into a dangerous adventure . . . in which Zionism will make Palestine into an unlivable country. Zionism intends to isolate Jews from the Egyptian masses. . . . Long live Arab-Jewish brotherhood and long live the Egyptian people.9

Unluckily for the communist movement, the association of names like Sidney Salamon and Ezra Harari with its press detracted from its nationalist, patriotic credentials later on when the tide of Arab nationalism swept through Egypt.10 Yet, the fact that such bold journalism could function was another example of the power of this institution and the royalist regime’s tolerance toward it.

10_303_Ch4.qxd

108

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 108

Chapter 4

THE 1948 WAR AND THE NATIONAL CRISIS OF EGYPT The leftist press was frozen like the rest of this institution during the Arab-Jewish War of 1948. Egypt fell under emergency regulations in May of that year, and Mahmoud al-Nuqrashi was declared the military governor on the same day in which Israel declared itself a state. General expectations for ending the emergency a year later were dashed when Nuqrashi’s assassination by the Muslim Brotherhood resulted in extending the emergency for another year. All sectors of the press were suppressed and some were tried as a result of defying the government.11 Egypt’s national dilemma, namely the quest for total independence, became entangled with the Palestine question. Nuqrashi journeyed to the U.N. in 1947 to press his country’s case only to find the world organization with all of its institutions thoroughly occupied with Palestine. Egypt’s decision to join other Arab armies in Palestine was itself a controversial issue. Although the leftist and rightist political organizations and movements were enthusiastic advocates of military intervention on behalf of Palestine’s Arab population, mainstream political parties sought cautiously to balance Egypt’s own national concerns with the popular desire for joining the Palestinian war. Until May 11 of that year, the Egyptian prime minister was still opposed to the participation of the armed forces in the Palestinian War. He, like other Egyptians of his generation, were fearful of what Britain might do if Egyptian forces were deployed in a far away theater of war. Nuqrashi claimed that the presence of British troops at the Canal Zone might expose Egyptian forces to harmful attacks. The British may even sabotage the transportation lines of Egyptian forces since the English were allied with Israel. Some members of the Egyptian military lost any trust they may have placed in the British forces since World War II, when news of Rommel’s army advancing on Cairo prompted rumors that the British were prepared to do evil things in order to facilitate their escape from Egypt. Rumor had it that British troops were planning to withdraw to Palestine and India and to flood seaside provinces in water, destroying most of the bridges and petroleum storage places in order to cover their retreat. Some high officers of the Egyptian army claimed that the British sought their cooperation in evacuating from Egypt. But despite these apprehensions, Nuqrashi requested the convening of a secret session of parliament on May 12, when he quickly convinced the deputies to approve the departure of the troops to the Palestine front. At the same time, it became apparent that Haider Pasha, chief of the armed forces, had exceeded his orders and led the troops to cross the Palestine border without waiting for the approval of parliament as was required by the constitution. His justification was that he was simply obeying royal orders.12

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 109

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

109

FREEDOM OF THE PRESS UNDER THE WAFD CABINET, 1950–1952 When the Wafd party returned to office in 1950, it was determined to restore freedoms that were suppressed by the previous Saadian government. The Wafd’s attitude toward the press was a result of its return to office on the basis of winning elections by a large majority of votes. Yet, the Wafd’s last two years in office before the outbreak of the 1952 Revolution were mired in difficulties with the general public, the palace, the British and ultimately the press. Having lost power in 1944, then brought back on a strong popular wave did not eliminate its major weakness vis-à-vis Egypt’s political classes; namely its tolerance of the monarchy. The Wafd was committed to the pursuit of peaceful struggle, a strategy that did not include removal of the monarch from power. Part of that reluctance was due to its disinterest in reaching a confrontation stage with the monarchy, which might lead to the suspension of the constitution. Additionally, Wafdists always feared that an open struggle with the palace would allow the monarch to seek the support of a foreign power or any domestic group inimical to the constitution. The Wafd also returned to power with a public agenda that reflected the demands of the majority of Egyptians, namely the restoration of freedoms, containment or removal of British influence, and curbing royal power. Only the first two were almost achieved resulting in the abrogation of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Agreement and a relaxation of government censorship and restrictive laws. But curbing the monarchy proved to be difficult and produced a heightened level of press antagonism toward the King. By 1950, King Farouq had extended his authority under successive cabinets to include the right to make nominations to high political office such as recommending names to positions in the Foreign Ministry. This was a serious aberration considering that past practice restricted the monarch to appointing religious leaders to al-Azhar and other Islamic academies. As a result of these pressures, the Wafd began to experience deep fissures within its own ranks particularly as a result of the rise of Fouad Siraj al-Din to the leadership of the right wing of the party.13 In the meantime, the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Jewish War heightened interest of the press in national and foreign policy. A survey of the mainstream papers during the early 1950s reveals some changes in the journalists’ adherence to party policy and ideology, or to old editorial policies. In March of 1950, al-Ahram was struggling to maintain its usual neutrality in an atmosphere charged with heavy emotions over the loss of Palestine. Naturally, the paper was unable and unwilling to remain silent in the face of different stories regarding Israel’s aggressive intentions and territorial ambitions. Its lead editorial on March 2, sarcastically asked, who were the aggressors? Ambitious Zionism or peaceful Arabs? It also reported on

10_303_Ch4.qxd

110

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 110

Chapter 4

what it called the Egyptian-Israeli Cold War. As to the Arab League, which was attacked from every corner by the press, the paper maintained its neutrality. Al-Ahram found an excuse for the League’s ineffectiveness by claiming that the organization fell prey to the phenomenon of high expectations when in fact it had limited powers. As to the controversial topic of Transjordan’s annexation of Eastern Palestine by King Abdullah, the paper published the story as a news item, withholding its own views. Al-Ahram simply provided King Abdullah’s press release in which he pledged to protect all the rights of Arab Palestine and refrain from obstructing a final settlement of the conflict. By way of approving this development, the paper reminded its readers that, realistically, there was no way in which Transjordan would have reached an understanding with the League of Arab States over Palestine’s future. The paper then added that all Arab states failed to deal with this political issue. Similarly, the assassination of King Abdullah in July 1951, was dealt with as an investigative story and condemned the killing. But when it came to Zionism, alAhram lost all pretenses to objectivity, condemning Israel as a twentieth century state based on religious racism. Articles in March, May, and June of 1951 condemned Israel’s ambitions to control Sinai and the new state’s aggressive attacks on Syria. The paper recommended the imposition of an economic boycott against Israel and counseled against seeking economic relations with Turkey because of its recognition of the Zionist state. In January of 1950, on the other hand, al-Ahram, reserved its harshest words to a fellow Arab state, specifically to the Sudan, for trading with Israel, which was also greatly condemned by the Wafd government. Al-Ahram concluded by inquiring sarcastically whether or not the Sudan had already separated from Egypt.14 The paper also condemned Russia and Britain, as well as the United States, for aiding Israel in winning diplomatic support at the U.N. in 1950. Al-Ahram strongly attacked all three for assisting in the creation of a Jewish state on Arab soil. Interestingly, AlAhram at that time was under the editorship of Bisharah Teqla who succeeded his father, Gabriel, in the ownership of almost half of the stock of the publishing company by the same name. Bisharah Teqla returned to run the paper in 1949, after spending a summer working for the New York Times and the United Press Agency. He was assisted in his work by a board of directors that included his mother.15 Al-Masri, on the other hand, reported all news pertaining to Arab issues with a great degree of enthusiasm and expansiveness. Once the Arab-Jewish War of 1948 ended, the paper began to direct its readers’ attention to the Jordanian monarch’s intrigues and secret deals. Reflecting the general Egyptian disdain toward the Hashimites, the paper wrote in January of 1950, condemning King Abdullah’s relationship to his British chief of the armed forces, John Bagot Glubb. Al-Masri accused Abdullah of giving

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 111

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

111

Glubb access to the military plans of other Arab armies and allowing him to change them in order to save the Zionists from total destruction. The Jordanian army betrayed Egyptian units at Falujah, it wrote. The paper also approved official Egyptian efforts to expel Transjordan from the Arab League. But when Abdullah was assassinated at Jerusalem, he was described as one of the leaders of the Arab independence movement. In 1951, Al-Masri expressed grave concern over plans to settle the Palestinian refugees in Sinai. Recognizing the sensitivity of such a humanitarian issue, the paper used diplomatic language in which to caution the government against giving in to offers by some U.N. agencies. Although clearly concerned over the prospect of embroiling Sinai in the Arab-Israeli conflict if the refugees activated the Egyptian-Israeli front, the paper claimed that its objective was merely to reiterate that the refugees would never surrender their right of return to their own homes. On the subject of Israel’s freedom of naval passage through the Canal, the paper applauded the government’s position of threatening to impose an embargo against such movement. Al-Masri added that an embargo was the only safeguard against the importation of petroleum for Israel’s military use.16 Akhbar al-Youm, however, surpassed most mainstream papers in its attacks on the League and the Kingdom of Transjordan. Recognized for its lively style of writing, the paper proved itself to be informative and entertaining at the same time. It was also unrestrained by any ties to the government of al-Wafd. The subject of King Abdullah’s alleged collusion with the Israelis during the 1948 War, for example, was given wide coverage. One headline in March of 1950 ran: “Dangerous Documents in Abdullah’s Own Handwriting Prove His Contacts With the Jews During the War,” and detailed his betrayal of the Arab cause. The paper gleefully described Abdullah’s annexation of Palestinian territory as slapping the faces of Egypt and the rest of the Arab states. Britain approved Abdullah’s move, it wrote, and demanded that the Arabs turn the other cheek. Egypt must face the reality of being uncertain whether or not the rest of the Arab states would support the imposition of economic sanctions against Jordan. When the Arab League faltered in its effort to deal with this problem, the paper discussed this story in June of 1950 under the headline: “The Death of the League.” The organization, Akhbar al-Youm wrote, had weakened so much until it lost its ability to stand up to a kingdom (Jordan) the number of whose citizens did not exceed the subjects under the jurisdiction of Shubra’s (a suburb of Cairo) chief of police. Poking fun at the League did not stop there but extended to the organization’s efforts to be recognized by Western democratic states in January of 1951. All the Arab states were like Egypt, wrote the paper, which was democratic in name but autocratic in reality. All of them proclaim that they safeguard general freedoms in their constitutions but are enslaving their own people in real life. The Arab

10_303_Ch4.qxd

112

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 112

Chapter 4

states, the paper wrote, should state their demands openly on paper before approaching other democracies, and should pledge support for these governments before requesting their recognition. Akbhar al-Youm’s biting style continued especially when addressing news of the impending unification of Syria and Iraq, known as the Greater Syria project. Expressing approval of the Egyptian Government’s rejection of this step, the paper wrote that Egypt was not averse to the union of two Arab states, but rather to any scheme that might lead to the extension of foreign influence (Britain’s) to a recently liberated country like Syria. The paper wrote that this project might have been practical had it taken place after winning the Palestine War and after the Arab states have stood in one line and fought as one man. Akhbar al-Youm also defeneded the Wafd government against Arab charges of intervening in the affairs of fellow Arab states. By November of 1951, news of successive Syrian coups d’etat elicited an interesting response from the paper, which indicated general Egyptian oblivion to the possibility of military takeovers in their own country. The paper wrote that people in Syria were expressing disdain toward the foibles of their military governments, but they only did it in secret. Syrians are dumbstruck over the sight of their traditional leaders behind prison bars, and were only allowed to praise the latest coup, but not to criticize it.17 When it came to the reaction of the mainstream press to activities of fringe groups, their treatment differed. Al-Ahram, for instance, remained uncommitted toward their ideology but increased its coverage of the resumption of the Brotherhood’s activities following its earlier banning. AlMasri, on the other hand, demonstrated great interest in the organization’s Palestinian engagements. In October of 1950, Al-Masri even praised the Brotherhood for being the first to dispatch its troops to Palestine. Communism fared worse on the pages of this paper since al-Wafd in general favored a mild form of socialism and enlisting the Soviet Union on its side in the struggle against Britain. Al-Masri’s editor, Mahmoud Abu alFutuh, however, directed his words at the British and American governments in January of 1950, warning that it was their policies that paved the way for the spread of communism. During 1950, Misr al-Fatah was on the attack, always directing its sharp words at the Wafd. By that time, the name of its parent organization had changed to the Socialist Party. But alMasri ignored this paper completely and it was assumed that Misr al-Fatah’s animosity toward the Wafdist paper was because the former was printed at Akhbar al-Youm. Among the most entertaining papers, Akhbar alYoum’s style often bordered on the sensational, especially when it addressed the issue of communist organizations. In April of 1950, it published an expose under the heading: “A Communist Cell Made Up Of Zionists Is Seized: A French Journalist Invited by the Government Organizes a Communist Movement.” The paper asserted firmly that according to its sources, Zionists were in charge of the Egyptian communist move-

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 113

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

113

ment and that they received their orders from Moscow. Interestingly, as part of its general campaign against communism worldwide, Akhbar alYoum published a sympathetic interview with the Shah of Iran and Empress Soraya in March of 1951, in which it was claimed that all of Iran was falling under the influence of Tudeh, the Iranian communist party. The author of that piece was Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, the future press czar of the Nasserite regime.18

THE PRESS AND ROYAL PRIVILEGE By the late 1940s and early 1950s, covering news of the monarch, his court, and his family was beginning to place new pressures on the Egyptian political system. Indeed, the press viewed the coverage of royal news not only as a duty but also as a sport. It did not help matters any that Farouq was embroiled in several scandals, some personal, like his sisters’ marriages, and some public, like the use of defective weapons on the Palestine front. It was also during that period that the King made a bold move to shore up his power by creating his own palace guard, known as the Iron Guard. Headed by naval Physician Yousef Rashad, this secret formation, which at one time included Anwar Sadat, specialized in secret assassinations and destruction of property. The Iron Guard, however, generated less sensational news than the marriage scandals of Farouq’s two sisters, one of whom was to an Egyptian Christian, while residing in California. The marriage violated the principle of Islamic compatibility in marriage and posed a crisis for a monarch who was regarded as the head of his country’s Islamic institution. Akhbar al-Youm, which had always maintained ties to the monarch in the past, publicized his scandalous conduct while on his annual summer journey to Europe, in books with titles such as: Giants and Pygmies and In This Manner Egypt is Ruled. Farouq was so enraged that he refused to send an envoy to express his sympathies upon the death of Amin Yousef, the father of Akhbar al-Youm’s editor. Rose al-Yousef, as well as lesser-known radical journals, such as Al-Jumhour alMasri and al-Ishtirakiyah, participated in this attack. Some journals, like the Wafdist al-Masri, were more circumspect, providing stories that hinted at royal corruption without necessarily naming names. In June of 1951, the paper published a picture of someone called “Fouad Pasha the Egyptian” playing the gaming tables at the French Riviera, who was known to Egyptians as the King in disguise. Akhbar al-Youm, however, persisted in the most straight forward assault on the monarchy ever.19 Mustafa Amin justified these attacks in the following words: We believe that all the evils of publishing are a thousand times better than the virtues of silence and suppression of information . . . since the behavior of the

10_303_Ch4.qxd

114

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 114

Chapter 4

royal family is not a personal matter but a public affair which concerns the entire nation.20

Mustafa Amin went after the palace indirectly in July of 1950 when Ismail Sidqi, the former prime minister, died, without any royal participation in his funeral procession. Sidqi was unacceptable to the palace because he refused publicly to approve Egypt’s participation in the 1948 Palestine War that the King favored.21 Under the heading, “The Man Who Did Not Fear the Public,” Mustafa Amin eulogized Sidqi as follows: I heard a grand old man of the government state during the funeral procession of Sidqi Pasha: If you wished to live in Egypt like a lion, then know that the government will provide you with a dog’s funeral. But if you wished to be given a lion’s funeral, then be prepared to live in Egypt like a dog.22

Under the heading of “Tar and Pitch” (meaning: Everything is black), Mustafa Amin took on the King’s conduct during a recent trip to Europe in June of 1950, without mentioning Farouq’s name once. Amin wrote that no one in Britain, France, or Italy ever spoke of Egypt as a new state. No one was writing on the issue of British evacuation from Egypt and the unity of the Nile Valley anymore. The only publicity that Egypt was receiving pertained to the advantages of belly dancing. Amin complained that the picture of Samia Jamal, Egypt’s sensational belly-dancer and rumored Farouq’s mistress, had appeared on the front pages of major world newspapers and journals and was referred to in such outrageous terms as “the official belly-dancer of the Egyptian government.”23 But perhaps one of the most biting and direct attacks on the monarchy was a photograph of semi-nude beggars sleeping on Cairo’s pavements that appeared in Misr al-Fatah under the heading: “These Are Your Subjects, Majesty” for which the editor, Ahmad Hussein, received a prison sentence.24 But two issues related to the monarchy and the press finally involved parliament and the executive branch of government. The first was the question of defective weapons during the 1948 Arab-Jewish War, and the second was an attempt to pass anti-defamation laws in order to protect the royal household. The story of defective weapons epitomized the public’s disillusionment with the conduct of the war. Some of that disillusionment, moreover, had to do with the widely known facts about the King’s interest in involving Egypt in that war at a time when the Prime Minister was floating other ideas and plans. Nuqrashi Pasha was always in favor of organizing Egyptian and other volunteer units to carry on with the war against the Israeli army. He took some steps in that direction when he granted leave to a number of military officers in order to train and equip these proposed Arab volunteer units. His idea was that the volunteers should wage a guerrilla-style war from within Palestinian towns

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 115

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

115

and villages, a campaign that would result in their fortification and protection. Thus, just before Egypt’s formal entry into the war, the number of Egyptian volunteers, especially Muslim Brothers, was on the rise. Some of the volunteers reached the Palestinian front long before the arrival of the Egyptian Armed Forces. Among the volunteers were very qualified army officers on leave such as the leader of the Brotherhood’s units, Ahmad Abd al-Aziz, who taught military history at the Egyptian War College. Other prominent officers who directed the volunteers were Kamal al-DinHussein and Abd al-Monem Abd al-Raouf.25 It is worth noting that much of the confrontation between the palace and the press originated in Parliament, except for the issue of defective weapons. This was a scoop by an editor of Rose al-Yousef, Ihsan Abd alQuddous, who uncovered this story at first on the pages of his weekly journal. Because of Rose al-Yousef’s independence from any political party, it felt totally free to provide all the sordid details concerning this story and its implications for national policy. The resulting investigation proved to be one of the major victories in the history of Arab journalism and could be considered one of the triggers of the Revolution of 1952. The campaign surrounding the release and publication of this story used the elements of surprise and the threat of violence in order to activate readers’ interest. Abd al-Quddous persisted in publishing several installments even after being slapped with a court order to stop publication. The story, furthermore, was amplified by the use of several journalistic techniques such as caricatures, editorials, and news items in order to expose those responsible to the public.26 Other journals participated in highlighting what they perceived to be a story of corruption in high places. This story pieced together information about the sources of secondhand, defective weapons, which led to the poor military performance of the Egyptians during the war, and the trail led to the King’s closest advisors. That some rich and influential officials of the Egyptian royal court were willing to profit from the death of fellow Egyptians proved to be a powerful indictment of the entire regime. The arrest of Abd al-Quddous did not put an end to the story and instead sparked a fierce debate in parliament. A member of the Egyptian Senate, Mustafa Mirii, began his investigation unaware of the chain of events that would result from his action. An attempt by the Minister of Defense, Heider Pasha, to form an investigative committee fell by the wayside. But Mirii succeeded in opening up an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the resignation of the head of the accounting office, upon his disapproval of the transfer of a large sum of money from the funds of a charitable hospital in Alexandria to the account of Karim Thabet, the King’s Press Advisor. Mirii questioned other improper royal expenditures from funds designated for the Palestine war effort, but was forced to tender his resignation to the Nahhas government. The upshot of

10_303_Ch4.qxd

116

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 116

Chapter 4

these inquiries was the signing of three decrees by June 1950, which resulted in the dismissal of a number of opposition leaders. All senate members who were appointed during the cabinet of Hussain Sirri were dismissed. New members were appointed to the vacated seats from the Wafd party. Lastly, a special decree dismissed the head of the Senate, Muhammad Hussein Heikal, for permitting this inquiry to go forward and replaced him with Ali Zaki Uraabi.27 Fouad Siraj al-Din, the powerful leader of the right wing of the Wafd, was gleeful at these results, referring to what some journalists called “a constitutional assassination,” as a corrective action targeting constitutional abuses. Thus, the defective weapons deal worked to the advantage of both the palace and the Wafd, with the first winning the dismissal of the charges and the latter the substitution of Wafdist senators in the seats vacated by outgoing opposition members. Freedom of the press had observable limits between 1950 and 1952, but the diversity of the press and the arrival of independent papers strengthened interjournalistic competition, as well as the resolve of some to use all methods available to get their message to the reading public. Punishing the press was accomplished informally and persisted as long as the evidence would not incriminate the guilty party. Offending papers were being confiscated, vocal journalists were brought before the legal authorities, and at least one paper, the Socialist Party’s Misr al-Fatah, was closed by an order of the cabinet. At one point the Wafdist government followed a heavy-handed policy of intimidation by orchestrating violent demonstrations against the offices of Akhbar al-Youm and breaking their windows, which resulted in pitched battles between the demonstrators and printing workers, producing one casualty. The government also used to prevail on newspaper vendors not to carry and sell Akhbar al-Youm. But for friendly papers, there were secret funds from a variety of sources. Some publishers were rewarded by allowing them to obtain more than their quota of print paper at government-regulated prices. The surplus paper used to be sold on the black market for a handsome profit.28 Other journals in addition to Rose al-Yousef turned their attention to the defective weapons story and to the defense of Ihsan Abd al-Quddous. AlAhram covered this investigation and Abd al-Quddous’ allegations in full, but it relied on statements by some members of the royal family who claimed that the problem of defective weapons had a lot to do with the shortage of funds. Al-Masri, on the other hand, maintained an objective stance in the crisis of the Senate story, shielding the government from public criticism and covering the news of the committee charged with investigating the defective weapon deals without any comment. But when it came to the news of Abd al-Quddous’s arrest, the paper defended him as someone entitled to criticizing the government and objected strongly to loss of freedom of expression among the supporters and enemies of the

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 117

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

117

administration. The paper praised Abd al-Quddous as a man who had previously demonstrated his innate patriotism by constantly covering and investigating stories pertaining to the armed forces. But in a piece by Editor-in-Chief Ahmad Abu al-Fath, al-Masri wrote on October 20, 1950, that the blame should be directed at those during whose term of office the crime of shedding innocent blood by defective weapons was committed. The blame, in other words, should be assessed to the previous Saadian government, not the current Wafdist administration. The same paper also defended ranking Wafdist and member of the cabinet Fouad Siraj al-Din against charges of treason by Akhbar al-Youm for involvement in the weapons scandal. Al-Masri retaliated by accusing Akhbar al-Youm of tasteless sensationalism for publishing pictures of the nude body of entertainer Camilia, who perished in an airplane crash.29 According to a recent historian of Egyptian journalism, Ibrahim Abduh, the story of defective weapons as the major reason behind Egypt’s defeat in the 1948 Palestine War was diffused and dismissed in a court of law a few years later. Abduh asserted that a legal investigation of the matter in the Criminal Court in 1952 proved that these defective weapons deals were concluded after, not before, the signing of armistice agreements between Israel and other Arab states. Musa Sabri, a young journalist at the time, also confirmed this story. While employed at al-Akhbar during the early months after the Revolution, he prepared a news story based on court proceedings of that case. Al-Akhbar knew the significance of this judgment, since the Free Officers used the story of the defective weapons to justify their takeover of government. Sabri wrote years later that Fouad Jalal, the Revolutionary Minister of National Guidance, a new ministry in charge of the media, stopped by the offices of al-Akhbar at a late hour, demanding to read the proofs of this story. He was very perturbed and ordered the paper not to publish it, repeating that this ruling will bring down one of the principle arguments on which the revolution was based.30

THE PRESS ATTACKS WAFDIST POLICIES Akhbar al-Youm led the pack in launching attacks against the Wafd government and Mustafa Nahhas in particular, using mostly satire and personal attacks. Responding to lawless assaults on its offices by pro-Wafd crowds, the paper warned the prime minister against limiting freedom of the press through legislation. It reminded him that he, too, might lead a demonstration calling for respecting freedom of the press if he lost office soon since only the papers will come to his defense. Mustafa Amin then tackled the lavish lifestyle of Nahhas and his wife, Zeinab al-Wakil, by claiming that he ran into the prime minister while selecting expensive

10_303_Ch4.qxd

118

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 118

Chapter 4

sleeping clothes at a Paris shop. He claimed that al-Nahhas and his family were commandeering government ships to transport them to Europe and that his wife obtained her luxurious places of residence through illegal means. Then Amin commented that it should not have come as a surprise that the prime minister rejected the idea of a balanced representation in the Senate, since the entire country was out of balance. Akhbar al-Youm also published an interview with veteran statesman Muhammad Hussein Heikal of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party, conducted by “Anonymous Reporter,” in which harsh accusations were leveled at the Wafd. Appearing in November of 1950, the interview quoted Heikal as saying that the opposition had afforded al-Nahhas all kinds of cooperation when he came to power, but as soon as the Senate began questioning Karim Thabet about the defective weapons deals, the prime minister disregarded the constitution. In another article, Akhbar al-Youm referred to the Wafd government as being similar to life under communism. Life under communism meant rule by one party, restricting freedoms and creating a police state, and the Wafd had achieved all these. The paper also reported in full detail what happened when its offices were attacked by students and others upon encouragement by the Wafd. Mustafa Amin reported that the demonstrators were chanting, in reference to al-Nahhas, “He is a thief, but we like him. He is a thief, but we want him.” Amin openly pointed a finger at the publications of the Ministry of the Interior and of the cabinet as the instigators of this anti-press wave.31 When the Egyptian public greeted news of the campaign of armed struggle against British positions in the Canal Zone in 1951 with great happiness, the paper wrote a scathing critique of the Egyptian approach to public crises. It demanded that canceling the 1936 Anglo-British Agreement, which opened the door for the campaign, not be turned into a rowdy political demonstration accompanied by chants and congratulatory telegrams to the authorities. Waging the jihad should not be construed to mean licensing brick throwing against commercial establishments and hitching illegal rides on trams. The Egyptians, it added, should not rely on enthusiasm alone as they did during the Palestine War. The comparison to Palestinian events was both discouraging and hurtful. When the battle against the British intensified, it was directed by famous names like Aziz al-Masri who led a secret plot against the British during World War II, attorneys Abd al-Hamid Sadeq, Attiyah Saber and Abd alRahman Abaza, and journalists Ahmad Abu al-Fath and Ihsan Abd alQuddous. This committee coordinated fundraising activities throughout Egypt and the creation of training camps for military volunteers in provinces situated close to the canal. Because al-Nahhas cautioned the British to leave for he would not be able to protect their soldiers from the public, the jihad was waged as a guerrilla campaign by volunteer units

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 119

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

119

named after Saad Zaghloul, Mustafa al-Nahhas, and Mustafa al-Wakil. A special camp for the training of Islamic Brothers was held at King Fouad University (the national university) and al-Azhar. But the comparison to the Palestine campaign was uppermost in people’s minds, creating fears and unprecedented bouts of self-doubt. Some of the assassinations and attacks against British soldiers were so severe, such as what came to be known the battle of al-Tel al-Kabir, that some British officers claimed that this was the most brutal battle fought since the Palestine Mandate. But it was made abundantly clear that British resistance to Egyptian demands for immediate evacuation was conditioned by the loss of Palestine as a British base of operations in the region.32 Al-Masri adopted a more moderate tone toward the Wafdist cabinet than any other paper. This journal, for instance, directed its criticism to former Prime Minister Ismail Sidqi, for recommending that Egypt should conclude a peace agreement with Israel in order to smooth its way toward canceling the 1936 Agreement. Al-Masri wrote that an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty was precisely the issue that should not become a subject for negotiations, making Sidqi’s suggestion a dangerous tactic. The paper asserted that Britain was exerting indirect pressure against Egypt by refusing to provide it with modern weapons in order to sign a peace with Israel, which would pose great embarrassment for the foreign minister. The paper’s suspicion of British intentions extended to the future of the Sinai Peninsula. British authorities, the paper claimed in 1950, will refrain from intervening in the Egyptian-Israeli hostilities along the Sinai border until the very end. Then they will offer their mediation services by suggesting that a part of that peninsula be ceded to Israel in order to build a military base on its territory. The paper also called for investigating the large amount of military material that was being transported by British ships to the Jordanian port of Aqaba, lest the supplies find their way to Israel. In February of 1951, al-Masri reported that the Sudan’s governor was trying to negotiate an agreement of air travel with Israel and condemned efforts by some Sudanese merchants to trade illegally with the enemy state. Akhbar al-Youm was also critical of the British. In another story, the paper complained that the British were escalating their demands, one day pressuring for reaching an agreement with King Abdullah of Jordan, and the next pushing for concluding peace with Israel.33 One of the most meaningful confrontations between the press and the Nahhas Wafdist governments of the early 1950s was the attempt to devise new legislation to protect against defamation of the King and his family. A Wafdist deputy by the name of Istephan Bassily submitted a proposal to the lower house of parliament in 1951 to prohibit the publication of any news of the royal family. Ahmad Abu al-Fath, who was also serving a term as a member of parliament, chose to attack this law in the Chamber

10_303_Ch4.qxd

120

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 120

Chapter 4

of Deputies after first condemning the move on the pages of al-Masri. He told the assembled deputies that he chose to publish his opposition to the bill in order to convince the public that their representatives were not stabbing them in the back.34 The proposed bill proved to be extremely provocative with most of the young Wafdist representatives opposed to it. This group was led by Aziz Fahmi whose father was the head of the Chamber of Deputies.35 But al-Masri almost defied its own party by confronting this development head-on and covering it with biting criticism. Abu al-Fath wrote in July of 1951 that journalism did not need new chains at a time when it was suffering from laws permitting the jailing and detention of reporters and the confiscation of papers. The authorities knew, he wrote, that even if they built a jail in every neighborhood, every village, and every alley, they would not be able to stop the revolution of hunger, nakedness, deprivation, and despair. Al-Masri then attacked “the journalists’ sleeping syndicate” for taking no stand on the matter. The syndicate eventually approached the appropriate legislative committee with its rejection of the proposed legislation. After voting the bill down, al-Masri published what it called the Honor Roll of the cabinet ministers who turned down the legislation. Bassily’s name was first included in the Black List, then transferred to the Honor Roll when he himself changed his position. Al-Masri also published angry statements by some ministers who favored the legislation, like Hamid Zaki, and who were angered at the public uproar. Zaki called on the government to resign since the entire Egyptian population, according to him, had turned communist. Zaki wrote that those who disagreed with him were calling for the adoption of communist principles and were aided by the red journalism all around him. Al-Masri responded by writing that it adhered only to the principles of the Wafd and loyalty to the great leader, meaning Zaghloul. Akhbar alYoum opposed the legislation, since the paper was, in Mustafa Amin’s words, based on an essential principle, namely the people’s right to know.36 Al-Ahram, similarly, opposed this legislation from the very beginning, rejecting the government’s argument that action was needed to safeguard the social order. Some of its headlines in this regard read: “Aziz Fahmi says—We love Nahhas Pasha but we also love our constitution and we worship only Allah.”37 There were some prominent Wafdists, like Fouad Siraj al-Din, who actually favored such legislation. Siraj al-Din, Minister of the Interior, who was in Europe at the time of the legislative battle, regretted that he was absent when the government’s parliamentary liaison person, Abd al-Fattah Hassan, announced finally that the Wafd cabinet did not approve the proposed bill. Subsequently, the bill died in committee and was not brought up for general discussion.38 Despite this failed attempt to tamper with freedom of expression during the monarchy, newspapers continued to function. Unlike the authorities’

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 121

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

121

view of the press under the Free Officers, there was no effort to eliminate papers altogether, except when an organization was disbanded, as in the case of the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1940s. It was not unusual, furthermore, to see the partisan press break away from its party and criticize its policies. In most cases when a paper angered those in power, the press law would allow the confiscation of only the specific issue where the errant material appeared. This would be determined by a court hearing to prove the malicious nature of the offending material. The paper itself would then continue to publish. Usually, the editor-in-chief would defend the paper in court, and quite often he and the specific issue were let free. Rarely was an editor sent to jail and in most cases a fine would be slapped on the paper. All the editor had to prove was that the paper was simply exercising its right to direct criticism at those in public services in accordance with constitutional guarantees of freedom.39 There were some particularly oppressive periods for the press, such as during the tenure of Nuqrashi’s cabinet in 1948, which used the Palestine War as an occasion to impose emergency regulations on the entire country. After Nuqrashi’s assassination, emergency regulations were extended for another year, with great hardship for the press institution. Occasionally, especially when papers would publish offensive material about the royal family, an administrative order would be obtained for their confiscation. Such was the case when an order was produced against an issue of al-Ahram, al-Masri, and Aakher Saaha because of some news about the royal family. Misr al-Fatah, the voice of the Socialist Islamic party, suffered frequent orders of confiscation of its paper until it was finally closed by a cabinet order.40

PALESTINIAN CONCERNS AND PALESTINIAN PIPELINES Cynics have always claimed that despite the defective weapons story, Egypt’s concern for the Sinai, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian jihad, and the rise of the Arab League of States, Egypt remained in an insular state before 1952. Its main concern remained the achievement of independence from Britain and reaching some form of modus vevendi between the country’s various political forces. But despite involvement in the guerilla campaign against British forces in the Canal Zone, the Palestine War and its aftermath continued to impinge on Egyptian journalism and the country’s statesmen. Palestinian journalist Nasser al-Din Nashashibi, who worked with a variety of Egyptian papers before and after the 1952 Revolution, belonged to this school. He also witnessed the latitude allowed to the Egyptian press under the Wafd’s last cabinet and openness to Palestinian and other Arab journalists. He tells of Nahhas’ reference to Nashashibi as that journalist who always called him names on the pages

10_303_Ch4.qxd

122

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 122

Chapter 4

of Akhbar al-Youm, along with the Amin brothers. Nashashibi, on the other hand, felt that the commitment of Nahhas to the Arab League never extended beyond his duty as the official host to visiting Arab delegations whenever protocol demanded invitations to lavish state functions. But a certain tolerance was extended to Palestinian writers when these complained against Egypt’s policies. Nashashibi himself penned a piece in Aakher Saaha in 1945, under the heading: “Directing My Plea Against Egypt to the Egyptians,” in which he targeted the hypocrisy of organizing lavish parades for the returning remnants of the Egyptian Armed Forces from the Palestinian campaign. Ihsan Abd al-Quddous asked him to write for Rose al-Yousef, which the Palestinian journalist did under the heading: “Nothing Will Break Iron But Other Pieces of Iron.” Other Palestinians like Ameed Imam also wrote for Rose al-Yousef, all of whom, like Nashashibi, touched on the defective weapons question and what led to Arab defeat in the Palestine War. None of the Palestinian writers suffered any recriminations as a result of their activities. But Nashashibi’s sensational material, apparently, did not please his mentor and editor of AlAhram, Antoun Gemayel, who lectured him on the virtue of neutrality when writing a news story. Gemayel spoke on the need to avoid personal invectives since this would work against a rising journalist like Nashashibi. During that period, however, most Egyptians continued to regard Palestinian guest-journalists as part of the phenomenon of “Syrian” journalism with which they were familiar in the past. But some of these so-called Syrian veteran journalists did their best to keep the story of Palestine before the Egyptian public. One of these was Asaad Dagher, head of the Middle East department in al-Ahram, who was known for his contacts with Haj Amin al-Husseini, Prime Minister of Lebanon Riadh alSulh and Iraqi premier-turned-rebel Rashid Aali Gaylany. Another Lebanese writer specializing in issues pertaining to Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, Albert Aamoun, assisted Dagher. Al-Hilal featured the work of the Palestinian Habib Hamaty, who wrote a series of articles under the title: “History and What It Has Forgotten.” Hamaty also wrote on the Palestinian power struggle between Haj Ameen al-Husseini and Palestinian statesman Musa al-Alami. Rose al-Yousef was known to cover Arab issues, and Karim Thabet, the King’s Press Advisor, and his father, Khalil, both of whom of Lebanese origin, wrote about Arab issues for al-Muqattam, often under a pseudonym. All of these were valued for their expertise in Arab and Palestinian affairs, making up for a visible deficiency in the Arab informational training of most members of the Egyptian press. Few Egyptians made a strong effort to get to know Arab and Palestinian issues at close range. Among these was Abd al-Quddous who visited Palestine, Syria and Lebanon after 1948. Al-Tabii also visited Palestine, and so did the reclusive and neutral Tawfiq al-Hakim. Hussein Abu al-Fath of alMasri covered Queen Nazli’s visit to Jerasulem during the Mandate. A

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 123

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

123

more daring journalist, Mahmoud Azmi, used to visit Bethlehem to talk to its longtime mayor, Issa Bandak, and officials of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem.41 Most of those covering Palestinian and Arab affairs wrote self-consciously, their columns appearing often on the inside pages of al-Ahram, alMuqattam, al-Masri, and al-Hilal. It was said that only the efforts of the British radio station, The Near East for Arabic Broadcasting, based in Cyprus, managed to push Egyptian literary and musical figures to tour Palestine. Thus, there were tours by writers and novelists Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad and Abd al-Qadir al-Mazini, musician Sami al-Shawwa (a Gazan), and Quranic vocalist Farid al-Sandiyouni, to Jaffa and Jerusalem. Rarely did the Egyptian press turn to Jordan except when King Farouq launched a campaign against King Abdullah following the end of the Palestinian War. Nashashibi became emboldened by being the recipient of King Farouq’s award for excellence in “Oriental” Journalism to propose his own solution for the Palestine Question on the pages of the Egyptian press. He wrote in Akhbar al-Youm an articile titled, “Palestine Is an Egyptian Province,” which emphasized the two countries’ historic ties and which raised the ire of the British authorities in Palestine. When interviewed by the Egyptian weekly, al-Ithnein in 1914, and asked his opinion about King Farouq, he replied that the Egyptian King was his king also. Most journalists of Arab origin were always lumped together as “Syrians,” an unfriendly reference to the early Syrian journalists who dominated the Egyptian press in the past. Some papers made a point of segregating Arab news from Egyptian coverage. Akhbar al-Youm dedicated page nine of every issue for news of the Arab world only. This page, furthermore, would appear only in issues designated for the Arab market. Thus, there were two editions of this paper, one for Egypt and one for the Arabs.42

THE REVOLUTION ELIMINATES ITS ENEMIES Among the unanswered questions about the Free Officers Revolution of 1952 is whether or not they belonged to a specific political group. Despite the appearance of “insiders” accounts about the details of planning by former Free Officers such as Ahmad Hamroush’s Qissat Thawrat 23 Yulio (The Story of the Revolution of July 32, Beirut, 1976) it is still unclear whether the officers and specifically Nasser, followed a plan or were experimenting as they went along. Nasser himself, however, shunned the notion of taking on a specific ideological label. He said in his inaugural address before the National Conference of Popular Forces in November of 1961: Our circumstance forces us to apply our revolution before creating its theory. But what is theory if not proof of action taken upon studying social problems

10_303_Ch4.qxd

124

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 124

Chapter 4

faced by our society. . . . Do not ask me to make a theory, you have to make theory, you, the intellectuals. And when we discover a textbook on economies and our experience published here, then I will know that this book is part of the theory. . . . It was not required of me to produce a printed book on the eve of the Revolution of July 23, because if we were occupied with the writing of such a book, there would have been no revolution.43

A Soviet expert, A. Agarchev, claimed that the officers had no time to develop theories, but some were close to the Muslim Brotherhood while others were Marxists. The majority of officers, he affirmed, were simply nationalists, and Nasser was one of them. Egyptian Marxist Mahmoud Amin al-Aalem was more specific. He said that the Revolutionary Command Council represented a coalition of three Communist fronts, meaning HADATO, the Muslim Brotherhood, and a centrist group represented by Nasser and his colleagues. Events in 1954 when Muhammad Naguib was removed from the presidency, brought Nasser and his block to the forefront of the organization.44 According to one of the officers who worked with him during the early days of the revolution, Ahmad Lutfi Waked, “Nasser never belonged to the right, represented by the Brotherhood, or to the Marxist left, his positions being closer to the centrist liberal position. But he was intelligent and diplomatic enough to make the right hold some hope for him, and also the left, without himself committing to any position.”45 The degree of cooperation with the Brotherhood during the days preceding the revolution, however, indicated that a great deal of coordination between them and the free officers took place. According to a pro-Brotherhood member of the Free Officers group, Hussein Hammoudah, Nasser was in touch with the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide Hassan al-Hudhaibi on the eve of the revolution and received guarantees that the Brotherhood would not use the confusion of the early days of the transfer of power to assassinate the former prime minister who suppressed the organization, Ibhahim Abd al-Hadi. Units of the Brotherhood’s secret militias were also charged with guarding the country’s vital services and its foreign embassies. Some of its armed men were stationed along the Cairo-Suez road and the Ismailiya-Cairo road, as well as along the Suez Canal to monitor the movement of British troops.46 The coordination between the two groups was so close that the Brotherhood sincerely felt the revolution to be its own plan. Years later, the head of the Guidance Office of the Brotherhood, Saleh Abu Raqiq, was quoted in a newspaper interview that the Brotherhood led the Revolution and not those who claimed this honor. Omar al-Talmasani also said upon his inauguration as the Supreme Guide that the initial agreement between the Free Officers and the Brotherhood was that in the event of the success of the revolution, God’s sharia will be the law of the land. But as soon as

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 125

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

125

Nasser was in charge of government, he added, Nasser disowned the Brotherhood.47 The officers, however, met no opposition from the Brotherhoood at the beginning. The officers’ most vaunted assault on economic privilege and the strong blow against the propertied classes, namely the land reform program, were apparently not challenged by the Islamic movement. On the contrary, the Brotherhood’s Guidance Office issued a declaration on August 2, 1952, in which it denounced large landholdings that harmed the interest of the peasants and agricultural workers. It also recommended that land ownership be limited and excess land be sold to destitute people at reasonable prices, payable after a period of time. Government lands, it advised, should be distributed to landless people. Somehow, a blow at the Brotherhood seemed highly improbable in the early months of the revolution.48 According to Hammoudah, the break between the Brotherhood and Nasser was inevitable because the Egyptian leader was intent on holding all power in his hands. This translated into an attempt to co-opt the Islamic movement and annex it to the Free Officers. Nasser apparently asked alHudhaibi to mobilize all the Islamic Movement’s populous branches throughout the country in order to make the Brothers the nucleus of the Liberation Rally, the name given to the Free Officers’ party. But Nasser anticipated that his leadership of this new party would be contested, while al-Hudhaybi quickly became fearful of this new competition over his position as the head of the Brotherhood. Nasser’s co-optation of leading members of the Brotherhood became all too obvious when Abd al-Rahman al-Sindi, the head of the secret civilian underground of the movement switched allegiance from al-Hudhaybi to Nasser. He then began to encourage members of the Guidance Office and the secret civilian underground to move closer to Nasser, a fact that saved him from joining other Brothers in Nasser’s jails by 1954. Nasser appeared to have won prominent members of the Brotherhood to his side, such as Sheikh Ahmad Hassan alBaqouri, Saleh Ishmawi, and al-Banna’s own brother, Abd al-Rahman. This defection of the higher ranks angered al-Hudhaibi who warned the Brotherhood against joining the Liberation Movement, announcing the expulsion of any member who moved to Nasser’s side. Al-Hudhaibi particularly feared the elimination of the Islamic movement as a separate struggle with its own distinct name and ideology. The Brotherhood’s cooperation with a secret cell within the Armed Forces, known as the Free Officers, began before and during the Palestine War of 1948. Nasser’s early talks with the Islamic organization convinced him of their sweeping demands that they expected the secret army organization to fulfill. This included the army’s cooperation in spreading Islamic thought throughout society, including the army, the legal authority, university students, professional

10_303_Ch4.qxd

126

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 126

Chapter 4

groups, peasants, workers, and women’s groups. This Islamization program was expected to culminate in Islamic rule according to the sharia, a natural demand since Muslim groups have always believed that governance was a duty, not an honor. Nasser had his first opportunity to do away with the Brotherhood in January of 1954, when a skirmish took place at Cairo University between Islamic students and those loyal to the Liberation Rally occasioned by the visit of the Iranian Islamic activist, Nawaab Safavi. The Brotherhood was dismantled and many of its members, including al-Hudhaibi, were jailed. Nasser was forced to release the Brothers in March as a result of several factors. Among these was a statement published in Al-Masri by Abd al-Rahman Azzam, secretary-general of the Arab League of States, that King Saud of Saudi Arabia protested personally to Nasser the imprisonment of leading members of the Brotherhood. Nasser was forced to beat a hasty retreat after accusing the Brotherhood of dealing secretly with the British authorities behind the government’s back when pro-Naguib demonstrators demanded the return of the president to power. Fearing a civil war when the so-called Crisis of March 1954 erupted and the armed forces sided either with the recently resigned president or with Nasser, the latter saw a gesture toward the Brotherhood as a way to pacify public opinion. Naguib’s return to power saved the country from the possibility of a civil war but did not change Nasser’s concern over the nature of divided politics in Egypt. His final attempt to break the power of the Islamic movement came in the wake of the failed assassination attempt against him in October of 1954, an attempt that the Brotherhood claimed was totally fabricated. With the massive imprisonment and torture of the Brotherhood, Nasser was finally rid of the most organized force in Egypt. Out of a total of five thousand officers in the Egyptian Armed Forces, Nasser managed to stage a revolution with the support of merely ninetynine officers, an achievement that would not have succeeded without the support of other secret formations such as the Muslim Brotherhood.49 Nasser was also said to be affiliated with Misr al-Fatah, particularly during the guerilla campaign against the British in the Canal Zone. The party’s leader, Ahmad Hussein, was in jail when the revolution took place because of involvement in the Cairo Fire of January 1952. But after the revolution, the leader of the Socialist Party, as it was then called, discovered that he would be no longer able to make public statements critical of the government. He was jailed by the Officers’ regime after one such incident during the March crisis of 1954.50 Nasser’s relationship with the Communist party was even more violent. Although strongly represented in his Free Officers’ group by such figures of known Marxist affiliation as Khaled Muhyi alDin, Yousef Mansour Sadiq, Kamal Rifaat, Ahmad Hamroush, and Kamal al-Hinnawi, the Communists, who belonged to HADATO, were later shorn of their early power.51 Sadiq was credited with the bravest conduct

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 127

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

127

during the early hours of the revolution. He secured its success by arresting the top leadership of the army and occupying the headquarters of the military services. He also served briefly on the Regency Council when the King and his infant son left the country.52 The military might of the Free Officers’ government was brought to bear against the Marxists similar to the persecution of the Islamic party. Muhyi al-Din was ousted from government and exiled outside the country for a while. Sadiq was thrown in the military jail. Hamroush and al-Hinnawi were jailed, then dismissed from the army and assigned journalistic duties. Rifaat was also deprived of his army rank and served as Minister of Labor for a while. The first general attack on civilian communists took place in January of 1953, when forty-eight activists were sent to jail. Another massive blow at the communists was made in March of 1954, but in March of 1959, communists all over Egypt were hunted down and sent to prison. The last massive attack against communist formations was launched in 1966, when they were jailed and endured torture until Nasser’s death in 1970.53 The honeymoon between the Free Officers’ government and the Marxists ended because of a famous trial of labor leaders accused of causing a general strike and a confrontation with the police in late 1952. With rising leftist criticism of the way in which government handled the crisis, the officers decided to crack down on the communists before they had a chance to mobilize public opinion. The incident aroused the officers’ fears because it took place in the midst of a scare campaign by American circles about communist danger in Egypt.54 The confrontation began when a massive demonstration for higher wages took place at the textile factories at Kafr al-Dawwar, during which fires were set off and police intervention killed and wounded some of the demonstrators. A policeman also lost his life, causing the government to panic and place two leaders of the melee on trial. These were Muhammad al-Baqri and Mustafa Khamis, who were tried by a closed military court headed by Abd al-Munem Amin, a member of the Revolutionary Command Council, (RCC). Only reporters were allowed to observe the trial and both antagonists refused to provide a motive for their action. Both received the death penalty, while most Egyptians believed that they were railroaded by the court authorities. Years after the sentencing, Ahmad Hamroush revealed that at least Khamis was a member of a communist organization.55 Many in Egypt expressed surprise at the harshness with which the demonstrators and their leaders were treated, claiming that labor-police clashes in the 1940s that resulted in heavy casualties never elicited this brutal official response.56 Nasser’s crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and the Communists was also the result of contacts and coordination with American embassy staff and intelligence sources before and after the revolution. It was commented later on that some explanation had to account for Britain’s inaction

10_303_Ch4.qxd

128

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 128

Chapter 4

after the revolutionary officers seized power. Many of those who chronicled the early years of the revolution thought that uppermost in the officers’ mind was a possible repeat of the British intervention on behalf of Khedive Tawfiq in 1882, which crushed the Uraabist Revolution. After repeated attempts to exercise a corrective influence on King Farouq and point him in the right direction, the Americans despaired of his personal corruption and disinclination to heed their advice. The American military attaché at Cairo met often with Defense Ministry officials, offering to train Egyptian officers in American military academies. It is believed today that Nasser met with the American military officer at his home at the suburb of Zamalek between 1950 and 1952, where he heard assurances that the United States would assist any reformist movement in Egypt since current conditions would surely expose the country to the dangers of communism. Some of these meetings were attended by Hussein Hammoudah also. Nasser, as the planner of the revolution, was the one officer in charge of these contacts. It was also known that the American Ambassador at the time, Jefferson Caffery, requested that the King’s life be spared and he be allowed to leave the country to a safe destination. The Americans were not only concerned about the possibility of a communist coup in Egypt and Britian’s inability to contain this danger, but they were also worried about the rising influence of the Muslim Brotherhood. Early in 1948, Al-Masri carried a translation of an article from the Sunday Mirror cautioning against the success of the Brotherhood in winning adherents throughout the Arab world. The Mirror explained that the Brotherhood had succeeded in convincing most Arabs that the creation of Israel will be a base for American influence in the region. The article predicted that if this movement was not checked quickly, the world would wake up soon to the reality of a vast Islamic state stretching from Pakistan to Morocco. Some of these meetings between the Americans and Nasser were confirmed also in Miles Copeland’s The Game of Nations (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson). Egyptian military missions were sent to the United States for training after the inauguration of the officers’ government. During one such mission attended by Hammoudah, the War College was offering lectures on something called “The Mohamedan Belt,” a framework for a future Islamic military pact allied with the United States. This was reported directly to Nasser, including the U.S. view that Egypt should be at the center of this pact, given its spiritual influence over the rest of the Muslim world. The United States was also willing to supply Egypt with the latest weapons as a reward for joining this security plan. When Hammoudah reported this to Nasser at the end of 1953, the Egyptian president understood the nature of the proposed American alliance.57 He responded: The biggest problem was not between us and the Soviets, but between the Arab World, Britain, France and Israel. England still has troops in Egypt, the

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 129

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

129

Sudan, Jordan, Iraq and Aden. France still occupies Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, and Israel has already occupied half of Palestine. So, how can we ally ourselves with another power against the Soviet Union when it had no problems with any Arab States? 58

But until that time, the United States was hoping to attract the friendship of the officers, and these used the Americans to counterbalance any remaining threat from Britain. As evidence of this, Khaled Muhyi al-Din indicated in a 1996 interview that leaflets issued by Nasser’s movement following the Cairo Fire no longer railed against Anglo-American imperialism as was the case before.59 Thus, Nasser’s readiness to eliminate the Marxist and Islamist threats to his own power was clearly demonstrated. Both these movements were attacked because of challenges to his policies and in order to win the United States to his side. The Islamic threat was perceived as the greater of the two because of specific demands made on him by its leadership. As early as August of 1952, the Brotherhood issued a declaration explaining its view of the desired plan of reform now that the royalist regime had ended. Clearly believing that the Revolution was made in its name, it listed specific demands such as calling for the abolishment of all parties and parliament since these allowed absolutist rulers to cover their greed with a legal garb. The Brotherhood also called for ending the emergency regulations and all the backward regulations that contradicted general freedoms and rights. The Brotherhood called for the cancellation of the 1923 Constitution, since it was not supportable in reality or in accordance with Islamic jurisprudence. A new society should be convened in order to draft a constitution that was based on Islamic principles in all walks of life. But even its exclusion from the new regulations that banned all political parties did not satisfy the Islamic movement. The RCC tried appeasement for a while by granting the Islamic movement freedom of political activity on the theory that it was never a political party. Two ministerial posts were filled with some of the movement’s members, but these two, Sheikh Ahmad Hassan al-Baqouri as the Minister of Islamic Trusts and Ahmad Hassan as Minister of Justice, were considered defections by the movement. By December of 1953, the Brotherhood escalated its demands to include the officers’ return to the barracks, the appointment of a Brotherhood-approved cabinet and the appointment of Rashad Muhanna as chief of the armed forces. All these were rejected as the battle lines between the Islamic movement and the officers were drawn in the sand.60 Tensions between the officers and their rivals on the right and the left might have pushed the officers closer to the U.S. side were it not for the question of the American-Israeli alliance. By 1954, this had driven a serious wedge between those who inherited the monarchy and those who thought they inherited Britain’s position in the Middle East.

10_303_Ch4.qxd

130

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 130

Chapter 4

THE PRESS FACES THE REVOLUTION The initial reaction of the press to the revolution was very encouraging. This was largely due to the fact that the officers pledged in their first radio announcement not only to put an end to corruption, but to restore parliamentary life. The Egyptian public was living the aftermath of the Cairo Fire, with emergency regulations, successive short-lived cabinets made up of technocrats, and stalled negotiations with the British authorities. Once the King was removed and his infant son, Ahmad Fouad, declared King, the revolution won immediate favor in most people’s minds. There was no immediate resistance to the officers from any direction, particularly with the release of all political prisoners in a general amnesty that excluded only the Marxists on October 16, 1952. The amnesty covered all those accused of political crimes from the Treaty of 1936 until the revolution, except for the Communists who were considered a threat to the prevailing economic system. The first to congratulate the officers were Nahhas and Siraj al-Din.61 As to the press, most of it reacted warmly to the revolution, with the exception of al-Ahram, which maintained its usual cautious attitude. But alMasri and the opposition press were unexpectedly approving. More importantly, as was revealed later, the only surprising thing about the revolution was its timing since the officers planned to strike in 1954. Both al-Masri and Rose al-Yousef had a close relationship with the officers before and printed the revolution’s flyers and declarations in their printing establishments. First referring to the officers’ movement as “the army’s movement,” it was the press that bestowed on it the title of “revolution.”62 The press also played a role in prodding the officers to advance the date of their revolution. It was reported that although Muhammad Naguib was approached about leading the coup by Nasser immediately following the Cairo Fire, the decision to strike on July 23 of the same year was made only in the preceding week, precisely on July 20. It was on that day that Ahmad Abu al-Fath, al-Masri’s editor-in-chief, contacted Tharwat Ukashah, his brother-in-law, and a member of the Free Officers’ group to inform him of the severe ministerial crisis gripping the palace. The King, reported Abu alFath, was determined to appoint General Sirri Aamer, a sworn enemy of the officers, as the Minister of Defense, which would have led to the arrest of fourteen officers. That news prompted advancing the date of the coup to July 23.63 The officers, however, began to dismantle all the institutions of the corrupt liberal monarchy with complete disregard for the strong popular following of certain parties such as the Wafd. Without giving a hint about their ideological orientation, the officers asked Ali Maher, an independent who served twice in the past as head of the royal court, to form the first cabinet following the elimination of the monarchy. Maher picked

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 131

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

131

his cabinet from the ranks of enemies of the Wafd, Egypt’s most popular party.64 By September of 1952, a new law to reorganize political parties was passed, which began to curb the power of the monarchy’s old political players. In order to comply with the law’s requirement and call for reform, al-Nahhas was compelled to exclude from the Wafd those members who were imprisoned by the new regime. Thus, Fouad Siraj al-Din, the powerful head of the right wing of the party, sent his resignation from his jail cell. Then al-Nahhas himself came under attack on corruption charges, causing him to say before a meeting of the State Council: “I consider myself the property of this people and no power on earth can remove me from this position after the power of God, except the people themselves.”65 Al-Masri reacted strongly against the removal of this nationalist leader from the Wafd. Even al-Nahhas’ willingness to limit himself to the honorary leadership of the party failed to satisfy the Minister of Interior. By December 10, Naguib had announced the fall of the 1923 Constitution, which stood in the way of the RCC’s plan of reforms. A new constitutional committee charged with writing a new document was formed in January of 1953. Made up of fifty members representing a cross-section of all parties and movements, the committee ended up recommending a parliamentary republican system of government. This was contrary to the RCC’s and Nasser’s preference for a presidential system, which sealed the fate of the new constitutional proposal. A transition period of three years was declared, followed by the adoption of a transitional constitutional system beginning on November 10, 1953. From that point on, government announcements and declarations began to bestow an aura of legitimacy on the RCC as the foremost center of executive and legislative power combined. Meanwhile, the officers, led by Naguib, launched steady attacks against the political parties as the primary instigators of delays and disunity. Once the fall of the monarchy became official on June 18, 1953, it became evident that the United States had won. According to the testimony of Fathi Radhwan, Minister of State during the Officers’ regime, based on his conversations with Nasser, the United States and Britain were locked in a bitter debate over the fate of the monarchy, with Britain favoring the retention of the monarchic system. Opting for the presidential system signaled another visible coordination between Nasser and the Americans. A revolutionary court was created in September 1953 to bring to justice officials and prominent figures accused of corruption and abuse of office, such as former premier Ibrahim Abd al-Hadi, Fouad Siraj al-Din, Nahhas’ wife Zeinab al-Wakil, and the two editors and proprietors of al-Masri, Mahmoud and Hussein Abu Al-Fath. Yousef Mansour Sadiq, the officer who secured the most dangerous locations on the eve of the revolution, was removed from his position and jailed. Sadiq’s crime was speaking out against the execution of the two labor leaders, al-Baqri and Khamis, and

10_303_Ch4.qxd

132

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 132

Chapter 4

making speeches contradicting the American line on Egypt’s foreign policy. Nasser chided Sadiq for describing the revolution in one of his talks at Bani Sweif as “neither eastern, nor western,” which angered the American Embassy.66 The relationship of the press to the ruling authority changed drastically after the revolution of 1952. Whereas a variety of papers competed in the representation of parties and independent views, their diversity and essential right to criticize the government in the past were never challenged. After the revolution, the relationship became increasingly adversarial toward the government in general. The RCC itself took the attitude that the existing press as a corpus belonged to the bygone era of the monarchy and was tarnished with the corruption and political affiliations of that period. The officers maintained this attitude from the beginning despite the existence of cordial and cooperative relations with some papers such as alMasri and Rose al-Yousef. A quick survey of how the first policies of the RCC were presented before the demise of the liberal press deserves serious treatment. Papers known for their objectivity and neutral approach to the news, like al-Ahram, struggled to maintain their distance. On the day following the revolution, al-Ahram employed big headlines to report these major events while describing them in restrained and neutral terms. The rest of the paper devoted space to its usual mix of topics. On the second day after the revolution, the paper published a calmly worded greeting for the new prime minister, Ali Maher, praising his background. It reported the King’s greetings to the new cabinet and Naguib’s statement promising to respect the constitutional monarchy. The paper avoided any commentary of its own and did the same when the King stepped down from the throne. Headlined “The End of a Reign,” the paper simply explained that the causes of the crisis between the monarch and the people were disregard for the constitution, the extravagance of the court, and rapid turnover of various cabinets. The paper’s headlines and subject matter for a number of days remained conservative in its praise, showing very little interest in the officers’ news and calling on its readers to be on their best behavior and maintain their unity and discipline in the difficult days ahead. After the RCC established itself in power, al-Ahram’s tone became more positive and remarks welcoming the revolutionary officers accompanied every news story. The paper published several interviews with Naguib, and Taha Hussein wrote often, welcoming the revolution and calling it a true reflection of what the public desired. Sharp tones, however, colored the paper’s coverage of news of dismissal of Othman Muharram, chief of the Engineers’ Syndicate. The paper claimed that since he left the country, if he were not removed he should have been forced to resign. Mustafa Amin of Akhbar al-Youm, however, wrote an interview later on that relations between the officers and al-Ahram were not smooth, mentioning that

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 133

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

133

Aziz Mirza, one of al-Ahram’s editors, was often threatened by the military police with deportation—since he was Lebanese—if he did not write against the Wafd party. The paper also greeted the elimination of royal and political titles with joy and showed its approval of the armed services by praising military service as conducive to spiritual well-being. Then it highlighted the views of some who opposed political parties, claiming that history had demonstrated that partisanship was a sure road to foreign occupation and dissolution of character. There were also more opinion pieces in support of the officers’ policies such as the article condemning the disruptive actions of the workers of Kafr al-Dawwar. Using unusually harsh language, al-Ahram referred to the workers as “scoundrels” who tried to stab their nation in the back and sow the seeds of the kinds of rumors that the beloved heroic leader, Naguib, had warned against. Indeed, Muhammad Naguib often received warm treatment on the pages of al-Ahram, printing his pictures and that of his family during public holidays. There was coverage of his visits to the provinces, as well, in an effort to endear him to its readership.67 The subject of reform received a great deal of attention by al-Ahram. Ahmad al-Sawi Muhammad, one of its editors, wrote often about the need to extend these reforms to all areas of government and claimed that the army’s emphasis on discipline qualified them to undertake this task. Neither did this paper spring to the defense of Nahhas when he was forced to relinquish the leadership of the Wafd. Instead, the paper maintained a middle position, praising the Egyptian leader for his courage, faith, and good deeds, yet adding that history was a harsh judge equipped with a very accurate scale. History was capable of remembering a man’s long years of service, it added, and then balance these against one day of weakness. The tables were now turned against the grand old party. By September of 1952, the paper was reporting news and rumors attributing gross misuse of office by Nahhas and damaging stories about Fouad Siraj al-Din. The paper continued with its coverage of Nahhas’ troubles with the officers by leaning one time to his side and another time to the government’s side, reflecting the amount of pressure directed at it both by the authorities and the old parties. Personal praise for Naguib continued until he was referred to on October 5, 1952, when he visited Nahhas’ birthplace, Simnud, as “the greatest man on earth.” On another occasion, unconsciously emulating Akhbar al-Youm’s adulation of Farouq, al-Ahram described how Naguib responded to a beggar by giving her all the change in his pocket. Al-Sawi wrote another vignette about Naguib stopping his vehicle to assist a stranded tourist and his disabled car. Even when Naguib was proposing scrapping the old constitution, the paper reported this as positive news, reflecting Naguib’s argument that he merely wanted a perfect constitution that will not result in the fragmentation of the public will.68

10_303_Ch4.qxd

134

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 134

Chapter 4

Surprisingly, al-Ahram did not dwell on attacking the deposed king, satisfying itself with describing some of his previous mistakes. If the King’s news were passé, the political parties and their future were the subject of the hour. Al-Ahram supported the elimination of political parties and encouraged the idea that Egypt needed a new constitution. The RCC was often praised and its policies given full coverage. Opposing views regarding the desired political system to substitute for the monarchy were all given space, especially those favoring the parliamentary, rather than the presidential, system. By June of 1953, the paper began to focus on Nasser and his fiery speeches, as well as on Salah Salem, another rising star among the Free Officers. The paper surprised its readers with its support for revolutionary courts, which began in 1953, claiming that every revolution must be followed by revolutionary court trials just as in France. As if to demonstrate that it had shed its former skin, and clearly as a gesture of support for the officers who seemed to be winning over their opponents, al-Ahram published news of the biggest royal scandal in November of 1953. That story had to do with the details of the secret civil marriage that united the Queen Mother Nazli and Ahmad Hassanein, the late adviser to kings Fouad and Farouq. Such a sensational story was typical of the fare being dished out by the rest of the press regarding the royal family. There were stories about Nahhas and his French lady friend at Seychelles when he was brought up before a revolutionary court. The only figure of the old regime to escape this shabby treatment by al-Ahram was Karim Thabet, the press advisor to Farouq and Fouad, who received kind treatment even during his trial. The paper followed the officers’ line also by publishing editorials against the communists and the Muslim Brotherhood, repeating the officers’ allegations about the latter’s contacts with the British embassy. The paper continued to go along in the direction of the revolutionary wind by expressing joy at the restoration of Naguib to power. A week later, it published a translation of an article that appeared in an American magazine, describing Nasser as the virtual ruler of Egypt. When a coup succeeded in forcing Naguib out of power, al-Ahram analyzed the crisis from Nasser’s point of view and reporting on the strike activities of various labor groups loyal to Nasser and the RCC. The paper concluded this story by claiming that the RCC was quick to respond to workers’ demands. The paper even made room for news of the secret funds for journalists, although it defended most of the press against this accusation. On the whole, al-Ahram managed to support every move made by the RCC although it did not express a desire to see democracy come to a sudden end. Abandoning its former reserve and moderate style, it went along with the sharp language and sensationalism that characterized the officers’ announcements and declarations. But whenever it found it difficult to express its own views without any outside coercion, alAhram always substituted news journalism for opinion journalism.69

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 135

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

135

The story of al-Masri’s reaction to the revolution was entirely different. Perhaps the closest paper to the officers prior to the revolutionary period, al-Masri and its editors were at first deeply impressed by the reforming intent of the officers’ secret organization. In addition to playing an important role in advancing the date of the coup as mentioned earlier, al-Masri expected the officers to subdue the monarchy, not elements of the press. Nassser was in the habit spending his evenings at the paper’s headquarters and participating in its public lectures and discussions. The paper at first publicized what it viewed as the corrective objectives of the officers by publishing headlines referring to Naguib’s call for a sound parliamentary life. Naguib’s pictures appeared early on the pages of al-Masri, along with testimonials by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide. After the removal of the King, the paper continued with its support of the revolution, with Ahmad Abu al-Fath contributing a glowing article admiring the officers “who placed their heads on the palms of their hands” for the sake of upholding and advancing the national question.70 When the King stepped down, the paper elaborated on this news in July 1952, by reporting on millions of pounds under his account in various banks, as well as his famous acts of larceny. News of reforming the government and adopting a new constitution were greeted warmly. AlMasri seized this occasion to attack other papers that idolized the monarch and vilified the Wafd. Al-Masri also was the only paper to publish news of warrants for the arrest of Ali and Mustafa Amin few days after the coup because of their contacts with foreign governments. Trusting the sincerity of the officers’ commitment to democracy, Ahmad Abu al-Fath wrote in August of 1952 that they were anxiously awaiting the right moment to give up public affairs and return to their original purpose, forming a strong army. By September of 1952, Abu al-Fath was objecting loudly to political arrests that swept the country. Then he became bolder by proclaiming that all military regimes were doomed to failure. Al-Masri also defended al-Nahhas when he was forced to abandon the leadership of his party and printed every word he uttered in his own defense. Indeed, al-Masri openly supported the Wafd when it was subjected to the officers’ assaults. Ahmad Abu al-Fath proclaimed in sensational language that colonialism must be utterly pleased with what went on that day in Egypt, meaning exiling al-Nahhas from his own party. Abu al-Fath also complained that only the Wafd was being subjected to “reform,” and that Akhbar al-Youm, which always supported the monarch and the court, was not called upon to change its policies. Similar sensationalist attacks were leveled at Fathi Radhwan who seemed to have forgotten his own brave stand against the authorities during the Cairo Fire. When the Wafd party was dissolved in September of 1952, alMasri proclaimed its intent to remain the only Wafdist organ capable of carrying on with its message. The Masri continued to defend al-Nahhas

10_303_Ch4.qxd

136

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 136

Chapter 4

and describe the tears of his supporters and followers. Rather than succumbing to pressures by the new regime, al-Masri remained defiant to the very end by publishing an article by Ihsan Abd al-Quddous that discussed the responsibility of the government. Al-Masri, however, adopted anti-monarchic positions, such as favoring a switch to a republicanist form of government. But there were other moments of sheer defiance on the part of al-Masri, such as questioning the reason for canceling the 1923 constitution and asking Nasser directly to explain why the transition period had lasted so long. Nasser’s reply to Ahmad Abu alFath was published in the paper, in which the Egyptian leader, writing in January of 1953, asserted the Egyptian people’s right to be liberated. He cited the continued presence of British troops on Egyptian soil as the reason for postponing elections since this activity was bound to distract people’s attention from the essential task of liberation. Abu al-Fath then asked him to justify the creation of the Liberation Rally at a time when the officers claimed that they were opposed to divisions among people. Did not the Liberation Rally create more friction and competition between it and the political parties? Nasser defended his political group as the only structure capable of realizing the revolution’s objectives, just as he defended the government’s right to put on trial and punish those who abused their national duty in the past.71 Another sensational debate appeared on the pages of al-Masri between Abu al-Fath and Salah Salem, a member of the RCC, titled “Those Who Cry and Those Who Pretend They Are Crying.” Appearing in May of 1953, the piece by Abu al-Fath argued that the Ali Maher government should focus on writing a constitution rather than on setting up a special week for domesticated fowls. Salem responded in this manner: What is wrong with the week of domesticated fowls, Sir? Have you not heard that the country loses the equivalent of millions of pounds annually because of neglecting these domesticated fowls? What did the peasant gain from your politics of the past, the constitution of the past except promises from merchants and professional politicians? 72

The Muslim Brotherhood as the only remaining movement in touch with the people’s sentiments was often the subject of stories in al-Masri. Revolutionary trials were usually greatly criticized, using witty and sensational headlines such as “Othman Muharram’s Trial Today, Charged With Building a Model Village.”73 Naguib’s first removal from office received great attention, and so did his return to office, which was greeted enthusiastically as a move guaranteeing the nation’s unity. Al-Masri opened its pages to members of the RCC to explain the reason for Naguib’s removal, but the paper threw its weight behind Nasser as the strongest leader in

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 137

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

137

Egypt. This did not gain the paper any friends since most of the public sided with Naguib. But Abu al-Fath continued with his pressure campaign, at one point in March of 1954 writing a letter to Nasser expressing despair because of Nasser’s reluctance to pursue democratic goals. Relations with the authorities worsened at that point when the government assessed al-Masri a large sum of money in back taxes because of past trading in print paper. Abu al-Fath not only defended the paper publicly, he also reported on the mass support of the workers and journalists employed by the paper. Accusations were traded back and forth by al-Masri and officers of the regime’s new paper, al-Jumhuriyah, with al-Masri opening its pages to the Muslim Brotherhood to describe the conditions of the large number of Islamic activists in the RCC’s jails. The paper also carried stories on the condition of leading personalities under house arrest, such as al-Nahhas and Ahmad Hussein. One of the worst confrontations of alMasri and the officers took place in March 1954, when the paper attacked the government-instigated strikes in order to justify delaying the constitution and the return to democratic life. Under headlines such as “Conspiracies Against the People,” al-Masri called for ending the emergency regulations. A long article recalling the paper’s illustrious history appeared when the editor was brought in for questioning by the authorities. The officers retaliated against the paper in multiple ways. Censorship increased, extending to the entertainment pages and leading to significant delays and failure to produce the paper on time. The payment plan for back taxes was cancelled. Hussein Abu al-Fath’s name was now listed among journalists accused of receiving secret funding in the past. The editor was also charged with foreign contacts and with secret negotiations with the Ministry of Defense over an arms deal. The courts sentenced Mahmoud Abu al-Fath while he was abroad to a ten-year sentence. His brother, Hussein, was given a fifteen-year suspended sentence. The last issue of al-Masri came out on May 4, 1954.74 Akhbar al-Youm enjoyed a tumultuous relationship with the RCC for reasons other than what colored al-Masri’s fate. The paper’s relationship with the officers started badly when, upon a false accusation by Mahmoud Shukri, a reporter with al-Masri, the editors of Akhbar al-Youm, Ali and Mustafa Amin were arrested. Shukri had indicated that two days before the coup, the Mustafa brothers telephoned London with the exact date of the coup and requested the intervention of British troops. But Naguib released the Amins with a public apology. The paper welcomed the revolution and its promise of reform even when the editors were in detention. The editors expressed open support for the officers’ attacks on the professional politicians and cheered loudly assaults on the Wafd and al-Nahhas. The assault on all political parties was praised since these have become, in the words of the paper, gangs specialized in theft and larceny. Surprisingly,

10_303_Ch4.qxd

138

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 138

Chapter 4

the paper, which was always considered pro-monarchy in the past, wrote increasingly about Farouq’s personal life and published his full memoirs. Emphasis was placed on his relations with women, particularly dancers and movie stars. Akhabar al-Youm used the officers’ campaign against the monarchy to excel in its own brand of yellow journalism. By November of 1952, the paper took a stand on the democracy issue, defending the constitution, which it claimed was needed for the protection of journalists and that of their enemies as well. Ali Amin even asked that the class of old professional politicians be allowed to turn a new page, calling for the adoption of a new constitution that would limit the powers of the head of state and convert him into a man who will only add his thumbprint to official documents without opposing them. In an editorial on December 13, 1952, he asserted that political parties were a necessity since parliamentary life could not exist without them, just as freedom could not exist without a diversity of views. The resignation of Ali Maher brought out Ali Amin’s differences with the officers as he publicly voiced disapproval of the proposed land reform program. When the debate on the future of the monarchy raged, Mustafa Amin supported replacing it with a republican system, while Ali Amin insisted that a royalist regime would be preferable since he preferred a familiar hell to life in an unfamiliar heaven. The paper however supported Naguib’s name for president of the republic, claiming that he was also America’s choice for that position. But when the 1923 Constitution was abolished, Taha Hussein penned a piece in March of 1953, protesting and defending the old document. Ali Amin then directed a pointed salvo at the officers, urging them to follow in Zaghloul’s footsteps by not destroying those liberation movements that preceded them. Mustafa Amin also protested the new censorship laws, arguing that “Rulers are human beings, and if criticism does them bodily harm, then hypocrisy kills them.”75 Akhbar al-Youm was also aware from an early date that Nasser was the man of the hour. Therefore his life and views were always highlighted, especially his public remarks following the adoption of the republican system of government. The paper also pursued the subject of the constitution relentlessly, demanding the publication of the reports of the constitutional committee, since, in Mustafa Amin’s words, “Those who admire Hitler and Mussolini appear to have read only the first chapter of their histories, but not the ending.”76 Strangely, when Nasser launched a campaign of vilification against the Communists, he went to the pages of Akhbar al-Youm, the most pro-American paper of that period. Mustafa Amin used that occasion to elaborate on the history of anti-communism in Egypt, beginning with the persecutions of Ismail Sidqi, in 1946, until the current period of Nasserite-C.I.A. cooperation. Mustafa Amin also had an occasion to ridicule news of the transfer of an opinion-survey machine to the RCC of-

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 139

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

139

ficers. Modeled on Gallup Institute’s public opinion surveys, this system was recently introduced in Egypt to measure the public’s response to such questions as women’s rights, the one-party state, and communism. Mustafa Amin, who rejected the legitimacy of a single ruling party, was startled to read that the majority of the people favored rule by a single party. He castigated this result, writing in his daily column that tyrants were usually made by slaves. The paper also complained every time any paper, such as al-Balagh, was closed. But when Naguib was forced out in September, 1952, the paper quoted Caliph Abu Bakr’s famous admonition to the renegade Arab tribes when they returned to paganism after Muhammad’s death: “He who worships Muhammad, Muhammad has died. But he who worships Allah, Allah is alive and will not die.” Mustafa Amin added that this was not Naguib’s revolution but the revolution of twenty million Egyptians. Then Nasser’s picture appeared on the front page, and he was hailed as the new head of the cabinet. When Naguib returned to power in February of 1954, he was greeted again as the man who symbolized the victory of principles over personalities. Mustafa Amin, however continued to refer to Nasser as the true leader of the revolution. But Akhbar al-Youm went on with its attack on rule by the military, suggesting at one point that Naguib should resign and hand over the cabinet to Dr. Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhouri, the famed jurist who was serving as the head of the Council of State at the time. When Naguib was forced out of office again, Akhbar al-Youm came out in favor of law and order, cautioning against the possibility of a rebellious outbreak within the armed forces. Al-Masri’s trials and the sentencing of its editors to long jail sentences on trumped up charges were given full and objective treatment, for most papers stuck together during confrontations with the authorities.77 Akhbar al-Youm continued to walk a fine line between its journalistic standards and what the revolution demanded until its nationalization in 1960. This was followed by the flight of Ali Amin to Britain and Mustafa Amin’s notorious nine-year imprisonment and torture.78

THE PRESS CHALLENGES THE OFFICERS ON THE SUDAN, RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES, AND ON WOMEN It is worthy of note here that the press challenged the officers’ regime across a broad range of subjects. Confrontations raged beyond the topics of democracy, a new form of government, and the fate of the old political class. As the RCC began its reform program and the reevaluation of the country’s previous foreign, economic, and social policies, the press attempted to reflect public opinion regarding these issues according to its former behavior pattern under the monarchy. But the officers considered

10_303_Ch4.qxd

140

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 140

Chapter 4

themselves engaged in a very sensitive and dangerous process of restructuring domestic and international relations, and hence entitled to immunity from scrutiny and criticism. Whenever the press angered the officers, punishment was harsh and extended beyond the mere act of censoring a few lines or suspending a specific issue. Musa Sabri, then a young reporter with Aakher Saaha, told a story concerning running afoul of the authorities. He was summoned by the military police for publishing a series on Egyptian-Sudanese relations called “The Story of a King and Four Cabinets,” in which he described a specific crisis between Hussein Sirri’s cabinet and al-Ummah party of the Sudan. Naguib was highly enraged by the story, which he considered to be problematic in view of the ongoing negotiations between the two countries. Reportedly, he said before witnesses that he was ready to hang the publishers, Ali and Mustafa Amin, in Cairo’s Opera Square. Orders went out for the arrest of the Amins and Sabri. The three underwent an interrogation session at the headquarters of the Military Police and then were released.79 Several episodes similar to this punctuated the early years of the revolution, resulting in an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Al-Masri, for instance was critical of the RCC’s policies in the Sudan and events following the inauguration of the Sudanese parliament in 1954. Akhbar al-Youm, on the other hand, applauded the RCC’s efforts to encourage the independence of the Sudan, seizing this opportunity to level criticism at the Nahhas government for canceling the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Agreement without consulting the other party of concern, namely the Sudanese.80 The officers’ contacts with the United States and their openness to the development of closer ties with this power as an alternative to the Egyptian-British relationship received mixed reviews. This was particularly the case as rumors of secret contacts with the Americans began to materialize. While Ambassador Caffery was not negotiating with President Naguib publicly according to normal protocol procedure, the C.I.A., represented by Kermit Roosevelt, was holding secret talks with Nasser. These contacts aroused great criticism but were defended by Mohammed Hassanein Heikal in later years as being in accordance with the prevailing acceptance of the idea of secret contacts. He added that reliance on intelligence services in matters of policy was not considered a sensitive issue. The officers, however, were not aware of the contradiction inherent in this policy, namely pushing for the evacuation of the British occupation army, while at the same time hoping for the flow of foreign investment capital to the country. Unrealistically, Nasser expected that the liquidation of the communist presence in Egypt would be an adequate incentive for the United States to support his regime. Ahmad Amin, who acted as Naguib’s emissary to the United States, indicated that in return for U.S. economic aid, the RCC was willing to assist in the long-range objective of creating

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 141

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

141

an American-Egyptian Atlantic pact by promising not to renew hostilities against Israel and Britain. Apparently, Egypt was not pursuing a policy of neutrality from 1952 until 1954. Egyptians of that period were also surprised to see the officers’ government choose the method of secret negotiations over armed guerrilla tactics, which proved more effective in the past. Naguib, however, ended these talks and allowed the resumption of guerrilla attacks in the Canal Zone. Of the major papers, only al-Ahram dealt with the issue calmly, expressing approval only of securing weapons from the United States and Britain, while rejecting the idea of joining foreign defense pacts.81 It also published a report under the headline: “John Foster Dulles Declares in a Message to the American People That Egypt Has a Great Future and the U.S. Promises to Remain Neutral in the ArabIsraeli Conflict.”82 Al-Masri, on the other hand, wrote openly criticizing Egypt’s readiness to allow the return of the British to the Canal bases in case of war, and always claimed that Egypt declined the idea of a defensive pact with a foreign power. When U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles arrived at Cairo in 1953, Mahmoud Abu al-Fath wrote a scathing article in which he asked him not to believe that there was a single Arab nation that regarded the United States with warm feelings. He followed this with another criticism against Dulles’s statement regarding the Israeli threat to the region and his claim that the Palestinian refugees were better off settling wherever they resided. Abu al-Fath was particularly critical of the secret talks rumored to be taking place between Henry Byrode, U.S. ambassador, and Abd al-Rahman Azzam, secretary-general of the Arab League of States regarding economic aid. He wrote that Egypt had existed for thousands of years without receiving outside aid, which should be recognized as creating dependence on outsiders. When Nasser began to address the issue of U.S. pressure on Egypt to enter defensive pacts in December of 1953, Abu al-Fath commended him. The United States came under heavy criticism also when it signed a commercial pact with Israel in April of 1954.83 Neither was al-Masri reticent about expressing special regards toward the Soviet Union. In March of 1953, Khaled Muhammad Khaled, prominent leftist Islamic scholar, wrote when Stalin died under the headline, “You Remain Good, Dead Or Alive, Comrade.”84 Akhbar al-Youm was the most informed about secret talks with the Americans. Mustafa Amin said in later years that he was the first to learn of Nasser’s approaches to the Americans that were approved by all members of the RCC. He claimed that the C.I.A. in those days was given full access to the Egyptian intelligence apparatus, which it reorganized and restructured. He also admitted what was well known then and now about his personal role as Nasser’s emissary to the Americans. Mustafa Amin was well aware of the new phenomenon of assigning journalists political roles. Amin was not above leveling candid criticism at the United States

10_303_Ch4.qxd

142

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 142

Chapter 4

sometimes, which he warned against taking a soft stand toward Britain, thereby aiding its declining position in Egypt. He would often appeal to the United States to support Egypt against Israel since the Jewish state was the only country in the region to allow the existence of a legal communist party. Opinions hostile to the United States were often provided space in Akhbar al-Youm. Kamil al-Shinnawi responded to American promise of mediating Egypt’s problem with the British by writing that claims of the free world were nothing more than the opiate of the masses. He also reminded his readers of the strong bond between the United States and Britain. The United States would also come under attack whenever Egyptians detected oscillation between friendship with Israel or Egypt. However, Akhbar al-Youm always pleased the Americans with its repeated contention that communism had no longer any reason to operate on Egyptian soil since feudalism has been totally eradicated.85 The early years of the revolution also witnessed a dramatic confrontation with the Egyptian Feminist Union, which retained its liberalist ties until the very end. The press in general, though sympathetic to the organized feminist movement as something descended from the liberal period with antecedents stretching back to the 1919 Revolution, felt often compelled to adopt the officers’ position. When Durrea Shafiq, the most prominent feminist since Huda Shaarawi and herself a journalist, protested the exclusion of the Egyptian Feminist Union from the Constitutional Committee in March of 1954, she became the subject of pity and admiration. Her anger led to staging a hunger strike along with many female supporters at the offices of the Journalists’ Syndicate. The press could not ignore such a development, which threatened to sully the officers’ image, and instead resorted to marginalization. Al-Ahram, for instance, wrote sympathetically about women’s rights but balanced this with some criticism and belittling of the women’s seriousness as a gesture toward the officers. It expressed sympathy for those whom it described as little baby chickens lined up against the sofas, claiming that the miracle was not that they gave up food, but that they gave up conversation. AlMasri did better than that, delegating the leftist feminist writer, Dr. Latifah al-Zayyat, to write a daily column about women. Al-Zayyat used the occasion of the strike to address a letter to Naguib about the need for a special program addressing the health needs of mothers and children. AlMasri provided daily coverage of the hunger strike and its developments and published Naguib’s letter to the women, assuring them that their demands were being addressed. The paper published pieces by male writers who admitted that the women were not at fault, all of society was at fault. Akhbar al-Youm defended the women’s right to be represented in the Constitution Committee and published an interview with Shafiq. The feminist leader explained reasons for the strike, including the demand for

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 143

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

143

voting rights, and directed blame at Taha Hussein, who referred to the strikers as “as the care-free hunger strikers.” Shafiq added that she would have felt better had someone else wrote these lines.86 Some papers, even those like al-Jeel that catered to the youths of the country, showed no sympathy for the striking feminists. Conveniently, the youths found themselves on the side of the officers as these launched a fierce campaign of defamation. Musa Sabri, then the young editor of the paper, claimed that he did not oppose women’s rights, only the audacity of abandoning their families and homes. He was also offended by the women’s takeover of the Journalists’ Syndicate. His headline reflected these strong feelings: “It Would Not Be a Great Loss If We Gave the Striking Women a Solemn Funeral Procession.”87

THE PRESS, THE OFFICERS, AND THE PALESTINE ISSUE Few papers paid attention to developments in Palestine at the time, since Egypt’s quest for democracy and the struggle for power among the major army factions and cliques consumed the nation. The years 1952 to 1954, however, were punctuated by accelerating tension in U.S.-Egyptian relations and Nasser’s search for weapons from allied countries, both of which did not fail to catch Israel’s notice. Some papers more than others noticed Israel’s moves to cement its relations with Western countries and damage the RCC’s budding relations with the West. Al-Ahram reported on the negotiations between West Germany and Israel over the question of wartime reparations. Israel’s attacks on no-man’s land along the lines of the Israeli-Syrian Armistice Agreement in 1954 were covered in full, along with a defiant and threatening statement directed against Israel by Salah Salem. Al-Masri, however, kept up with developments on the Palestine front as if it were still reporting the policies of the Nahhas cabinet. This paper did not seem to have changed its line on the Palestine question at all. Al-Masri continued to press for the imposition of economic sanctions against Israel and published various reports on the deteriorating economic situation in that country. Israel’s disregard for the armistice agreements with Syria and Lebanon, which enabled it to proceed with the diversion of the headwaters of the Jordan River was covered in full. There were also news stories about the sale of properties of the Arab refugees who were in Israel despite customary freeze on such transactions by the Custodian of Enemy Property. Ahmad Abu al-Fath continued his interviews with Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Palestine, often posing embarrassing questions concerning rumors about his illegal wealth. The Mufti would also urge al-Masri’s readers to deepen the Arab commitment to Palestine. Abu al-Fath was very clear about why Palestine mattered,

10_303_Ch4.qxd

144

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 144

Chapter 4

writing in an introductory paragraph to the Haj Amin interviews that it was his deepest conviction that Israel was the main enemy of Egypt and the Arab states, and that Britain ranked second in that category. His reason was that Israel was a young state with time on its side. Al-Masri also egged on the Arab League of States to do more on behalf of the remaining colonized segments of the Arab world. The paper pushed the League to be more active in resolving inter-Arab disputes, warning that the only winner here would be Israel. Akhbar al-Youm, on the other hand, reflected the disinclination of the RCC in the early years of the revolution to focus on the Palestine question. This was due to Mustafa Amin’s awareness of the underlying currents of the RCC’s policies. It was not surprising then that Muhammad al-Tabii sided with King Abdullah in complete contradiction with the paper’s earlier position. Al-Tabii wrote approvingly in November of 1952, about the Jordanian monarch’s abandonment of the Palestinian refugees’ right of return. The Hashimite King, al-Tabii wrote, was fully justified in feeling that the mass return of the refugees to Israel would pose great danger for the entire area. But when Winston Churchill made favorable statements about Israel and issued threats to Egypt, the paper quickly referred to Israel as the cat’s paws.88 It was difficult in the first two years of the revolution to know what was indeed uppermost on the officers’ minds. Clearly, the RCC was preoccupied with the national question, defined here as the removal of British troops from all of Egypt. Yet the public’s memory was beginning to be recharged by developments on the Palestinian front. One reason was alNahhas’s emphasis on evacuation of foreign troops, the Sudan question, and the question of Palestine during his last state address on January, 1950. The Palestine question was kept before the public during the armistice negotiations at the Rhodes Conference when the idea of a permanent peace between Israel and Egypt was in the air. The Egyptian Foreign Minister made repeated public statements denying any interest in a peace agreement despite some Israeli statements proposing deals involving border adjustments. The Minister’s rationale was that Egyptian public opinion was not receptive to the idea. As to the officers, it seemed that the Palestine war experience brought them together, deepening their anger at the monarchy and its ineptitude, but this did not top their list of priorities once in power. Ahmad Hamroush, a member of the RCC, attested to that fact in his memoirs, stating that the idea of Arab nationalism was absent from the officers’ early program and publications. Once in power, the officers devoted their energies to the task of maintaining control of the country and putting their house in order. Much of their attention was focused on Egyptian priorities, both domestic and military, particularly continuing with the nation’s earlier struggle to achieve British evacuation from all of Egypt. The RCC’s early contacts with the United

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 145

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

145

States were additional proof since forging an American alliance was not premised on extracting guarantees of support for the Palestinians.89 Naguib was very clear on that, having written in his memoirs that he had indicated to Adlai Stevenson, while a Presidential candidate, that the Palestinian U.N. Partition Plan was a lost opportunity because the Arab regimes were allied with forces of colonialism and imperialism. Now that Egypt had been liberated, he added, it would be necessary to acknowledge that Israel and Arab countries can co-exist in peace especially if Israel was willing to be like the Vatican, a small state without any interest in expansionism.90 Thus, not only the Wafd’s insistence on rejecting any thought of an unconditional peace agreement with Israel was abandoned, there were indications that at least until 1954, Nasser was willing to pledge that any weapons received from the United States would not be used against Israel. Most of the officers during this period, including Nasser and Naguib, were mainly concerned with the British threat.91

THE FINAL COUP AGAINST THE PRESS Some papers declined faster than others during the first two years of the revolution. For instance, al-Ahram with its penchant for gradual change found itself losing relevancy. Its inability to spring fast enough in order to cope with the sensational changes overtaking the country dampened its popularity. Thus, its circulation numbers fell as the reading public clamored for a bolder journalism willing to cope with a rapidly changing and often murky picture. Al-Masri’s circulation figures rose, by contrast, because of the paper’s willingness to confront grave national and foreign issues. Experts on journalism of that period claimed that the paper scored the highest circulation numbers throughout Egypt and the Arab world. Although no circulation figures were available for Akhbar al-Youm, it remained a very popular paper. The paper excelled not only in reporting on the secret deals and contacts of that period, it also excelled in the art of caricature. “Rakha-Saraoukhan,” its caricature corner, became a school for aspiring artists. Akhbar al-Youm also gained credibility because of its coordination with the officers, and its approval of the RCC’s early policies of land reform, nationalizations, and friendly gestures toward the United States. Al-Masri suffered by contrast because of its continued alignment with the Wafd. Akhbar al-Youm, however, always regarded coordination with the ruling authority as the essence of modern journalism and it continued to abide by that principle during the new regime.92 But it was not just ideological differences that hastened the officers’ decision to nationalize the entire journalistic institution. Behaviorally, the press had acquired a less-than-savory reputation under the monarchy. Despite

10_303_Ch4.qxd

146

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 146

Chapter 4

the brave stands of some members of the press corps, the majority was tainted with the same corruption charges swirling around the monarchy. Although papers were powerful on their own, particularly those affiliated with parties or movements, their syndicate lacked the punch of the lawyers’ organization. Indeed, it was claimed that the only political action taken by the Journalists’ Syndicate prior to the revolution was its opposition to Istephan Bassily’s motion to censor any press coverage of the royal family. The syndicate usually came alive when it was faced with a great threat to one of its members, as when journalist Jalal Hamamsy was elected to its board in 1943, despite his imprisonment. The syndicate itself was part of the prevailing politics of patronage. Musa Sabri, veteran journalist who lived through several phases of political confrontations with the press, reported that during the late 1940s and early 1950s, elections to the syndicate’s board presidency were always a foregone conclusion. The winner would always emerge as Sadiq Salamah, who owned a printshop in alMinya and was the publisher of a regional paper, al-Inthar. The paper made him rich enough to reside in Cairo for part of the year, where he used to dine fellow journalists and invite around fifty of them to visit him in the provinces. The syndicate, therefore, was not strong enough to face the officers, especially as most of its members were accused of receiving secret funding over the years. Sabri also experienced the impact of this funding face to face as a beginning journalist with al-Zaman in 1947. During his three-year service with this paper, he discovered that the Suez Canal Company paid secret amounts of money to the paper to discourage the publication of any complaints by the company’s workers. Papers, he found out, not only were paid openly the price of advertisements but also to buy their silence. He reported that between 1950 and 1951, all of Egypt’s papers published descriptive articles that were no more than advertisements for certain companies during intense bidding in the cotton bourse. Ahmad Abboud, a mega millionaire, escaped any negative commentary on his companies because of his silent funding of papers although he faced serious charges of tax evasion under the Saadian cabinet, which preceded the last Wafd government. Sabri accused Mohamed Hassenein Heikal of having been favored by Abboud to write some of his advertisements for Akhbar al-Youm, for which he was paid regularly. Nasser was not only offended by the practice of subverting journalists by Egyptian industrialists and large companies, but also by the growing dependence on advertisements funded by Arab Gulf countries. Prominent Egyptian journalists began to journey to this new advertiser’s dreamland in order to augment their budgets in that manner. This link to the Arab Gulf states that seduced Egyptian journalists into becoming account executives rather than true professionals particularly angered Nasser. Reportedly, he dressed down journalists just prior to nationalizing the press and the practice stopped for a while, only to begin again quietly following nationalization.93

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 147

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

147

The Nasserite regime began to shut down papers after it established itself securely in power, but some papers suffered suspension and the imprisonment of editors earlier. Several justifications were used to explain the elimination of the press. Among these were criticism of the military government, as was the case in January of 1953, when a batch of leftist papers, such as al-Fidaa, al-Natheer, al-Kateb, al-Malayeen, al-Wajeb, al-Muaradhah, and al-Maydan were shut down.94 These were guilty of escalating their criticism of the conviction of the two Kafr al-Dawaar labor leaders, Khamis and al-Baqri. By that date, it had become the practice to demand that papers seek approval of the censor prior to publication of sensitive material or the paper would be threatened with closure. The officers however, lifted the censorship law, promising no interference with the freedom of the press, then re-imposed the law by October of 1952. The excuse was always the same—the protection of law and order.95 The first paper to suffer suppression in August of 1952, was al-Zaman, an evening paper that was guilty of publishing President Naguib’s opposition to the land reform program. Another reason for suspension was often the irregularity of publication, which harmed smaller papers. But continued harassment and imprisonment of professional journalists and other writers was simply an intimidation and silencing tactic. Some of the most friendly journalists to the revolutionary cause were also targeted whenever they crossed the line. Thus, Ihsan Abd al-Quddus was arrested based on the publication of a piece in Rose al-Yousef, titled: “The Secret Society Which Rules Egypt.” He was charged with the serious offense of attempting to stage a coup. Al-Masri was suspended for the second time in 1959 for disagreeing with the regime’s support of the Iraqi rebellion against Abd alKarim Qassem. This resulted in the imprisonment of its editor, Abd alAtheem Anis. Indeed, 1959 was a bloody year for most writers and journalists, resulting in the imprisonment of Louis Awadh, Mahmoud alSaadani, Lufti al-Khouli, Abd-al-Sattar al-Taweelah, Salah Hafiz, Mahmoud Amin al-Aalem, Rifaat al-Said, Aadel Hussein and others. All of these were among the relentless critics of military rule and were tried by special military courts. Another argument used by the officers was to imply ties to the former royalist regime and influence peddling. These were the charges leveled against Karim Thabet who was put on trial in 1953. A veteran journalist best known for his years of service as the press advisor to King Farouq, he had been one of the founders of al-Masri, along with Ahmad Abu al-Fath, as well as an editor of al-Muquttam.96 The party press suffered the fate of the parties themselves, in that the termination of political groups ended the support system of their papers. The political parties were dissolved in January of 1953, and their properties were seized. The first to be affected were Wafdist papers such as al-Masri, Sawt al-Ummah, and al-Taleeah, which were to be eliminated following a three-year transitional period. These were followed by other publications.

10_303_Ch4.qxd

148

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 148

Chapter 4

The onslaught on the party press began with a campaign to eliminate corruption in the media by publishing a list of journals who were on the payroll of past cabinets and foreign embassies. Some journalists like Muhammad al-Tabii and Mohamed Hassanein Heikal in Akhbar al-Youm joined in this campaign with great enthusiasm.97 Then came the final blow aimed at the press, this time targeting the Journalists’ Syndicate. Although hitherto a weak group, the syndicate attempted to express displeasure at the maltreatment of its membership during the crisis of March 1954, which brought Naguib briefly back to power. The syndicate seized that occasion by issuing a call for an end to the emergency regulations, the release of all political detainees, and the formation of a national cabinet in order to hold new elections. The RCC responded with force by dissolving the syndicate on April 15, and charging seven of its members with being on the secret payroll of political groups. A new government-nominating committee headed by Fikri Abaza was formed in order to oversee the affairs of the syndicate. From that point on, the syndicate was to be placed under the supervision of the ruling party.98 The syndicate, nevertheless, was not the only institution to criticize the RCC for it was emboldened to voice its concerns after repeated instances of defiance by the old press. Rose al-Yousef, for instance, called for the lifting of military censorship, expressing the fears and trepidation of members of the profession as early as May of 1953. Al-Masri, similarly, called for the same demand repeatedly, and often referred to the need to close detention centers of the regime.99 The financial integrity of the papers, however, continued to bedevil the press even after nationalization. A new source of funding opened up in the early 1950s as a result of the rise of oil-rich Arab Gulf countries. Whereas the most recognizable form of outside funding was through advertisements by groups such as the Suez Canal Company, funding after nationalization took the form of payments for reportage on the Gulf states or their leadership. Payments often took the form of direct deposits in the Egyptian bank accounts of prominent and friendly journalists. The press felt that as long as these payments did not come from the old regime or foreign, non-Arab governments, they would not become subject to prosecution. Egyptian journalists would often migrate in considerable numbers to these countries, proposing advertisements and complimentary news stories. Only rarely did the Egyptian Minister of Information terminate the services of those implicated in such practices, and only those involved in direct and repeated solicitation of the advertisements became the subject of government scorn. The willingness of some members of the press to engage in this practice often had serious political implications. After the removal of King Saud from power in 1964 and his residency in Cairo as a political exile, he began to spend large amounts of money on journalists willing to take up his cause against his brother, King Feisal of

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 149

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

149

Saudi Arabia. At one point, Saud dispensed one million dollars to a prominent Lebanese journalist at Cairo, to be spent on Lebanese and other Arab writers. The story received a great deal of publicity when a journalist complained on the pages of the Lebanese press for having been cheated out of his rightful compensation by the individual charged with distributing the funds. Apparently, Nasser himself engaged in similar practices outside of Egypt in order to deflect the harsh criticism he was beginning to receive on the pages of the Arab press. His critics were mostly paid by his Arab enemies, particularly in Lebanon where freedom of the press opened the door to the flow of outside funding. In Egypt’s case, Nasser decided to adopt similar practices and was in the habit of designating the Press Attaché in the Egyptian Embassy to dispense funds and collect receipts. Because the attaché would also dictate the topics to be treated in the Lebanese press, he was dubbed “The Editor-in-Chief of the Lebanese Press.” It was reported at one time that Charles al-Helou, Lebanon’s president, jokingly greeted a delegation of Lebanese journalists visiting his office with the words, “Welcome to Your Second Homeland, Lebanon.” By that time, the Egyptians were hardly able to compete with other big spenders such as Libya and the Arab Gulf states.100

THE MILITARIZATION OF THE PRESS Nasser’s treatment of the press during the early years of the revolution reflected the officers’ lack of experience in interacting with political and formal institutions. He also learned by his mistakes, gradually coming to grips with the enormous power of the press and its capacity for obstructing his reforms. It became clear soon after the takeover of power that the RCC was incapable of co-opting any of the existing papers in order to make them act as the revolution’s voice. Thus, the only solution appeared to be the publication of the officers’ own papers. The RCC first published al-Tahrir, a bi-weekly magazine that appeared in September 1952 and closed in 1959. This was headed at first by Ahmad Hamroush, then a succession of military editors such as Hilmi Salem, Qassem Joudeh, and Abd al-Aziz Sadiq. Then came al-Jumhuriyah, a daily paper issued in December 1953 and was headed by Anwar Sadat. This paper had a wider appeal than the military al-Tahrir, boasting an editorial board of former politicians, intellectuals, and officers representing a variety of viewpoints. The paper’s coverage remained too general although it did take the side of the RCC when the latter attacked the political parties in the early months of 1953. Al-Jumhuriyah also served the authorities well when it instigated the strikes of transportation workers in order to bring the crisis of March 1954 to an end. Once the RCC was firmly established in power under Nasser’s

10_303_Ch4.qxd

150

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 150

Chapter 4

control and following Naguib’s removal from office, al-Tahrir and alJumhuriyah emerged as the official voices of the revolution. Another proregime paper was issued in January 1954 representing the youth organizations. This was al-Thawrah, which appeared under the motto of “Neither East, Nor West.” The earlier al-Masaa was allowed to be reissued in October of 1956 under the direction of leftist RCC member Khaled Mohyi al-Din. This was closed in 1959 because of its excessive leftist slant. In July of 1958, a monthly publication, Binaa al-Wattan, was published by Amin Shaker, the head of Nasser’s office. This paper, which stopped publication in 1966, represented an officially sanctioned liberal trend, advocating a free economy and the expansion of Western culture in Egypt. AlShaab, another regime paper, appeared in June of 1956 but was integrated with al-Jumhuriyah in 1959. Thus, the Nasserite-controlled RCC managed to allow the publication of leftist and rightist semi-official papers reflecting its eclectic ideological posture. The onslaught on leftist journalists and writers in 1959 represented the press side of official crackdown against communist and socialist centers of power. It is also important to note that these papers co-existed for a while with the privately owned press such as Dar al-Hilal, Dar al-Ahram, Akhbar al-Youm, and Rose al-Yousef. Nasser himself sometimes penned his own diatribe against the defunct royal regime in al-Jumhuriyah, such as his piece on December 28, 1953, titled, “Al-Jumhuriyah’s Opinion.” Anwar Sadat wrote similar pieces for the same paper on April 10, 1954, and January 29, 1955. Once the RCC made up its mind to pursue the broad outline of public ownership of the means of production but within a democratic framework in 1957, it began seriously to plan for the complete control of the press. Guiding the press in order to have it justify the regime’s radical economic and political policies became a priority of the RCC. This was the time when a Ministry of Information and Public Guidance was created for the first time in the history of Egypt, as well as the Ministry of Industry. Once a battery of nationalization decrees aimed at various sectors of the national economy was adopted, the press and its publishing houses became next in line. All of the press was finally nationalized in 1960, and seized by the regime’s first political formation, namely the National Union. Nasser himself began to take a special interest in micro-managing the press by appointing editors-in-chief and staffing the board of press institutions. The revolutionary period ending in 1960 also witnessed the new phenomenon of appointing military officers to various editorial positions according to the degree of their commitment to Nasser’s policies. The new Press Law of May 1960, not only vested the ownership of all papers published in Egypt in the National Union, it also made this party the licensing agency for all the press. The law also made membership in the National Union mandatory for all those working in the field of journalism.101 In explaining the

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 151

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

151

rationale behind this sweeping reorganization of the press under the auspices of the Press Law of 1960, the regime gave the following justification: Public ownership of the means of social and political guidance is a necessary facet of any society clearly defined as a socialist, cooperative and democratic system. And if the prevention of capitalist control over government is one of the main objectives of the revolution since it is one of the surest ways of establishing a true democracy, then it follows naturally that capitalist forces should not be allowed to control the means of guidance in a society, since this constitutes a serious contradiction of the revolution’s social objectives.102

Although the framework of the National Union as the basic unit of the new socialist order in Egypt was copied from the experience of Antonio Salazar’s Portuguese dictatorship, the Press Law of 1960 (Law 156), was a true imitation of the Leninist Soviet experience. Lenin established the principle of liberating the press from capitalist control and the monopoly of certain individuals as a prelude to enlisting it in the service of the interests of the working class. The revolutionary government of Egypt viewed the press as one of the populist formations such as the General Congress of the National Union and the People’s Assembly. Thus, the press was absorbed by the National Union in the same manner in which the executive and legislative authorities of the old regime were absorbed by the presidential authority. According to the first constitution of the revolutionary period, the People’s Assembly was subject to dissolution by the president according to Article 111, while Article 192 eliminated the possibility of any nomination to the same assembly without the approval of the National Union. Nasser himself clarified to members of the press at a meeting in May 1960, what his vision for the ideal role of the press was. Addressing the gathering of heads of boards and editors-in-chief, he began by leveling sharp criticism at practices of the old journalism, accusing it of focusing on the upper classes at the capital and deliberately ignoring the concerns of the productive classes, especially peasants and workers. He called the upper classes “the society of sports clubs” and castigated the press for pursuing all the trivia associated with these classes. Surprisingly, most of the major papers welcomed the new press law, especially Al-Ahram, Rose al-Yousef, al-Mussawar, and al-Akhbar. The latter carried articles on May 27 and 28 of 1960 by Mohamed Hassenein Heikal that lauded this step by the authorities.103 The revolutionary government took additional steps to prevent the new Journalists’ Syndicate from turning against the regime. A presidential law in 1958 limited membership in the professional syndicates to members of the National Union and was followed by organizing a committee made up of editors from within the National Union to recommend future reorganizational measures. Heikal had maintained all along that the idea of restructuring the press and its relationship to the state began to grow in

10_303_Ch4.qxd

152

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 152

Chapter 4

Nasser’s head from the earliest days of the revolution. The main reason for this was Nasser’s dissatisfaction with the independence and private ownership of the major papers. Nasser’s idea was that the Zeidan family of Dar al-Hilal, the Teqlas of al-Ahram, and the Nimers of al-Muqattam had played an important role at a certain phase of Egypt’s history but they must recognize now that Egypt had entered a new phase that they were incapable of accommodating. The Abu al-Fath family of al-Masri was the face of the opposition and fought him regularly and the Amin brothers of Akhbar alYoum could not be trusted. Therefore the quest was for a new type of journalism.104 But Nasser’s trust in the loyalty and competence of the military officers to run the new government-owned press did not translate into a free hand to write what they wished. Often, as in the case of leftist officers, particularly those affiliated with al-Masaa, editors were sacked despite their military background. A similar instance of disciplining handpicked editors who transgressed on the authorities’ monopoly over foreign policy took place in August 1961. This involved Fikri Abaza who at once headed an oversight committee to monitor the press, as well as served as the president of the board of Dar al-Hilal, and the chief editor of al-Mussawar. Abaza was removed from all of his official duties because of an article he wrote on August 17, in which he proposed that the Great Powers sponsor an Arab federation that would include Palestine and Israel. Abaza was not allowed to resume his duties until April 1962 after the publication of a retraction in al-Ahram. The government also succeeded in creating its own publishing house in addition to the ones seized earlier. The oldest of these was Dar al-Tahrir, created in the early years of the revolution, and Dar alMaaref, created in 1963 and attached to al-Ahram Publishing House. Two new news organizations were attached to Dar al-Tahrir, namely the Egyptian Advertisement Company and the United Distribution Company. By June of 1965, licensing newspapers was vested in the hands of a very high member of the government, namely Dr. Abd al-Qadir Hatem, who was a member of the executive committee of the latest official party, the Arab Socialist Union. Hatem was also the deputy premier for culture and national guidance. A special office for overseeing press affairs was created within the ASU. By the end of mid-1960s, the star of Mohamed Hassanein Heikal was on the rise. He was charged with leading the executive boards of Dar al-Ahram and Akhbar al-Youm after Khaled Muhyi al-Din resigned from the latter paper. This merger led to the creation of an organization by the name of United Arab Journalism dedicated to bringing Egyptian journalism up to world standards. By that time, many of the communist detainees imprisoned earlier were released and permitted to work in the government’s press and cultural institutions on the theory that the nation was sufficiently mature to withstand debating all varieties of thought. The Com-

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 153

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

153

munist parties dissolved themselves and allowed their individual members to enlist in the service of the regime. By December of 1963, Article 5 of the Press Law of 1960 (Law No. 156) was amended by a presidential decree to allow for compensating owners of nationalized papers. But the cabinet ruled after some discussion that the papers in question were never nationalized since they did not become public institutions and were merely turned over to the National Union. The cabinet argued further that because the National Union was not a publicly owned entity but a popular committee organized specifically to defend the goals of the revolution, it was not obligated to offer any compensation. Similarly, an earlier pledge to require approval of journalists by the civilian arm of the government was never applied. Further annulment of previous measures regarding the restructuring of the press institution followed, when the National Charter of 1962 reaffirmed the popular ownership of the press. By vesting the ownership of papers in the ASU, the government made a case for this being tantamount to ownership by the people since that body represented all the working forces in the country. Journalism, it was said, was finally freed from the influence of a single class that used to control it through the ownership of its resources. Journalists were then subjected to massive relocation to positions in the public sector between 1964 and 1966, as a way of affirming the end of privately owned journalism. Thus, while military officers with no previous journalistic experience were placed in charge of publicly owned papers, professional journalists who headed several papers in the past were shunted to public sector positions of unrelated experience. All the institutions of the press felt the impact of this dislocation, and only al-Ahram’s organization, under Heikal’s direction enjoyed substantial stability due to his strong relationship with Nasser.105 The Egyptian leader’s antipathy toward an unbridled press was extended to the Syrian province when it became in 1958, the northern half of the United Arab Republic. Not only were political parties closed along the lines of the Egyptian socialist model, but their papers were also eliminated. After Nasser attacked the Syrian Communist Party in his Damascus address of December 24, 1958, its official paper, al-Nour, was also closed. Members of this party were subjected to mass arrests and only its Lebanon-based papers survived.106

COMPLIANCE AND DEFIANCE OF THE PRESS Due to the nationalization decree and the disruption of the liberal press, Egypt’s papers lost most of their liveliness and diversity. More surprisingly, the press became fixated on local and national news despite the regime’s strong emphasis on Arab nationalism and the affairs of the rest

10_303_Ch4.qxd

154

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 154

Chapter 4

of the Arab world. Government control of the press in Egypt resulted in a drop of circulation figures particularly outside of the country due to the rise of the Lebanese press. Once journalists became administrative officers answerable to the government, the public’s ability to discern the state of public opinion declined sharply. Journalism and journalists were not trusted by the reading public anymore. The fourth estate had died, as one expert put it, but there were no mourners to accompany it to its final resting place. Government became the editor-in-chief, dictating what was to be written, dictating what was to be read and printed, while causing a severe constriction in the space devoted to opinion journalism. Most papers began to sing a similar tune and resembled promotional or publicity sheets for the government’s point of view. Only al-Ahram and perhaps alAkhbar remained readable and exciting due to the former’s close relationship with Nasser and the latter’s innovative and modern style of journalism. Control over the press also damaged the intellectuals’ capacity for critiquing the political direction and culture of the officers’ regime, depriving writers of a valuable space for the expression of their views. Most members of this group were intimidated by constant surveillance and forced into a life of isolation and seclusion.107 Neither was the Press Syndicate capable of protecting its members from government persecutions. At first, headed by Salah Salem, then by Ahmad Bahaa al-Din, the syndicate remained gravely wounded until the latter caused a storm when he called for the restoration of general freedoms following the military defeat of 1967. But until that date, the syndicate was never capable of protecting the membership of a single journalist. Even alJumhuriyah, which was recognized as one of the revolution’s premier publications, was forced to fire large numbers of reporters every year. The syndicate’s council used to meet and protest these firings, then lapse into silence again. Even government appointees to some of the major papers of the regime rarely enjoyed any stability or job security. Jalal al-Hamamsi, chief editor of al-Jumhuriyah had his own differences with Nasser, which led to his departure from this paper and prevented him from writing for fourteen years. Sadat also left the same paper due to differences with people around him. Then Taha Hussein followed Salah Salem in the editorship of this same paper. But Hussein transgressed on dangerous grounds when he published an opinion piece criticizing the regime’s policies in Syria when that country separated from the United Arab Republic in 1961. Hussein barely escaped the fate of other journalists, except that he was spared due to his intellectual stature and his willingness from that point on to exercise greater oversight regarding all literary materials while leaving political writings to more experienced writers.108 And even though most editors of the largest papers were loyal servants of the regime, some did defy Nasser’s orders to accompany him on his first trip to Syria in 1958. Editors

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 155

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

155

like Mustafa Amin, Ihsan Abd al-Quddous, and others were simply reluctant to go on an official tour of all of Syria’s towns due to expected hardships of the trip, even though this was to be a demonstration of the affection of the Syrian public for Egypt’s president.109 Then came the harshest blow at a denizen of journalism who retained Nasser’s favor even after the nationalization of his papers. This was Mustafa Amin, who, along with his twin brother, Ali Amin, ran Akhbar al-Youm and al-Akhbar and was highly regarded for his journalistic innovations. He was arrested on July 21, 1965, and charged with contacting a foreign government and smuggling currency outside the country. He was sentenced to life in prison although he constantly pleaded that these contacts were authorized by the president. He was finally released in February of 1974 during the Sadat presidency due to health reasons, while his brother escaped similar fate because of his stay in England.110 Mustafa Amin was highly admired in the profession for practices such as holding a weekly meeting every Friday to discuss and review the productivity of each reporter and editor. The meeting was also used to set the journalistic agenda for the coming week and to hear from reporters who were returning from trips abroad. He also established a “listening room,” which was staffed by reporters working a twenty-four hour shift and charged with recording important news from various parts of the world via wireless services. In addition, Amin was very concerned with providing his reporters with accurate geographic and political information. Therefore, he established an archive that was staffed by three university professors, one of whom was a geographer, who was charged with proofreading copy material in order to avoid misspelling names of cities or individuals. This concern for geographic accuracy resulted from complaints by Syrian leaders because of misspelled Syrian personal and geographic names on the pages of Egyptian papers. Ali Amin was credited with introducing innovations in production, page design, and caricature. He was known to be an avid reader of foreign papers and was known to have introduced the idea of producing Akhbar al-Youm, a weekly, in the size of daily papers and resembling the Sunday Express of Britain.111 Unfortunately, the idea of an archive containing a depository of photographs, articles, and news about specific topics was destroyed after nationalization. The value of the archive was in amassing accurate information on secondtier political personalities who were expected to advance to the front lines of political life. Even Nasser used to seek its information on individuals before engaging in cabinet shuffles or the appointment of new ministers. But when one of the RCC officers, Kamal Rifaat, was made head of administrative board of the paper, the archive was doomed. First, it was staffed by incompetent appointees who sold information to other papers, then Arab journals began to raid its contents as well. Accurate information in the age of non-professional journalism was greatly valued and led to the hiring of

10_303_Ch4.qxd

156

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 156

Chapter 4

Arab journalists, such as the Palestinian Nasser al-Din Nashashibi. First, he served as one of several editors of al-Jumhouriyah in charge of Arab affairs, and later as a member of Akhbar al-Youm publications, where he excelled as a foreign correspondent. His greatest assets were knowledge of Arab affairs and contacts with most Arab leaders.112

CONCLUSION Beginning with the end of World War I, Egypt embarked on its most important battle against the British in order to establish its true independence. This struggle provided new opportunities for the press, which quickly carved out a political niche for itself. This resulted in the rise of opinion journalism as the papers sought to establish political parties that engaged in the political system openly. The proliferation of the press gave rise to the Liberal Constitutionalist Party, in addition to al-Wafd and a party that advocated the deferment of the attainment of political independence by the name of al-Ummah. Two powerful movements, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Communists, posed strong challenges to the royalist regime from the right and the left of the political spectrum. These movements leveled constant criticism at the royalist government for failing to establish an equitable distribution of wealth or living by the rules and morality of the Islamic religion. The development of another political party later during the 1940s signaled the presence of deep ideological cracks in the political façade of Egyptian liberalism. This was the meaning of the Saadian party, or the Kuttlah al-Saadiyah, which provided a platform for those dissatisfied with the venerable Wafd party. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood was as much a reaction to the exclusion of an Islamic political perspective from the political scene as it was a reaction to Egypt’s deepening political and social crisis. The Brotherhood understood the valuable role of the press well and used its own papers to propagate its philosophy, highlight the failings of the official establishment and direct attention to the deteriorating conditions of the Muslim world. The Islamic press quickly became a force to be reckoned with. This press also succeeded in focusing attention on the rising threat of Zionism to Islamic Palestine and pressured the authorities to stand up to this new danger along the country’s eastern borders. Whether acting as the voice of the unofficial opposition or simply reacting to the erosion of Egypt’s Islamic culture as a result of Western and Christian deep inroads in the country’s educational system, the Brotherhood gave expression to the strongly felt alienation of generations of Egyptians. Although suppressed by the royalist government following the assassination of Prime Minister Fahmi Nuqrashi and suffering the assassination of its own founder, the move-

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 157

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

157

ment succeeded in leaving a lasting imprint on the nation’s conscience. Palestine emerged as its central foreign policy issue. Surprisingly, the Brotherhood and its press, represented by al-Daawa, rebounded with the relaxation of government control over the press during the Wafdist cabinet of the early 1950s. It was during that period that the star of Sayyid Qutb, as the most committed of the new leaders of the Brotherhood, was on the rise. Qutb not only provided an uncompromising leadership, he also excelled as a journalist and advocate who cast the Palestinian question in Islamic-Jewish terms. The Brotherhood brought the Palestine question home by seizing the right to send volunteers to perform the jihad obligation in Palestine but also to mount persistent attacks against the local Jewish community in Egypt itself. Targeting the Jewish community served a dual purpose where the Brotherhood was concerned. It provided a sharp-edged tool with which to hack at the illegitimacy of the leadership of the Communist party, and it linked events in Palestine to domestic threats and weaknesses of the liberal monarchial system of rule. The communists were just as adept, however, in using their papers to preach the important message of antifascism, social equality, and the imperative of distinguishing Zionism from the historic community of innocent Egyptian Jews. The communist press suffered similar suppression and frequent closures as its Islamic counterpart and was freely published and distributed mostly under Wafdist cabinets. Although handicapped by its advocacy of peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Communist party was very successful in focusing public attention on the shortcomings of the liberal monarchy. Not surprisingly, the Free Officers’ movement, which plotted the overthrow of the royalist regime, drew support from officers who affiliated with both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Communists. The liberal Egyptian press, represented primarily by al-Masri and Rose al-Yousef, was also involved with the officers’ movement, although to a varying degree. Nasser admired the role of the press in shining a powerful light on the inadequacies of the monarchial government and seemed to be strongly conscious of the power of this institution. He was aware, as all Egypt was, of the victory scored by the press when it scuttled deputy Istephan Bassily’s plan to institute an anti-defamation law geared at protecting the private life of the royal family. And the officers applauded Rose al-Yousef’s disclosure of the defective weapons scandal, which revealed the depth of the corrupt practices of the regime. Ironically, the Free Officers’ government later sent Ihsan Abd al-Quddous, the journalist who tracked the defective weapons story, to jail for openly describing the Free Officers as a secret society that ruled Egypt. The Officers at first subjected all the press to routine acts of official censorship, pre-checking every news item and every opinion before it appeared in print. This created an atmosphere

10_303_Ch4.qxd

158

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 158

Chapter 4

of perverse intimidation that pushed the press to extend automatic and sometimes unconscious approval to the new policies of the regime. Thus, even al-Masri, which stood up courageously to royal excesses in the past was now presenting the so-called army reforms in a conciliatory tone as though they were its own ideas and projects. Al-Masri, as well as most sections of the press establishment, at first found it easy to approve the officers’ plans since many of their political demands were articulated by the Liberals in the immediate pre-revolutionary phase. When the officers pushed the King to renounce the throne in favor of his infant son, the liberal press approved since Farouq’s corruption and abuse of his powers were always on public display. The King was so out of touch with reality that he demanded the dismissal of Taha Hussein from his position of Education Minister in the 1950 cabinet of the Wafd on the theory that Egypt’s foremost intellectual was a communist.113 The press also went along with Nasser’s switch to neutralist foreign policy following his participation in the non-aligned Bandung Conference. By the early 1950s, the press, particularly al-Masri and Akhbar al-Youm, have publicized the Wafd’s own bid to pursue a neutralist foreign policy during the Korean Crisis. When Al-Nahhas refused to support the U.N.’s military effort in North Korea in the early 1950s, Egypt’s political class resonated with that decision.114 But the one issue that finally provoked anger within the ranks of the liberal press was Nasser’s reversal of his early commitment to democratic government. After promising to respect the 1923 Constitution and to allow the existence of political parties, the mood changed and the Free Officers proceeded on a different path. The pro-Nasserite officers went on the offensive as soon as President Naguib’s bid for power failed and he was confined to life under house arrest. The greatest objections were voiced by the liberal press since it was understood that an assault on political parties of the old regime was an assault on their papers as well. Nasser anticipated this by restraining the press syndicate and annexing the press to the Arab Socialist Union, a move he justified by his desire to empower the people by claiming that these were the true constituents of the ASU. Clearly, Nasser knew that for his economic and foreign policies to work he needed public support. The press, which identified closely with the political parties in the past, would have become a source of antagonism to Nasser’s policies, hence the need to limit its reach. Those papers, which went along with the regime such as Akhbar al-Youm, were those with no political connection to the parties. Thus, they lasted a while longer until their contacts with foreign powers threatened to revive old practices under the monarchy. The Nasserite suppression of the leftist and Islamic press also signaled a bid for power and the elimination of the opposition. The leftist press, though greatly supportive of the revolution and its policies, broke ranks with the Nasserite regime following the trials of al-Baqri and Khamis.

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 159

The Flowering and the Decline of the Private and Party Press

159

This resulted in the imprisonment of well-known leftist journalists and writers, some of whom were eventually restored to the regime’s good graces and placed in charge of the government press. The Islamic press, on the other hand, became antagonistic to the regime as soon as the exclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood from power became very clear. Having nurtured dreams of running the affairs of the country once the monarchy was removed, the Islamic movement had to watch the end of its plans, as well as the institutionalizing of radical policies that contradicted its beliefs. The derogation of the Brotherhood’s status from revolutionary partner to enemy conspirator also resulted in the suppression of their papers. Al-Daawa was never to appear again until the Sadatist period when the royalist practice of tolerating papers belonging to illegal groups was revived. But during the early days of the revolution, the Islamic press raised its voice in support of Naguib and in keeping the Palestine question alive in the public’s mind. Perhaps, the most telling aspect of government-press relations before the complete nationalization decree was the absorption of the regime with the issue of regime entrenchment and survival while Palestine was the domain of the opposition. By the eve of the Suez War, the roles were reversed and the regime embraced the Palestine question fully, while the attention of most of the opposition, with the exception of the communists, refocused on the internal struggle. The Islamic movement, despite the massive persecution of its leadership and the flight and exile of its members, retained its Islamic-international perspective. The communists returned to the Nasserite fold and remained ardent backers of the regime despite the erosion of their ideological posture. Only the reformed and reorganized al-Ahram survived into the new era of ASU control and Nasserite politics. This was the flagship of the regime, which dominated the other sectors of the press and became Nasser’s sophisticated voice inside and outside of Egypt. With the final elimination of the semi-independent press, such as in Akhbar al-Youm, Egypt’s government and the press were one and the same, despite Heikal’s occasional provocative questioning of the excesses of the regime. This was a new experience for Egypt, a period in which the silence of the majority was deafening and the absence of checks on foreign policy clearly visible.

10_303_Ch4.qxd

4/29/10

12:28 PM

Page 160

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 161

5 E

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

I

t has been often taken for granted that Nasser of Egypt was the champion of pan-Arabism, with Palestine as its centerpiece. The corollary to this assumption was that at least where Egypt was concerned, pan-Arabism was the by-product of Arab socialism. Studies of this issue confirm, however, that interest in Palestinian affairs predated the 1952 revolution, although it was mostly part of the tradition and ideology of the Islamic Brotherhood. Neither can one assume that Nasser’s attention to the Palestine question developed after his 1948 experience on the Palestine front since all of Egypt was touched by the military events of that fateful year. Indeed, some of the explanation of this commitment to the restoration of the rights of Palestinians may have been inspired by developments outside of Nasser’s control. The end result of World War II was to open up the debate on Arab nationalism as the solution to the Zionist threat in Palestine. Arab nationalism held the only hope for a unified effort within the framework of the Arab League of States. On a popular level, Arab nationalism emerged as the ideology of the masses seeking an answer to the growth and entrenchment of Israeli forces in the midst of the Arab region. This quest for a unified front and a leader at its helm culminated in a movement that saw in Nasser and the Egyptian revolution its last hope for the realization of the Arab national project previously led and abandoned by Faisal of Iraq, the so-called Bismarck of the Arabs. This time, however, the blueprint for unity had socialist and populist markings. The Arab search for a pragmatic pan-Arab policy led to Egypt after 1948 because that was where the Pharaonic, Islamic, Western liberalist, and Egyptian national identities finally weakened under the impact of the 161

10_303_Ch5.qxd

162

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 162

Chapter 5

Arab nationalist ideology of the Free Officers’ revolution. A juxtaposition of objectives was finally achieved, with Nasser leading a battle against the entrenched positions of Western economic interests and their allied classes, while the pan-Arab movement in its various manifestations sought to achieve linkage with his policies.1 Nasser’s embrace of Arab nationalism may also have been motivated by the final rejection of that ideology by the Muslim Brotherhood. Whereas Egypt’s Islamic leaders in the past, particularly al-Banna, retained some commitment to pan-Arabism seeing it as an important element in the wider anti-Zionist struggle, younger voices, such as Sayyid Qutb and later the Islamic Jihadist Salih Sirriyah, rejected it as a secularist movement. Before 1954 and Qutb’s elaboration on this theme, the Islamic Brotherhood was open to the idea of collaborating with Arab Christians and Jews in the common, Islamically led effort against Zionism and Western domination. Nasser, naturally, veered in the direction of pan-Arabism when the Brotherhood formalized its anti-Arab, anti-secularist position.2

ARAB NATIONALISM AND NASSER The development of semi-official ties between Arab nationalism outside of Egypt and Nasswer came as a result of the creation of the Egyptian-Syrian Union in 1958. It was during the timespan of the UAR, that Syrian, Iraqi, Jordanian, Palestinian and Lebanese Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM) cadres viewed Nasser as their natural leader. At odds with the Syrian and Iraqi branches of the Baath Party, the ANM was attracted to the Egyptian leader by virtue of his pragmatic approach and his socialist policies. The ANM at the time was heavily influenced by the ideological vision of Muhsin Ibrahim, a school teacher from Southern Lebanon who belonged to the second wave of the ANM’s leadership and who introduced a secular, socialist, non-emotional line to its ideology. Accused of being a Soviet agent by the previous leading cadres of the movement, Muhsin Ibrahim was almost physically liquidated by his own movement. Ibrahim argued strongly for the abandonment of the ANM’s emphasis on the dual phases of the revolution, one political and one economic, and the necessity of adopting a socialist ideology in tune with Nasser’s policies. This recasting of the ANM’s philosophy was unveiled during the movement’s 1962 conference, at the same moment when Nasser unveiled his socialist plans before the National Congress of Popular Forces on May 21, 1962. For the ANM, the 1962 conference finally formalized the split between the traditional leadership that coalesced among students and faculty of the American University of Beirut in the late 1940s and the new generation of left-leaning leadership. The traditional “rightist” wing was

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 163

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

163

still under the leadership of some of the original founders such as George Habash and Wadii Haddad. The result of the ANM’s 1962 conference was a compromise that entailed an endorsement of the idea of class struggle and a call for a peaceful application of socialist measures at the same time. Thus, one of the first items approved during the conference was transitioning the ANM from a movement of students and intelligentsia to that of a popular, socialist, and democratic movement. The conference was considered a triumph for Nasserism by drawing Nasserite petite bourgeoisie cadres to an organization that became officially tagged as Nasserite. Reluctance of the traditional leadership of the ANM to formally ally itself with Nasser was explained by the new radicals within the movement as part of the “Iraqi enamoration,” which beset some of the founders during the late 1940s. Now that Iraq had freed itself from the Baghdad Pact and the ghosts of the Hashimite monarchy, hope for the country’s restoration as the primary base of the Arab nationalist movement sprang anew. The conference, therefore, not only heightened differences between socialists and rightists but also between those Iraqi and Egyptian forward wings of the movement. The conference also exposed Habash’s determination to obstruct the total absorption of the ANM by Nasserism and to steer it in the direction of an alliance with Egypt. The radical wing of the movement, on the other hand, was recommending the dissolution of its centralized apparatus and its distribution of the movement’s assets among the various regimes of the Arab world. There was also talk of creating the Arab Socialist Party, with Nasser representing the historic leadership of the Arab left as its head.3 The Arab Nationalist Movement, however, did not take into consideration Nasser’s pragmatist streak. By February 1965, a delegation of the movement’s leaders represented by such leading figures as Habash, Ibrahim, and Hani al-Hindi delivered to Nasser the resolutions of the ANM, which called for total amalgamation with Nasserism and channeling the Nasserist current of the Arab world into a single Arab socialist movement. Surprisingly, Nasser did not respond to this offer during the meeting and referred the matter to a future date to be arranged between the delegation and Zakariya Muhyi al-Din and Ali Sabri, two of the most powerful leftist officers within the ASU. During that meeting, Muhyi al-Din objected strongly to the ANM’s proposed project, pointing to the inability of the UAR to shoulder such grave responsibility. Upon reading his advisers’ reports, Nasser told the ANM’s visiting delegates to remain patient and be satisfied with cooperation and dialoging. The radical Nasserite generation within the ANM, such as Muhsin Ibrahim, thus, demonstrated its naiveté by insisting on the fusion of the Arab nationalist political current and the Egyptian regime in order to create a new pan-Arab party, not realizing that the outcome would be surrendering the nationalist movement to Nasserite

10_303_Ch5.qxd

164

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 164

Chapter 5

intelligence agencies. Indeed, this was the understanding of the Nasserite bureaucratic apparatus, which proceeded to refer to the entire episode as the “new deal” with the ANM.4

ARABISM IN EGYPT IMPACTS NASSER Nasser, however, could not overlook the pro-Arab intellectual current in Egypt itself that he experienced as a youth and as a young army officer prior to his rise to power. Part of that current was secularist, as opposed to the Islamic school, which focused on the Palestine question more than on any other aspect of pan-Arabism. The call to Arab unity, though weaker than other contemporary currents prior to 1952, nevertheless, had its own romantic allure. Despite Taha Hussein’s memorable statements in the Lebanese daily al-Makshouf in 1928, and in Kawkab al-Sharq in 1933, that Pharaonism was embedded in the Egyptian psyche, other voices continued to dissent from that view. Essayist Abd al-Qadir al-Mazini wrote that the Egyptian revolution of 1919 had failed because Egyptians surrounded their nationalism with something resembling the Great Wall of China, hence the inability of Arab nationalism to penetrate its defenses. Some of the support for Arab and Palestinian causes came from official circles, such as when Egypt’s foreign minister in a Wafdist cabinet addressed the League of Nations in the 1930s on behalf of the people of Palestine. A Wafdist government also refused to permit Egyptian workers to substitute for striking Palestinian workers upon Britain’s request. A prominent Wafdist and a one-time head of the Upper House of Parliament, Mahmoud Bassiouni, organized the Arab Association (al-Rabitah al-Arabiyyah) in 1936. The Young Men’s Muslim Association called for Arab unity as early as 1932. This was followed by the Egyptian nationalist movement of Ahmad Hussein, the founder of Misr al-Fatah, who advocated the creation of an Egyptian-Sudanese union as a first step toward Arab unity. Another organization founded by Fouad Abaza in 1942, known as The Society of Arab Unification, called for a unity project that would include several Arab countries. This lasted until 1952, when Nasser came on the scene. Born in 1918, Nasser was an admirer of Misr al-Fatah, as well as the anti-British military hero and his professor at the Military College, Aziz al-Masri. Nasser confessed his great indebtedness to alMasri in a New York Times interview in 1961. According to Heikal’s introduction in Nasser’s Diaries about the Palestine War (Paris, 1973), the Egyptian leader was often swept up as a youth in the demonstrations protesting the Balfour Declaration. The same diaries indicated that Nasser joined Misr al-Fatah while still in secondary shool.5

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 165

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

165

Enlistment in the Military College deepened Nasser’s nationalist consciousness. More importantly, he developed specific strategic ideas due to his readings at that particular phase of his life. Among these ideas was the belief that Egypt’s historical fortunes always directed it eastwards and that Egypt’s defense depended on events in Syria. Specifically, he held the conviction that the Gaza/Beersheba line was the last defensive line for Egypt. This strategic outlook persuaded him that Egyptian and Syrian security was intermingled and was centered on the defense of Palestine. Nasser’s diaries indicated that he and the Free Officers reacted quickly to the U.N. Partition Resolution of 1947, by convening a secret meeting in which they pledged their support for the Palestinian nationalist movement. Nasser then approached the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, offering to organize a volunteer force for the Palestine front.6 Nasser’s fixation on Egypt’s strategic vulnerability, which drew him to Syria and Palestine even as a young man, evolved into a more comprehensive approach after he came to power. A quick survey of the various steps taken to cement Egypt’s Arab relations indicates his desire to chart an Arab leadership role for Egypt. A year into the 1952 revolution, Nasser organized a broadcasting service known as the Voice of the Arabs. He also began to refer publicly to problems of the Arabs being Egypt’s problems at the same time. The Suez Canal was eventually renamed the Canal of the Arabs. Significantly, when the 1956 constitution stated that the Egyptian people were part of the Arab people, this was the first time in the history of Egypt that a ruler defined Egyptian nationalism in this manner. Even after the disintegration of the Egyptian-Syrian union in 1961, Nasser invented the term “unity of purpose,” as a substitute for the actual failure of political unification. He also continued to issue strong anti-Zionist statements whenever news of Israeli threats to Syria’s security became known. This strong pan-Arabist streak eventually led to Egypt’s new posture as the sponsor of Arab revolutionary struggles, or the command post of the Arab revolution, beginning with Algeria, then Iraq, Yemen, and always Palestine. Nasser maintained his public hard line toward Israel even while he substituted diplomacy for military warfare. Thus, when his acceptance of the William Rogers initiative meant finally accepting U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which called for peace negotiations with Israel, Nasser declared that he was accepting a political solution until the reactivation of his military forces. He needed time, he added, to catch his breath and move the wall of missiles already under construction eastwards, but essentially the real solution will always be a military one.7 Another insight into Nasser’s view of the Palestine question emerges from the analysis of one of the strongest defenders of Nasserism in Syria, namely the Syrian Baathist theoretician Yasin al-Hafiz. Following the

10_303_Ch5.qxd

166

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 166

Chapter 5

disintegration of the UAR, Al-Hafiz took it upon himself to confront the Syrian Baathist media attacks on Nasser, not only in defense of Arab unity, but also as an affirmation of Nasser’s view of the Arab-Zionist struggle. Al-Hafiz had to respond to a series of attacks by Syrian Baathist leader, Akram al-Hourani, who criticized all the mistakes of the unity period between the two countries as a failure of Nasser’s blueprint for the liberation of Palestine. Al-Hourani claimed that Nasser collaborated with American imperialism in the liquidation of the Palestine question. AlHafiz responded to this attack on the pages of Al-Baath daily, Syria’s official paper, on September 22, 1962, in an article titled, “The Palestine Question between Revolutionary Realism and Demagogic Bantering,” in which he strongly lamented the separation of the two Arab states. AlHafiz defended Nasser’s strategic and tactical policies toward Israel as moderate, defensive, and long-range policies. Nasser’s view of the Palestine issue in al-Hafiz’s view was based on the following principles: 1. That Israel was a strange body planted by colonialism and protected by imperialism for the sole purpose of eliminating the possibility of an Arab revival and in order to serve as a beachhead in the Arab lands. Israel was the enemy of the Arab nation and the very antithesis of Arab existence. 2. That the current local balance of power was not favorable to the Arabs. Since Israel was unable to eliminate the Arab nation, the struggle between it and the Arab states was destined to be a long and historical one. It was due to this understanding that Nasser rejected the futuristic delusions concerning a strategic and historical peace, as well as the idea that liberation was possible through a shortsighted tactical policy and a political settlement. 3. That the phenomenon of Arab weakness was embodied in two essential realities: underdevelopment and disunity. Since the struggle against underdevelopment was a long one that cannot be expected to change the local balance of power in favor of the Arabs in the near future, then Arab unity was a safety net for the duration of the present period and the only weight that will restore the local balance of power in favor of the Arabs. 4. That the liberation of Palestine was part of the Arab revolution, as well as part of the Arab nation’s anti-colonial struggle. Since Israel is not the weaker but the stronger link in the imperialist hierarchy of nations, then it would be impossible for the case of Arab Palestine to advance seriously toward liberation as long as there was Arab reaction, and as long as Arab oil was not under Arab control. 5. That Nasser viewed the Arab-Israeli struggle from a long-range perspective. This view acknowledged that wars against Israel will take

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 167

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

167

place on a variety of levels, in a variety of theatres and in a total zerosum game. Whatever strengthens the Arabs will weaken Israel and constitute one more step along the long and complicated path of liberation. What was important here is that the Arabs continue the struggle until the balance of power was overturned in their favor. When this happens, Israel will falter and fall even before the final critical military battle. 6. That it was wrong to assume that the Arab-Israeli struggle could only be viewed from the angle of a massive liberating military attack. Nasser, as a political and military realist, had grasped the fact that war did not consist only of offensive moves. He believed that it was possible for the Arab-Israeli war to be a defensive one on the part of the Arabs for a period of time. 7. That Nasser understood through two experiences and through his military studies that the road to Palestine will not be opened by peace alone. He also knew that unless national armies drew their strength from a strong and solid social base, they will easily experience the destruction of their fragile armor. 8. That since the international balance of power was not in the Arabs’ favor, Nasser never expressed the possibility of liberating Palestine as though it were an imminent matter. Instead, he had always stressed that this liberation was a political objective of the Arab revolution, hence his barricading himself inside defensive positions, while Israel assumed offensive positions.8 The only serious reflection from within Egypt on Nasser’s view of the Palestine issue was provided by Muhammad H. Heikal, assumed to be Nasser’s longtime chief theoretician and policy adviser. Writing in 1979, after having witnessed the reversal of Nasser’s strategy in the Arab-Israeli struggle, Heikal was adamant about the historical validity of his and Nasser’s analysis and policies in the Arab world. What angered him about the Camp David agreements in particular was that Egypt isolated itself from the rest of the Arab world, and this was counter to his and Nasser’s understanding of the natural links between the two. No one can tamper with the historic and geographic realities that shaped Egypt’s strategic relationship to much of the Arab world. Heikal expressed his fear that Egypt now was sacrificing a set of huge strategic realities in order to emerge victorious in its worthless tactical games. He expressed also great impatience with the resurrected claim of Egypt’s pharaonic identity that was meant to excuse this deliberate severance of ties to the Arab world. Pharaonism, he added, had reached a dead-end, even before the Greek, the Ptolemaic, and the Roman age. After these had passed, Egypt was absorbed by Islam and Arabism, which changed everything. But

10_303_Ch5.qxd

168

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 168

Chapter 5

even Pharaonism was not isolated, as it knew, since the dawn of history, that some of its life came from the south, where the Nile had its sources. But the greater part of the life of the pharaonic empires, Heikal continued, was in the East for that is where Pharaonism fought and made peace and where it interacted with other civilizations. It was from the East that Egypt received the two religions, Islam and Christianity, whose sun never set over its land. It was in the East that Egypt’s security was based. When Thutmoses and Rameses departed for Syria in the past, they did so in defense of Egypt, just as the Mamluks did when they repelled the Tartar and Crusader invading waves. All of this was within the strategic belt of Egypt. Additionally, when Egypt’s conquerors in the recent past like Napoleon and General Edmund Allenby attempted to defend and secure Egypt, they did so from Acre in Palestine, for that is where the security of Egypt was. The foreign powers that desired isolating Egypt by closing the road to the East included Britain and the United States, and finally Israel. Therefore, according to the imperatives of history and geography, Egypt’s strategic doctrine should have always been not to allow a barrier between it and the East. It was Menachem Begin, Israel’s prime minister, during whose term the Camp David agreements were signed, who said that Egypt resembled a bottle whose base was in Aswan but whose neck was in Sinai. He added that Israel was the cork, which when stuffed as a stopper, closed the bottle and sealed its capacity to expand.9 Heikal then referred to statements made by Nasser in his meeting with Fidel Castro at the headquarters of the U.N., when the subject of Egypt’s victory over Britain, France and Israel in the 1956 Suez War came up. Nasser reportedly said that the mistake committed by the invaders was that they believed that Egypt stood alone during that war. But the truth was that a set of geographic and historical interactions—including the unity of religion, language, and culture—made Egypt but one large national body tied to the same future and the same destiny. The invaders were surprised to discover that this nation stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf, so while they succeeded in blocking the Suez Canal route, the impact of detonating explosives around the foreignowned pipelines across Syria was just as effective as closing the Gulf of Suez. Oil stopped flowing from the Middle East to the West and the entire region was on the brink of exploding. Nasser added that the Egyptians withstood the tripartite invasion for the duration of eleven days, and each day their political stock in the world rose. In the end, it was the worldwide political reaction to the invasion that encouraged the Soviet Union to issue its famous warning and prompted President Eisenhower to stand against his own allies. Heikal then added that he still remembered that talk between Nasser and Castro as if it were yesterday. He then went on that he still remembered that the Suez War was not fought in defense of

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 169

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

169

an Arab cause, or of the Palestinian cause, but had purely Egyptian objectives resulting from the nationalization of the international Suez Canal Company.10 Heikal always delighted in emphasizing Egypt’s natural leadership role in the Arab world, a role that was shaped by the historical and geographical realities of the region. But it was Egypt’s history that enhanced its greatness and surmounted the shortcomings of its economic and territorial limitations. It was Egypt’s history that, by attaching the land to something bigger than itself, made that country a powerful regional force due to its Arabism. It was this ideology that transformed Egypt into the base of an international movement. Egypt’s central role in the advancement of this ideology provided an opportunity to occupy a prominent position within such great world movements like the national liberation struggle of colonized people, positive neutrality, and pan-Africanism.11 Reflecting on the reversals resulting from the signing of the Camp David agreements, Heikal reported that when he inquired of Dr. Mahmoud Fawzi, Egypt’s former prime minister, about Israel’s objectives in pursuing this peace, the answer came back repeatedly, isolating Egypt from the Arab world. Egypt alone cannot make a durable peace by itself, added Heikal, and neither can the rest of the Arabs make peace without Egypt. He also lamented the absence of Palestine from the Camp David negotiating table while Palestine was the primary essence of the issues dividing Egypt and Israel. Egypt’s failure to extract concessions at this juncture were attributed to its uncertain identity. This was a problem besetting all the Arabs, he complained, for they all opened their eyes in this century to a state of diminished independence and a lost identity. Egypt’s exceptionally well-defined geographic identity, unlike that of other third world countries, enabled it to form a nation-state that was perhaps the first one of its kind. Heikal attributed this advantage to the dominance of one river, the protection of surrounding deserts and seas, and the unity of Egypt’s valleys. Thus, the country emerged without competing nationalities within its political boundaries. Egypt was the first nation-state in history to develop in this corner of northeast Africa. But even Egypt came face to face with the identity question after its independence. Was it “Egyptian,” with its identity emanating from its pharaonic past or its links to Europe via the Mediterranean Sea? Was it “Arab,” with its identity emanating from its membership in the surrounding family of nations to whom it was bound by bonds of history and common destiny? Or was it “Islamic,” with its identity emanating from the religion it shares with other nations from the far East to the far West? Heikal added that the identity question was never a philosophical issue, which provoked leisurely intellectual debate, but a question closely related to the national security of the state and even its national unity. Is it not surprising, concluded Heikal, that this debate is still

10_303_Ch5.qxd

170

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 170

Chapter 5

heard in Egypt today among those who insist that we are Arabs and those who claim that we are not? What was worse is that when the pan-Arabists insisted on Egypt’s Arab identity, the pharaonic-Mediterranean advocates were silent. When this view gained prominence again, the pan-Arabists were silent or were silenced. Thus, the debate was never continuous but suffered from frequent interruptions. And each time, Egyptians begin again, as if from point zero, and as though from a vacuum.12

NASSER’S PAN-ARAB PRESS The Egyptian leader, it turned out, was not only susceptible to Heikal’s casting of the Egyptian identity question as a national security issue, he was the first Arab leader to appreciate the role of the media in propagating the viewpoint of the state. As the primary figure behind the revolution of 1952, Nasser rose to power by projecting certain policies and ideas, utilizing the press to maintain the legitimacy of his regime. In the Arab world at large, he led a campaign against traditional pro-Western governments by utilizing the powerful media for his pan-Arab and neutralist ideas. Heikal was one of these instruments, as well as some resident Palestinians who encouraged the Egyptian leader’s interventionist policies in the Arab world. The case of Palestinian journalist Nasser al-Din alNashashibi was a case in hand although he suffered from Nasser’s preference for Heikal as his closest confidante. Nashashibi basked in Nasser’s benign approach to the Palestinians and his sympathy for their plight, but Nasser was never one to switch allegiance away from Heikal. The first prominent role played by Heikal was his appointment to the editorship of Aakher Saaha in 1952, following the revolution. This position was given to him by the Amin brothers who, at the time, were striving to dominate the shrinking journalistic field due to the restrictions of the new regime. Al-Akhbar, their new paper that first appeared in April of 1952, was being bolstered by the addition of competent analysts and writers. They also launched the weekly Akher Saaha. According to Musa Sabri, another prominent journalist, Heikal’s appointment came as a result of a recommendation by another editor with the paper, Henry Tawfiq Bahri, who worked with Heikal when the latter was first tapped for the position of deputy editor. Heikal’s first interaction with the rest of the editorial staff almost cost him his position when these offered their mass resignation in protest of his high-handed approach to the job. Only the intercession of Ali Amin saved Heikal his job. Heikal’s problem, apparently, was his strong competitive streak, which affected the rest of the staff.13 Heikal’s rise to journalistic power in Egypt came as a result of the incompetence of Nasser’s first appointees to various editorial positions and

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 171

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

171

the loss of confidence in some of his early journalistic allies. Anwar Sadat’s performance as the director of administration at al-Jumhuriyah was less than stellar. Indeed, his tenure at the government-owned paper netted a debt in the amount of five million Egyptian pounds.14 Al-Jumhuriyah was one of the first papers issued by the officers, and from that point on all heads of administration and chief editors of the nationalized press were expected to belong to the ASU. This mandatory membership was made a prerequisite for belonging to the Press Syndicate. Only Mustafa Amin among the prominent journalists of the old regime emerged as one of Nasser’s closest confidants. Amin was relaying news constantly by telephone and was the first to arrange for the officers’ first press conference before the Western media at Akhbar al-Youm’s building. A pattern emerged whereby controlling the media, or at least harnessing this institution to the interest of powerful actors was becoming common practice. Nasser quickly asserted his control over the Press Syndicate by maneuvering to get his close associate Salah Salem elected to the chairmanship of that organization. From that point on, the syndicate became progressively weaker, incapable of securing the retention of large numbers of journalists who were constantly being dismissed from al-Jumhuriyah. The subordination of the syndicate continued even under the leadership of the semi-independent and respectable chairmanship of Ahmad Bahaa al-Din. Only after the military defeat against Israel in 1967 was this organization emboldened to fire a declaration calling for the restoration of general freedoms.15 When the power struggle between Nasser and Abd al-Hakim Aamer, chief of the armed forces, became apparent in 1962, the latter at one point rendered his resignation. This struggle revolved around the priorities of the Yemeni War and getting the armed forces to a state of military preparedness for a possible showdown with Israel.16 The important thing to note here is that once Heikal emerged as Nasser’s press representative, Aamer began to plan for embedding the services of his own man in the ranks of the press. This turned out to be Hilmi Salam who was brought over from the weekly magazine of the radio, the television services, and the arts, to be thrust in the role of editor-in-chief of al-Jumhuriyah in late 1965. Salam emerged as Aamer’s counterpart of Heikal when the latter ran al-Ahram with a similar grip on the total journalistic enterprise.17 When Heikal moved to take control of al-Ahram in the 1960s, this journal quickly attained the status of Egypt’s official paper and was read by anyone interested in searching the mind of Nasser and his policies for the entire Arab world. Heikal built al-Ahram Foundation, which owned al-Ahram as well as several other periodicals and printing houses.18 He created new divisions that modernized and streamlined the operation of al-Ahram to everyone’s amazement. A centralized editorial secretariat, called the Desk, was

10_303_Ch5.qxd

172

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 172

Chapter 5

founded, as well as the Center for Strategic Studies and the Information Division. To his detractors, these innovations appeared to be spying sections of an extensive empire dedicated to intelligence gathering. Some even described al-Ahram under Heikal’s control as a secret political party capable of undertaking grave activities. Sadat was one of those fearful observers of Heikal’s rise to power, fearing that Heikal was using al-Ahram to feed Nasser selective information and news. Indeed, Sadat’s suspicions of all who were involved in al-Ahram’s operations prevailed even during his presidency.19 Heikal emerged as Egypt’s most powerful journalist in record time, especially after the removal and reassignment of many journalists to various lowly positions in the official bureaucracy. Heikal himself was said to be the inspiration behind this move and his contemporaries during the Nasserite days accused him of helping maintain close taps on all the press. A special section known as the Journalism Office was attached to the Ministry of National Guidance and became a clearing house for information from various government agencies, as well as from Nasser’s and Heikal’s offices. This same office became the headquarters of censorship and vetted the most important or news-breaking articles before they were approved for publication. In the case of some sensitive stories, the government’s version of the facts would be vetted by three censors, each operating from a separate room. Often, the attorney general would call in representatives of various news organizations and specify items that should be deleted from their accounts in the presence of officials from general intelligence services. Among these forbidden topics would be any mention of the president’s whereabouts without prior official announcements of his movements. Not only were the locations of presidential retreats unknown to the public, but any mention of these was considered an act of spying on the president himself. Thus, the public never heard of official retreats at al-Qanater, Aswan, or Burj al-Arab. In addition, no journalist was allowed to travel abroad on an official mission without receiving the prior approval of state intelligence services. Many reporters were on the black list and unable to travel while those free to travel would be subjected to between one to two week periods of delay. Newspapers severed reporters on a whim, with the latter utterly incapable of seeking legal redress without appearing to be challenging the regime. After a while, the act of severing the services of reporters was replaced by a more inventive method, such as shuffling former journalists to publicly owned meat, refrigeration, or shoe companies. The same fate awaited administrative boards of most journals, which suffered similar lack of security and stability in their jobs. The only exception was al-Ahram, which was spared such fate because of Heikal’s special relationship to the president. Eventually, many imprisoned communists were released and appointed

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 173

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

173

to various important positions in the public media and other areas of government. Among these was Khaled Muhyi al-Din who eventually was appointed to the editorship of Rose al-Yousef, while Mahmoud Amin alAalem was named as the head of the administrative board of Akhbar al-Youm.20 The rehabilitation of Egypt’s communists had actually accompanied the creation of the Arab Socialist Union in 1962 and Nasser’s decision to absorb Egypt’s leftists in his new government apparatus. Heikal played a role in this by accepting the charge of selecting ten individuals to form a progressive vanguard, known as al-Tanthim al-Talii, which led the integration of former communists into the new regime. By 1965 HADATO had voluntarily dissolved itself in favor of meshing with all the Egyptian socialist forces under Nasser’s leadership.21 Heikal was able to build Al-Ahram Foundation with much support from Nasser who freed it from any import or foreign currency restrictions. Heikal emerged as Egypt’s first journalist, if not a partner in decision making, due to Nasser’s encouragement. Contemporaries marveled at Nasser’s order to forward to Heikal copies of all official documents dealing with foreign policy, intelligence, national security, and the office of the president. Although the two met during the months preceding the 1952 revolution, their close relationship developed during the 1955 Bandung Conference when Nasser met world leaders for the first time since he took office. The novelty of the experience demonstrated to Nasser the necessity of being informed of the conference’s undercurrents and the way in which it was perceived by the outside world. Heikal, who accompanied him on that trip along with a delegation of Egyptian journalists, proved to be very useful as the president’s eyes and ears at the conference. Heikal was particularly useful because of his easy access to the foreign press corps. Later, when moved to al-Ahram, he demonstrated his utility to the president by personally composing Nasser’s public speeches. To demonstrate his loyalty further, Heikal used to send proofs of his weekly column “BiSarahah” (Candidly Speaking) to Nasser for editing before publication. The president’s trust in Heikal’s loyalty and his admiration for Heikal’s work made him order the telegramming of Heikal’s column to Egyptian embassies as the correct expression of the government’s official political line. Egyptian ambassadors began to await the weekly column in order to fathom the direction of the president’s latest policy. Heikal was also rumored to have been the ghostwriter of Nasser’s The Philosophy of the Revolution. The complete coordination and harmony between the president and the semi-official journalist was never broken until after the defeat of the 1967 June War, when Heikal began to assess publicly the magnitude of the failure by directing blame to other figures of the regime. It was assumed that this change in Heikal’s writing was tolerated and quietly encouraged by Nasser as a way of absorbing and redirecting public anger

10_303_Ch5.qxd

174

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 174

Chapter 5

and pressure. Thus, after massive student demonstrations and the exposure of Abd al-Hakim Aamer’s corruption and dereliction of military duty that resulted in his alleged suicide, Heikal directed his stinging editorials to Salah Naser and Shams Badran, Aamer’s top confidants. Heikal also came out with his famous article, lambasting the secret police referred to by Egyptians as “the early morning visitors” (zuwar al-fajr).22 Heikal, nevertheless, failed in earning much public support for his criticism of Marshal Aamer’s stark incompetence. Although the attack was a break with the past in as much as it opened a window for taking all Nasserite officials to task, it came too late to make much difference for Egypt’s national security. Heikal did echo the common view that in pure military terms, Aamer never exceeded the rank of major, but stopped short of asking how and why did this officer rise to the top of the military establishment. Heikal was reluctant to pin the blame on Nasser who never penalized Aamer for previous military and political debacles such as the failed union between Syria and Egypt and the disastrous war with Yemen. Heikal, instead, claimed that when Nasser stopped short of pushing Aamer before a military court, he was acting out of love for one of his closest associates. Only the enigmatic novelist and playwright Tawfiq al-Hakim dared reflect, and only within a literary framework, on the consequences of Nasser’s absolutism.23 Heikal enjoyed this unprecedented access to power as a journalist all the way until 1970, when there were hints of a change in Nasser’s confidence in the editor’s talents. Perhaps as a result of the series of shuffles following the 1967 military defeat, Nasser finally attempted to neutralize Heikal’s press empire by appointing him minister of information. This came about in 1970, although, Nasser admitted to Anwar al-Sadat on June 10, 1967, after the former submitted then withdrew his resignation from office, that his intention was to seek the resignation of all major cabinet members and other prominent officials right then and there. Heikal’s removal to the office of the minister of information so angered him that he held a secret meeting at the home of leftist journalist Lufti al-Khouli to seek his advice, not realizing that his harsh remarks against Nasser were being secretly recorded for Nasser’s benefit by Sami Sharaf, the head of the secret police. This resulted in the arrest and brief imprisonment of al-Khouli and Heikal’s secretary and her husband who were also present at the meeting and who were implicated in an embezzlement scandal.24 Heikal, who feared so much the loss of his position at al-Ahram, served briefly as the minister of information and appeared to be still in his full power and glory by the time of Nasser’s sudden death in the same year. His last public role was as the major source of official communiqués during the Cairo Summit meeting of the heads of Arab states convened to deal with the Jordanian Civil War.25

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 175

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

175

THE CAPTIVE PRESS Major foreign policy failures of the regime did produce limited, though sporadic, criticism of Nasser’s policy. The press establishment was not always remiss as when Egyptian mistakes in Syria resulted in the dissolution of the UAR. Thus, Taha Hussein, who was serving as the editor-in-chief of al-Jumhuriyah under the direction of Salah Salem as the head of the administrative board was the only editor of the newly nationalized press to contradict the official view of the breakup of the union and to escape any official reprisal.26 The behavior of the press during the crisis that led to the hostilities of June 6, 1967, was exactly what can be expected of a government-owned and directed institution. Limited information of a military nature was allowed to reach the press, such as the announcement of troop movements in Sinai, ostensibly to assist Syria in the face of Israeli military mobilization along their common border. Syrian apprehension was apparently triggered by an Israeli pledge to launch a major operation aimed at stopping Syria’s destructive activities inside Israel. The Egyptian press also reported Syrian declarations calling for the activation of the joint Syrian-Egyptian defense pact if such an Israeli assault materialized. Egyptian dailies, thus, appeared on the morning of May 16, with the following headline: “Forces of the U.A.R. Have Moved According to the Prescribed Plan.” This was followed by more headlines describing new fighter planes dispatched to the Sinai front and a promise to enter the war with maximum firepower. One headline in particular referred to Marshal Aamer’s consecutive meetings in order to lay down specific war plans. The discerning reader was left to figure out the difference between the existence of pre-plans and the need to produce specific plans. On May 16, General Muhammad Fawzi, chief of staff of the armed forces, issued a warning addressed to the head of the international emergency forces along the Sinai-Israeli border to remove these troops immediately and make way for the arrival of replacement Egyptian troops. The warning was carried by all sections of the press, to the amazement of many who marveled at the wisdom of revealing such information to the enemy. The press was expected to carry all official declarations and was utterly helpless when it came to winnowing inappropriate information. Official bluster directed at the Great Powers was also expressed in announcements detailing desperate attempts by the United States, Britain, Canada, and Israel to pressure U.N. Secretary-General U. Thant to resist Egyptian requests for evacuation. The headlines continued to boast that U. Thant resisted this concerted pressure, insisting that Egypt’s right to request the removal of international troops was unassailable.27 The most amazing thing about the press at this juncture was its total willingness to publish and broadcast military information as if no one expected

10_303_Ch5.qxd

176

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 176

Chapter 5

an imminent war. News continued to reveal the citing of massive Israeli troop movements, both along the Syrian and southern Israeli border. A spirit of self-confidence and unmatched bravado continued to fill the air, with various sectors of the military issuing reports of troop strengths here and there. No one in the press tried or thought of refusing to publish these reports in the name of safeguarding national security. An air of unreality pervaded everything, creating an atmosphere befitting a military parade rather than a serious war. Marshal Aamer’s statements to the political editor of al-Ahram surpassed all other expressions of self-confidence and political self-assurance. He said that no one should doubt the determination of the U.A.R. to hit hard at any attempted aggression. Time has come, he added, to put an end to all Israeli policies of bluster and conceit. He emphasized that Egyptian troop movements have already turned the Israeli military plan upside down. The press then reported on Aamer’s inspection of the nation’s forward troops. On May 24, the press reported on a recent meeting between Nasser and U. Thant, lasting for four hours, adding the encouraging note that Shams Badran, minister of defense, has departed for Moscow. The papers neglected to mention that Abba Eban, Israel’s foreign minister, was just as busy, having departed for a quick tour of Paris, London, and Washington. When the United States requested that certain steps be taken in order to diffuse the situation, such as maintaining international troops on the ground until a diplomatic resolution was found, the press responded en masse by alluding to Israel as an American colony. The foreign press was also silenced whenever it raised uncomfortable questions. The British Daily Express, for instance, interviewed Nasser and suggested that the pressure on him this time around may be heavier than during the Suez Crisis of 1956. Would he be able to withstand all that, now that he was eleven years older? Nasser protested the Daily Express harassment, retorting that he did not reach his fiftieth birthday yet and he was not senile like Mr. Anthony Eden. The press also reported Nasser’s challenge to the United States, claiming that if the United States insisted on joining the war, then Egypt will defend itself despite America’s superior power. The public derived a great feeling of satisfaction from this interview, leading it to believe in the inevitability of victory. On May 30, it was reported that the entire membership of the People’s Assembly, headed by Sadat, proceeded to Qubba Palace to delegate all of its powers to the president. Never before have the people’s representatives been willing to sojourn from their assembly to the presidential palace in an act of group surrender. In addition, the press augmented the level of patriotism by engaging in patriotic activities, while war songs resonated from every radio. The government also hid behind a façade of heated nationalism and succeeded in projecting an atmosphere of normalcy and unperturbed equanimity and peace. The British Sunday Times reporter in Cairo told of daily tourist trips to the pyramids, congested restaurants and cafés, as well as

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 177

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

177

sports clubs teeming with sunbathers and swimmers. This relaxed atmosphere on the other hand, was not experienced in Israel, where the same reporter later wrote that any visitor to Tel Aviv would think that the country was already at war. People lined up to donate blood, he wrote, and students were busy digging trenches. Egyptians have finally surrendered to their own government, while at the same time basking in the extended glow of the Suez War when they emerged victorious after being attacked by a combination of strong powers.28

THE ROLE OF INFORMATION DURING THE 1967 WAR Beyond the role of the Egyptian captive press in creating an atmosphere of unjustifiable confidence, the Zionist information services inside and outside of Israel contributed greatly to the distortion of that war. Much of the achievement of the Zionist press was due to shortcomings of Arab information rather than to the intrinsic competence of the pro-Israeli media campaign. Zionist information was particularly successful in perpetuating the myth of Israel and the Arabs as a David and Goliath allegory. Some Arab information officials unwittingly strengthened that myth by claiming on the fifth of June that Egypt started the hostilities with an attack on Israel. The Israeli ambassador to the U.N. compounded that fiction by stating before an emergency meeting of the Security Council that Arab armies had just launched a holy war in order to recapture Palestine. The U.S. representative to that body added to the potency of that message by claiming lack of any credible information that would dispute the Israeli version of events, despite intelligence reports about the Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty. Israel and the United States continued their denial of Israel’s responsibility for staging a major surprise attack on major Arab airports because Egypt did not wish to publicly acknowledge the actual dimensions of the initial attack. The Egyptian press became increasingly limited to publishing military communiqués, with Heikal, who served as minister of national guidance at the time, insisting that all was well on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts. Commentators later ascribed this behavior to Nasser’s desire to project a strong military image lest the Israelis conclude that his troops were bogged down in Yemen. Egyptian intellectuals were beginning to piece together the real story by following the foreign press, until June 9, when Nasser took public responsibility for the defeat. Once Nasser acknowledged the scale of the military disaster, the public’s trust in the Egyptian media and in the Nasserite regime was completely dissipated, although it continued to look up to Nasser to extricate it from this catastrophe. One of the reasons for the passive attitude of the Egyptian press was the widespread notion, not uncommon in other countries and other wars,

10_303_Ch5.qxd

178

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 178

Chapter 5

that dissent in time of war is tantamount to seditious behavior. In the case of this war, there was the additional official claim that the war was fought in order to liberate Palestine and restore the rights of its people. The sanctity of the Palestinian question in the public’s eye prohibited any disputation of the officially transmitted view. References to this war were as a campaign to liberate Palestinian lands. Thus, Heikal wrote in his “Bi-Sarahah” editorial on May 26 that closing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping was more of a psychological, rather than an economic, blow to Israel. Since history continued to move in Israel’s favor after 1948, this would be the first blow demonstrating that history was now moving in the Arabs’ favor. On May 28, Nasser declared in a press conference that the issue was not the Straits of Tiran but the people of Palestine who have been made homeless since 1948. Popular rallies that were convened to raise public enthusiasm for the upcoming war were always punctuated by cries of “to Jerusalem, Abd al-Nasser . . . if God willed your victory nothing will defeat you.” The press learned soon enough that no more official communiqués were forthcoming and began to rely on Egyptian radio for news from the front. Foreign news sources were dismissed as inherently biased and were never given any credence. The press also filled its pages with the recollections of veterans of the 1948 and the 1956 wars, as well as with some projections of what some named journalists would do once they entered liberated Tel Aviv.29

THE MEDIA AFTER THE 1967 WAR One of the worst consequences of a nationalized press is its inability to approach and influence the foreign media outside its own country. Even though Egyptians suffered massive and unprovoked Israeli attacks on civilians after the 1967 War, the media failed to shed light on these humanitarian losses. The magnitude of the lethal Israeli air raid on the village school of Bahr al-Baqar in April 1970, was not projected fast enough, in contrast to the speed with which the liberal press alerted the U.N. General Assembly to the 1956 British atrocities following the invasion of Port Said. At this time, the Egyptian press supplied photographs, stories, and commentary to the foreign press corps at the U.N. but no Egyptian pictures or descriptions of the civilian casualties at that hapless village school made it outside of Egypt.30 While the press obeyed government directives to cut costs and save on foreign currency during the war by reducing the size of each paper to four pages only, very little freedom was allowed to its reporters and writers.31 Even when the restoration of public confidence in the effectiveness of Egyptian military capability was necessary, the press were prohibited from

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 179

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

179

publishing any significant military information. But the magnitude of defeat and the accompanying public outcry and protest demonstrations by students and workers began to embolden the press. The government needed some encouraging news and allowed full coverage of the sinking of the Israeli ship, Eilat, on October 21, 1967. The ship was previously an Egyptian destroyer named Ibrahim, which was captured by the French Navy during the Suez War before turning it over to Israel. This event signaled the beginning of the War of Attrition and a new phase in Egyptian history.32 The press began to react to public protests when it was required to cover news of trials of military officers on February 20, 1968, by adopting a provocative way of listing the various sentences. Photographs of high-ranking officers who were acquitted or received light sentences were juxtaposed with photographs of junior officers who received stiffer sentences. The public recognized the favoritism implied in these verdicts and seized this occasion to stage large demonstrations at the industrial suburb of Helwan and at various universities. The intensity of these stories escalated because of the absence of any meaningful promised reform or a promised report pinning the responsibility of defeat on the appropriate parties.33 As a way of diffusing public anger following the defeat, a great latitude was granted to the press. Criticism directed at state structures and economic and social shortcomings that contributed to the defeat were now common. There were even some voices calling for the establishment of a genuine democracy. The regime appeared to be responding to this threat by calling for comprehensive reforms. Such was the import of Nasser’s declaration on March 30, 1968, which specified the primary nature of the desired changes. Among these was the need to outline the nature of the political ties that link social and political freedoms in the proposed new constitution. This entailed, Nasser added, providing adequate guarantees for freedom of thought and freedom of expression, as well as the freedom to pursue scientific research and inquiry by the press. The declaration instigated a wide debate concerning the importance of exercising criticism and selfcriticism and the right of the press to evaluate any area of government and the public sector. Some of this debate swirled around potential confrontation between the press and official political apparatuses, leading some to propose the creation of a higher press council within the ASU to oversee and direct the affairs of the press. Proponents of this idea suggested also that this council should strive for a more equitable distribution of news, announcements, and journalistic profits so that successful papers can subsidize weaker papers. The upshot of this was a decision by the ASU on September 21, 1968, to study press conditions and establish a new protocol, reaffirming public ownership of this institution and placing it at the service of free public opinion and constructive criticism. By September 17, 1970, a

10_303_Ch5.qxd

180

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 180

Chapter 5

new law to reorganize the Press Syndicate was adopted, with the ostensible objective of protecting freedom of the press and journalists engaged in pursuing their journalistic careers. Among these new freedoms were outlawing the imprisonment of any syndicate member in the course of conducting his or her work, and limiting the interrogation of members of the press to sessions observed by syndicate officials, preferably the chair of the local syndicate or its provincial branch.34 The press was crippled not only by the shortage of information on military rebuilding along the western shore of the Suez Canal, but also by the newly acquired public mistrust of any government-inspired news. The sameness and repetitiveness of news items appearing on pages of most of the papers compounded this problem. The government added to this by demonstrating unforeseen reluctance to engage in mobilizational activities intended for the renewal of wartime patriotism generated before the outbreak of hostilities. The ASU appeared to be out of breath, but the journalists were prohibited from taking it to task and continued to be managed by this same body. But little by little, the public’s trust in government-managed news—particularly concerning the military rebuilding effort—was restored as Egyptian information began to coincide with the same facts published by the foreign-owned press. Coverage of the sinking of the Israeli ship, Eilat, was such an incident. This trust was soon buttressed by the Egyptian media coverage of the blowing up of the Israeli oil rig, Kenting, off of Ivory Coast. Blowing up the rig by a secret Egyptian detail was described as a great feat preventing Israel from exploiting the oil fields of Sinai. News of this incident were supported by major press organizations such as Agence Presse France and British papers before they made it to the pages of Egyptian papers, such as al-Ahram. What made the story more credible was a previous warning issued by the Egyptian government to all Western countries that contemplated the sale of such equipment to Israel. The Egyptians pointed out to the illegality of contributing to oil exploration in an occupied area such as Sinai.35

THE WAR OF ATTRITION The dilemma of the government’s management of the news following the defeat of 1967 turned out to be mainly how to strike a balance between maintaining a veil of secrecy over the news of military build-up, while continuing to fuel the people’s spirit of resistance. This required a skillful information campaign whereby a new and rational set of national and security objectives would be presented to the public. In a sense, a campaign of national re-education was required, if the people’s trust in the regime and its entire Arab policy was to be restored. In order to achieve this, an

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 181

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

181

extraordinary degree of alignment between policy maker and information architect needed to be achieved. Here, the personal and ideological bonds between Nasser and Heikal became the only hope of mounting such a campaign. Nasser, it soon became clear, was determined to regenerate the Egyptian’s spirit of steadfastness and to spearhead a campaign for rebuilding the armed forces. He hoped that this campaign would project the need to refuse a peaceful settlement with Israel leading to recognition. His objective now was more than steadfastness in the face of the combined threat of Zionism and imperialism and more than converting Egypt into a rearmed giant capable of exercising self-defense. Nasser’s newly formulated long-range mission for Egypt was to launch a battle of total liberation involving Arab lands. Despite all the internal turmoil resulting from the defeat and the near sudden ending of his leadership of Egypt, Nasser still maintained a multi-faceted vision for the near future. This vision entailed restructuring the domestic political front and integrating it with the armed services. He adopted new projects designed to repair and develop the military defenses of Egypt. He also made it clear that in the period following the defeat, Egypt’s strategy would be to strengthen and protect Palestinian resistance forces as they emerged under the umbrella of the PLO and Arafat’s leadership. Nasser’s plan here was to promote the unity of ranks among the various Palestinian factions, as well as encourage the opening up of a sustained front within Israel itself. But his overreaching objective was to launch a war of attrition along Israeli front lines in order to sap their strength and force their withdrawal from occupied Egyptian territory. This broad reassessment and reformulation of policy necessitated the strong backing of the press and the presentation of the regime’s foreign policy priorities faithfully and accurately. Not unexpectedly, some authors began to reanalyze the Arab-Israeli struggle in a novel manner that demonstrated an unusual kind of governmental tolerance. These analysts, furthermore, began to broach the possibility of another future armed confrontation with Israel. The most equipped to lead this informational campaign by virtue of his immunity from government reprisal turned out to be Heikal. He alone enjoyed an unparalleled power of criticism.36 Heikal’s views on the War of Attrition were also considered the summary of the media’s own collective vision of what Egypt’s future national goals should be. It was as though the dean of the press establishment had taken on the role of collective media spokesperson while wearing Nasser’s protective mantle. Heikal’s personally minted slogans took on the air of official sanctioning while also suggesting the approval of all sectors of the press. One of his most effective slogans that resonated with the public turned out to be “What was taken by force can only be restored by force.” He also pleased the reading public with his slogan, “No voice will be

10_303_Ch5.qxd

182

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 182

Chapter 5

higher than the sound of battle.” Thus, four months after the relieving of Marshall Aamer from his command post and Nasser’s internal victory over Aamer’s discredited circle of cronies, Heikal launched a series of thirty articles in al-Ahram dedicated to the notion of ending Egypt’s national crisis and overcoming the catastrophe of defeat. In his first article, which appeared on September 15, 1967, titled “The Road to War,” he dealt with the issue of the imperative of resuming the war, but emphasized the theory of limited and contained war. This he explained as the art of using arms at an appropriate moment and only in the context of a comprehensive political effort directed at changing the balance of power. This was his way of interjecting a note of realism into the ongoing debate between the proponents of complete disarmament and those advocating a total war of liberation. Heikal insisted that a total war of liberation was beyond Egypt’s capabilities and a Vietnam-style war did not suit the current circumstances of the country. He argued that defeat inflicted on June 5 forced the Arabs to confront a war of two phases, which could not be collapsed into one phase: The first was the phase of erasing the aftereffects of aggression, which began in June, and the second should follow this and be directed at solving the first issue of the Arab nationalist struggle, namely Palestine. But he indicated clearly that the second phase could not be launched before the first, since erasing the results of the aggression was the lowest minimum requirement for this total struggle. He also wrote that true revolution could only be achieved if the total energy of the Arab world was mobilized. He continued to insist that there was no alternative to fighting unless a miracle intervened to lead Egypt in another direction, though the age of miracles was over. Heikal was also projecting Nasser’s view when he wrote that the only country capable of pressuring Israel was the United States, which, in view of the military victory achieved by Israel, was unwilling to exercise any pressure. He concluded that there was no alternative to launching a regular war, meaning an army facing another army, and an air force and a navy facing another air force and a navy.37 In his second article, appearing in al-Ahram on September 29, 1967, titled “The Political Solution and the Armed War,” he admitted that it may seem strange that he was writing on the inevitability of war at a time when efforts were being made by the U.N. Security Council to diffuse the situation in the Middle East and to come up with a political solution. There were, thus, dangerous aspects of this war to keep in mind, he wrote. One was the speed with which the enemy achieved victory, which added to its conceit and rendered it incapable of making realistic decisions. The other was that the Arab nation suffered a severe defeat, but we should understand that this was not a crushing defeat. The Arabs did not experience such a defeat, the likes of which were only seen by France’s surrender to the German Nazi Regime or Japan’s experience during World War II. Finally, the Arab

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 183

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

183

countries were not forced to surrender their weapons unconditionally. Changes in the Arab-Israeli struggle, he wrote, meant that instead of one issue, the Arabs now were facing two issues: the original Palestine question that influenced Middle East events throughout the past twenty years, and a temporary issue concerning the occupation of parts of the territories of three Arab states. The danger was that both Israel and the United States under the leadership of President Lyndon B. Johnson refer to the current situation as “the current Middle East crisis,” hoping to use it as a means of resolving the original issue of Palestine. Heikal elaborated that these two states wished to extract a full Arab recognition of Israel as the price of withdrawal from the occupied lands of three Arab countries. In this way, Heikal was explaining the extortionist nature of Israeli demands in order to stiffen the backs of the Egyptian public and provoke it into adopting a posture of resistance and steadfastness. Heikal continued to write in a realistic tone when, on October 20, 1967, he summarized his call to arms by admitting that what Egypt faced in the June War was a very educated and modern enemy. The intensity of the Israeli attack, he continued, demonstrated that this was a textbook case similar to what was being taught in the most modern military academies. Heikal continued to excel in his analysis and successive revelations of some of the details of the past war, emerging as the country’s unchallenged conduit of official information and the personification of the media czar. His role in the months following the war firmly established al-Ahram as the first paper of Egypt. Part of Heikal’s credibility derived from his ability to level criticism at the conduct of the war without having to pay a price for his independent views. In that same article of October 2, he analyzed the defeat as: 1. Egyptian authorities anticipated certain moves by the enemy but never took the necessary precautions to safeguard the homeland. 2. Although it was felt that the enemy would attack from the west, Israelis took the most natural route to approach Egyptian lines, namely entering the unprotected space left open between Port Said and Al-Birles Lake. 3. Israelis flew low, never rising above fifty meters from the ground when they crossed the Mediterranean. Their aircrafts remained below the reach of anti-aircraft missiles. He added to these major points by claiming that while Israel had a clear military objective in mind when it launched the war, namely the destruction of the largest possible segment of Arab military hardware, the Arabs did not. Israel, furthermore, knew how to stop at a certain point in order not to upset the prevailing international strategic balance. He claimed that the Arab leadership during the war made no effort to provide its military

10_303_Ch5.qxd

184

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 184

Chapter 5

commanders in the field with strategic clarity. Add to this the unwillingness of most higher Arab military commands to provide political support to honest field commanders and allow them to discharge their duties well. He went on to assure his readers that the Israeli enemy was not an extraordinary adversary despite his clever use of resources. Defeating the enemy was possible had there been a leader on the Arab side capable of exploiting the Israelis and their wartime mistakes. He insisted that what transpired during that war was not due to Israel’s genius as much as it was due to the failure of Arab leadership. By pursuing this line, he succeeded in holding out some hope while directing criticism at Arab ranks.38 In another article dated December 29, 1967, titled “The Seven Pillars of Realism,” Heikal wrote that General Moshe Dayan, Israel’s minister of defense, has said following the war that the greatness of the Israeli victory will be taught in war academies throughout the world as a formal topic of military science. Heikal responded that Dayan was mistaken. It was not the greatness of Israel’s victory that will be remembered, but rather the stupidity of the Arab defeat. Israel’s achievement could not be considered a great one, since it was aided by the colonial powers. But the Arab defeat was extraordinary by any standard. By 1969, Heikal was suggesting a certain course of action to Syria and taking the liberty of saying that it was time to reactivate the eastern front. Writing on March 7 of that year under the heading, “The Shape of the Upcoming Battle and What Is Transpiring in Syria,” he argued that a successful strategy of confrontation against the Israeli enemy must take place on two fronts: The Western Front where Egyptian troops could be assisted by Afro-Arab troops, and the Eastern Front where the armed forces of Syria, Jordan, and Iraq could be assisted by Asian-Arab troops. On March 28, 1969, Heikal began to suggest the necessary preliminaries to a war of attrition, which he referred to as Egypt’s fourth war against Israel. Titled “A Glance at the Ceasefire Line,” the article was a clear call to keeping the ceasefire lines heated, telling his readers that the next phase will require massive sacrifices. This was the Arabs’ fate and nothing could change that. Washing the shame of defeat by waging another war was necessary, he insisted, hinting that preparations for the next round were already underway. Heikal stressed that war was inevitable and Egypt will be the first to attack. It would be a long war in order to avoid Israel’s advantage in waging short and stunning wars. In order to overcome Israel’s military superiority, he wrote, Egypt must be willing to undertake a long war. He emphasized at the end that only a war fought on two fronts would demolish Israel’s theory of national security. By April 11, 1969, he began suggesting that Egypt should use a psychological type of warfare against the enemy in order to tip the balance of security and fear in its direction. The theme of instilling fear in Israel’s ranks was a frequent refrain and he always maintained that the Arabs were the

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 185

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

185

natural winners of this game since in the long run, Israel was a small island of two million people besieged by a sea of eighty to one hundred million Arabs. On August 8, 1969, he wrote under the heading, “The Will to Struggle and the Struggle of Wills,” that Egypt must show determination to cross the canal and stage gun battles and air raids in order to eliminate the myth of Israel’s overwhelming military superiority. The struggle of wills, he added, should take place in a realistic context and not in the atmosphere created by this myth. The realistic context, he explained, was that the Israeli army is strong, but the myth that claims that Israel was invincible was born out of Egypt’s own fears as a result of suffering the defeat of 1967. In another article on the same date, headlined “The Approaching War,” he reminded readers that Israel no longer possessed the elements of surprise and the quick lightening strike, based on the ability to destroy its adversary’s forces, paralyzing his communications and confusing his commanders. In the coming war, he predicted, the Israeli armed forces will be forced to adopt a defensive posture for which they were woefully unprepared, since their best wars were terrorist attacks. On December 19, 1969, Heikal wrote under the heading, “The Gateway to War,” that despite their different levels of preparedness, the Arabs and Israel seemed to be heading in one direction in the 1970s, namely, the gateway to war. He predicted that the coming confrontation will be a decisive war that would determine Egypt’s potential for restructuring and moving forward. To make a point about the crucial significance of the approaching war, he told of the last words of General Abd al-Munim Riyadh before he was martyred on the battlefield. Riyadh had admonished Heikal, saying if Egypt lost the coming war, this will not only be a national failure, but an individual failure as well for every man and woman in this nation. Riyadh reportedly added that the coming war will not be waged against Israel alone, but also for our right to exist with dignity and honor. Heikal continued to speculate about the nature of the upcoming war in his succeeding articles warning that unless Egypt was aware that the war will be an aerial duel of missiles and modern aircraft, it will be a victim of another ambush as in the previous conflicts.39 In his later writings Heikal emphasized the Arab responsibility for the defeat of 1967, echoing a favorite theme during the Sadat regime, namely Egypt’s inordinate shouldering of the war effort compared to that of other Arab states. This line was intended to soften the impact of defeat on Egyptians who continued to be reminded that their country fought five major wars against Israel, including the War of Attrition, with limited participation by other Arab states. Arabs forgot, he added, that the net result of the Suez War was to foster winds of change that left no room for colonialism or foreign exploitation of the Arab’s natural resources. He concluded that he would be the first to admit that the 1967 defeat was a terrible shock to the entire

10_303_Ch5.qxd

186

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 186

Chapter 5

Arab nation, but that there was no room for exaggeration since men were still fighting on the war front.40

THE PALESTINIAN DIMENSION FOLLOWING 1967 A drastic change occurred in the leadership ranks of the PLO following the military defeat of the 1967 War, which impacted Egypt profoundly. An open disagreement and a harsh exchange of words took place between PLO Chairman Ahmad Shuqeiry, and Nasser during the 1967 Khartoum Summit meeting, leading to the former’s removal from office. Shuqeiry, in essence, called for a switch to a popular form of struggle against Israel.41 The Egyptian media followed this story with extraordinary interest by focusing on competing PLO factions and their clamoring for Shuqeiry’s resignation. The Palestinian factions, however, overlooked Nasser’s contribution to the erosion of Shuqeiry’s political legitimacy. What was reported instead was that several groups demanded the removal of the Palestinian leader because he was turning into a stumbling block for the Palestinian national struggle. In order to foster a perception of neutrality, the pro-Shuqeiry and the anti-Shuqeiry viewpoints were given even coverage. Al-Ahram came up with a story describing the crisis in the PLO and a summary of the demands for the leader’s ouster, citing the need to secure the unity of the Palestinian people and the unification of all groups in a single Palestinian front. The story related news of Shuqeiry’s first response by firing half of the PLO’s executive committee. The two major papers beside al-Ahram, namely al-Akhbar and alJumhuriyah followed the organization’s internal struggle in great detail, with al-Ahram emphasizing views of those opposed to Shuqeiry, such as the Union of Palestinian Students in Cairo. This group, considered to be dominated by supporters of Arafat, listed major reasons for their position. These included Shuqeiry’s attempt to take credit for the guerilla operations of other factions, his public claim that the Arab states opposed him, his personal leadership style, and his reliance on rhetoric, declarations, and spontaneous action. When al-Ahram published news of a meeting between Egypt’s foreign minister and two PLO members seeking Shuqeiry’s resignation, it was quick to emphasize that the meeting was requested by the two Palestinians in order to dispel any notion of Egyptian involvement in this struggle. A different viewpoint finally appeared in al-Ahram by Hamdi al-Jammal in which he stated that the battle waged within the PLO was not about individuals but about a national homeland and its future. This gesture indicated that al-Ahram held its peace until it became clear that Shuqeiry was on his way out before expressing approval of his removal. Follow-up stories attempted to place PLO devel-

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 187

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

187

opments once Shuqeiry was removed into a very positive frame. All three papers continued to claim that the crisis was a purely Palestinian matter, which reflected the regime’s desire to deny any responsibility for pushing Shuqeiry out. Guerilla attacks by various Palestinian groups during that same period were also covered in full. Much could be read between the lines to explain the official Egyptian policy toward the Palestinians. Neutral coverage of the Shuqeiry crisis offered an example of hiding the consequences of the loss of Egyptian support. Covering the battle of al-Karamah, which took place on March 21, 1968, was clearly such an example. The Egyptian press found itself walking on thin ice when reporting on this engagement between Israeli military units and Palestinian guerillas. The battle took place on Jordanian territory and led to a dramatic rise in the prestige and national credibility of the guerilla units, which also undermined the prestige of the Jordanian government. The battle lasted for sixteen hours and involved units of the Jordanian military. The battle presented the Egyptians with an opportunity for raising Arab public morale but also with an incident leading to the glorification of guerilla warfare as something more effective than formal military engagement. Al-Akhbar sent a special reporter to cover the aftermath of this battle and conducted an interview with Jordan’s prime minister, Bahjat al-Talhouni. Much of this coverage, however, emphasized the Jordanian role in this victory, with al-Ahram going as far as publishing most military communiqués heard on Amman Radio. Among the most strident coverage of the details of the battle was the “Outside World” column in al-Akhbar by Philip Jallab. Here Israel came in for harsh attack as the aggressive Fascist party, acting with total brutality and signaling its intent to attack Jordan, Syria, and Egypt as well. The editor added that the brutal nature of the Israeli attack was also intended to pressure Jordan into containing the Palestinian guerilla movement. Leftist writer Mahmoud Amin al-Aalem wrote in the same paper that it was no mere coincident that Israel chose the second day after the unification of all Palestinian factions following Shuqeiry’s departure in order to launch its attack on the eastern bank of the Jordan. Then al-Jammal wrote in al-Ahram that the situation escalated so much requiring, as Nasser had first indicated, united action.42 While emphasizing Jordan’s huge contribution to the victory, the Egyptian press downplayed signs of an increasing rift between the Palestinian guerillas and the Jordanian government. Jordan was beginning to express its impatience with the guerillas as early as February 1, 1968, when King Hussein made public his frustration with continued guerilla activity on his territory, launching an attack on guerilla bases in the lower Jordan valley. The press did not allude to this growing Jordanian-Palestinian tension until October 16, 1968. By that time, it was becoming difficult to ignore these

10_303_Ch5.qxd

188

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 188

Chapter 5

developments. Finally al-Ahram wrote on that same date referring to a serious attempt to reconcile Amman with the resistance organizations. The story added that this move averted a possible civil war between the two sides. The story also presented this near-tragic tension as the result of a plot being hatched by “special forces.” Surprisingly, both al-Ahram and alAkhbar carried stories about warnings in other Arab capitals of plots by “specific elements” designed to deepen the Jordanian-Palestinain conflict, without specifying the name of these forces. Later on, when it was reported that “these forces” presented a set of demands to the guerillas, entailing the right to search vehicles, confining guerilla forces to the Jordan valley area, preventing uniformed guerillas and their vehicles from entering Amman, and handing over certain types of weapons, it turned out that the demands were made by the Jordanian authorities. Thus, al-Ahram and others went out of their way to conceal news of the impeding JordanianPalestinian armed confrontation. This concealment, furthermore, was intended to extend to the Egyptian role or lack of it thereof, given the great popularity of the Palestinian guerillas in Egypt itself. A measure of this popularity became apparent when al-Ahram reported soon thereafter news of the assassination of al-Aasifah leader Subhi Yassin and his huge Cairo funeral procession. The major paper continued to refrain from pointing a finger at Jordan until the outbreak of violent incidents by both sides in October of 1968. When guerilla factions, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, began to issue accusatory statements directed at the Jordanian regime, the Egyptian press was compelled to shed a light on Jordan’s role. This was coupled with subtle hints that Egypt would not be able to stay neutral in this conflict much longer.43

COVERING THE ROGERS PLAN AND PALESTINIAN GUERILLAS Two issues complicated the media thrust in the direction of rebuilding Egypt’s military and psychological despondency during the years of the War of Attrition: the acceleration of Palestinian guerilla activities in Israel and Jordan, and the William Rogers Peace Plan of 1969. The careful tuning of the Egyptian public mind to make it accept the defeat and move to a higher stage of resistance was not devoid of unexpected challenges. But in examining press coverage of the PLO, particularly the emergence of a shadowy underground organization on the scene called Fateh, it remains unclear whether the press was reflecting official views or public perspectives. Both the Egyptian public and government appeared to be well aware of the weight of this vanguard expression of the Arab liberationist struggle and its potential as a mobilizational tool of Egyptian authorities as well. Beginning in the mid-1960s, as it turned out, all three semi-official

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 189

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

189

papers, al-Ahram, al-Jumhuriyah, and al-Akhbar reluctantly began to devote major space to coverage of news of guerilla activities inside the occupied Palestinian territories because of the growing notoriety of these events. At first, the media focused on activities inside the Occupied Territories without any mention of the responsible guerilla group, namely Fateh. All three papers employed the term “Arab groups” rather than mention Fateh or al-Aasifah. This was due mainly to the fact that official Egyptian recognition was confined to the Regular Palestinian Army created by the first PLO. But soon after the military defeat of 1967, coverage of the Palestinian guerillas increased dramatically, especially on the pages of al-Ahram. As an example of this, al-Ahram published the story of increasing guerilla incidents in the West Bank, which led to a wave of arrests on its front page, July 26, 1967. Al-Akhbar wrote describing the political material distributed by these underground movements under the nose of the Israeli authorities. Some attributed this sudden preoccupation with Palestinian news to Nasser’s recent statement, which he repeated often, referring to the Palestinian resistance movement after 1967 as a manifestation of a revolution destined to survive. The papers also began to publicize the support of certain Arab regimes to the Palestinian guerillas, such as Algeria, Iraq, and Kuwait. At the same time, the press began to allude to a potential role for the U.N. in diffusing the Palestinian crisis. The press described the Nasserite regime’s constant efforts to persuade the United States to deal with the problem of the Palestinian refugees. When no response came from the American side, the press, reflecting the official interest in keeping the refugee question center stage, accused the United States of working toward the liquidation of the Palestinian question. These accusations were leveled at the United States regularly toward the end of the pre-war period when the situation on the Israeli-Egyptian and Israeli-Syrian borders reached a dangerous point. Reporting Palestinian news was becoming a priority of the media especially after August of 1967, when much of it appeared in bold front-page headlines. Generally speaking, covering Palestinian news was subject to hyperbolic language and great praise for the guerillas prior to the outbreak of hostilities in 1967. This approach was in line with Nasser’s stand toward Arabism and national solidarity that developed after the Suez War. The union with Syria in 1958 came as the apex of that ideological position. Nasser’s own rhetoric and that of the press turned inflammatory after the break-up of this union. Typical of Nasser’s language during that period was his often-repeated statement regarding the forces of Arab reaction being in the same trenches with Israel and world imperialism. His favorite theme before June 1967 was that Arab revolutionary groups were standing together opposite the forces of reaction. At that juncture, the Egyptian press found it convenient to exploit the Palestinian guerillas’ escalating troubles with various Arab

10_303_Ch5.qxd

190

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 190

Chapter 5

regimes that were opposed to Nasserism, such as the Jordanian regime. Following the cessation of hostilities, however, the tone of the Egyptian press when covering Palestinian news became more cautious. This was in line with Nasser’s conciliatory approach toward the other Arab states. Similarly, the Egyptian media’s backing of the activities of the Palestinian guerillas faltered in accordance with the government’s openness to the Rogers Plan, only to return to its usual enthusiastic coverage following the failure of the American initiative. It became also visibly apparent that the Egyptian media deliberately applauded the Palestinian guerillas after the 1967 defeat in order to restore the spirits of the defeated Egyptian public. Much of this coverage was aimed at demonstrating that Arab resistance did not die and that the struggle of the Palestinians in particular was far from over.44 The Rogers Plan came into being during one of the weakest points in Egypt’s international posture. The special challenge that this initiative presented was how to cover a major diplomatic effort promising a peaceful solution and at the same time maintain the spirit of resistance desired by the regime. Moreover, there was no way in which this diplomatic offensive on the part of the United States could be kept out of the headlines of major papers. Beginning on December 10, 1969, al-Ahram started to cover this effort by persuading public opinion that this was a genuine opportunity to make some gains. The paper explained that the United States aimed at encouraging the Arabs to accept a permanent peace while at the same time prodding Israel to withdraw from occupied Arab lands by offering it the appropriate international guarantees. The paper, however, did not reveal Egypt’s own position on this issue and soon thereafter announced that Israel rejected the U.S. deal. But this story was followed by continued coverage of high-level diplomatic contacts between Egypt and the United States, such as the 1970 visit of the U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Joseph Sisco. Then came the publication of the full text of Nasser’s address on Labor Day of 1970, which included Nasser’s open letter to President Richard Nixon. The letter began by indicating that it originated at the Abu Zaabal industrial complex, site of the February 12, 1970 Israeli air raid. The letter reminded Nixon of his meeting with the Egyptian president in 1963 when both communicated with each other in total frankness largely because the American president was out of office. Nasser reminded the Americans that Egypt has not blocked all its channels to the United States despite the latter’s repeated acts of aggression such as supplying the enemy with explosives, napalm, and Phantom fighter jets. The meeting with Sisco, Nasser’s letter read, was intended to serve as proof that Egypt’s position was made perfectly clear to the United States. The bulk of Nasser’s address was intended to serve two purposes: The first was to continue to foster trust in his diplomatic moves by sharing the na-

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 191

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

191

ture of his contacts with the public, and the second was to project an image of an uncompromising leader and a fierce defender of the national interest. He also said that Egypt knew in advance that Israel had no intention of withdrawing because the Israelis were dead-set against recognizing Palestinian rights. But this tough-standing address proved to be the first salvo in a recharged campaign to open contacts with the United States. The media picked up these signals and began to report on a variety of meetings with U.S. officials, including those between the head of the U.S. Interest Section in Cairo, Donald Burgess, and Ambassador Salah Jawhar of the Egyptian Foreign Office. The same Burgess then met with Mahmoud Riyadh, Egypt’s foreign minister, to deliver an oral message from the U.S. Secretary of State, outlining some suggestions for breaking up the logjam resulting from the 1967 War. But the Egyptian media did not reveal anything about the nature of these suggestions since Riyadh was not authorized to do so in the absence of Nasser who had departed on missions to Libya and the Soviet Union. But news of an American press conference held at the American capital by Secretary Rogers on June 26, 1970, were reported in full. Rogers recapped the U.S. position on this initiative, indicating that the immediate intention was to secure a ceasefire by the two warring sides. Rogers stressed that the initiative, which was conducted at a certain point by U.N. Special Envoy Gunnar Jarring, was being made according to U.N. Security Council Resolution 242. The United States was pursuing the goal of a just peace in the region and did not feel it was beneficial at that point to announce the details of the initiative or to conduct a public debate concerning military assistance to Israel. The Egyptian press, however, did not report what transpired between the three negotiating sides, admitting only that a ceasefire has been declared for a ninety-day period by August 8, 1970. Egypt’s reasons for agreeing to this ceasefire were never reported and instead the press persisted in declaring the peace initiative to be in the best interest of Egypt and a possible prelude to arriving at a solution to the Middle East crisis. The terms were reasonable, it was reported, and would secure the Egyptian military front and that of the Arab states. Egyptian papers, however, never discussed the real reasons behind this initiative, namely the absence of a military solution to the conflict, while cautiously admitting that the American offer was being slowly stymied by Israel.45 There was much to criticize about Nasser’s diplomacy following the defeat of 1967, but none appeared on the pages of the Egyptian press. For instance, Egypt’s and Jordan’s acceptance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 in November of 1967, had already hampered Egypt’s military efforts on the eastern front due to the hostility expressed by Syria, Iraq, Algeria, and Southern Yemen. In addition, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia continued their campaign of vilification against Nasser for contributing to the

10_303_Ch5.qxd

192

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 192

Chapter 5

failure of Arab arms. Tension between Egypt and the majority of Arab states rose perceptibly during the Rabat Summit meeting of December 1969, resulting in a verbal confrontation between Nasser and Arab heads of state with the former proclaiming that if no Arab assistance was forthcoming, then Egypt was bound to continue the battle alone. Al-Ahram added that Nasser implied that no Arab criticism will be tolerated and that he will continue to rely on Soviet economic and military assistance. Indeed, the press never made a connection between the withholding of Arab assistance, the deepening of Israeli aerial attacks targeting inland industrial centers such as Helwan and Abu Zaabal beginning in January of 1970, and Nasser’s openness to the Rogers Peace Plan. The significance of this shift in Egypt’s publicly stated policy of steadfastness and resistance was that Egypt and the United States had no diplomatic relations at the time. Several voices rose to justify this move, including the statement of Sadat who wrote in 1980 that the fact that Nasser announced his acceptance of the peace plan while on a visit to the Soviet Union was indicative of his desire to offend the Soviets. In addition, criticism of Nasser by a significant segment of the Palestinian resistance groups for what they considered to be a softening of the Egyptian position was reported but not as something capable of detracting from Nasser’s pan-Arab legitimacy. Heikal wrote in al-Ahram on December 4, 1970, that Palestinians were saying if certain leaders tired of the struggle, then they should get out of the battle. Heikal, however, justified these changes in works other than his daily al-Ahram column, such as in a 1979 book, The Story of the Arabs and the Soviets, by claiming that the ceasefire was absolutely necessary for Egypt’s resumption of the military build-up known as Granite Plan. Even when deteriorating Egyptian-Palestinian relations pushed Egypt to shut down Sawt al-Aasifah and Sawt Filastin broadcasting stations, the press declined to emphasize the seriousness of these retaliatory steps. The Palestinian softening of position toward the Rogers Peace Plan did not develop until they suffered the crushing weight of the Jordanian Civil War. Only then did they declare, perhaps as an indication of their own leaning toward partial solutions, that any Arab state was entitled to pursue its own political course in order to eliminate the after effects of the defeat.46 Other voices of the press echoed Nasser’s openness to the Rogers Peace Plan while at the same time continuing to hint at the possibility of the resumption of hostilities in light of the continued flow of Soviet military assistance. Caricaturist Salah Jahin provided a memorable caricature in alAhram depicting Nasser playing chess and holding a big chess piece shaped in the image of Rogers. He had Nasser saying Shahmat (“checkmate”; in Arabic it reads “the King has died”). Another caricature also by Jahin, showed Golda Meir looking utterly perplexed before a mathematical formula on a blackboard, replying to the world, “I am unable to solve

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 193

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

193

the puzzle.” Palestinian Marxist writer Muein Bisseiso was given five columns on the ninth page of al-Ahram on October 21, 1968, for his editorial in support of Nasser, headlined “Despite the Rising Din of the Political Stock Market, I Vote with Abd al-Nasser.” Bisseiso castigated those Palestinians who rejected the plan by reminding them that Egypt and Nasser stood by the Palestinians and the resistance movement through individual and collective assassinations and massacres, attacks and earthshaking events. Nasser and the UAR became the iron—shield protecting the Palestinians throughout their crises in Lebanon and Jordan. It was Nasser, Bisseiso wrote, who played a major role in securing diplomatic recognition by the Soviet Union for the Palestinians. Whatever comes between the PLO and Egypt was merely secondary compared to the gulf separating the Palestinian resistance from the imperialists and the Israeli military establishment. The same note reminding the Palestinians to remain grateful to previous favors extended by Nasserite Egypt was struck by al-Jammal on the same day in al-Ahram, adding that it was Egypt that extracted international recognition for the Palestinian guerilla movement. The second most important paper after al-Ahram, namely al-Akhbar, also commented on the American peace plan. At one point, the paper quoted PRAVDA as having commented that the stand of some Arab elements (regarding the Rogers Plan) contradicted all logic and rationality. Another alAkhbar article, headlined, “Lucifer Coveted Paradise,” detailed Israel’s refusal to adhere to U.N. resolutions despite the Security Council’s pledge to guarantee the boundaries of all states in the region. Musa Sabri, wrote in the same paper on August 7, 1970, under the heading “The Hand of Peace,” attacking President Nixon for accusing Egypt of being an aggressive state that intended to throw Israel into the sea. Sabri bragged that Egyptian plans were always executed with a lot of preplanning and by liquidating those voices that were pushing for war, meaning the Palestinians. There were also articles by Abd al-Quddous in al-Akhbar castigating the Arab regimes for escalating the rhetoric of war, not realizing that the Rogers Plan would at least force the United States to cease its military aid to Israel. Abd al-Quddous went as far as to remind the Palestinians of the strong desire of the United States to maintain its ties to the Arab states. In its daily column, “Kalimat al-Youm” (Today’s Word), al-Akhbar wrote on August 22, 1970, that despite the squabble, this was one Arab nation and one national issue. Then it added a verse from the Qur’an, to the effect that when your enemies lean toward peace, you should do so also, relying on Allah’s support. Some years later, Sadat employed the same verse to justify his peace diplomacy leading to the Camp David agreement. Al-Jumhuriyah, on the other hand, carried several articles on the American peace initiative by the editor-in-chief, Fathi Ghanem, and related a statement by the Egyptian Minister of National Guidance (Heikal)

10_303_Ch5.qxd

194

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 194

Chapter 5

discounting the possibility that the initiative would result in signing a permanent peace agreement with Israel. Thus, while the two major papers, al-Akhbar and al-Jumhuriyah, waged a war of words against the Palestinian guerillas for criticizing Egypt’s talks with the Americans, only al-Ahram expressed Nasser’s views on the Arab-Israeli conflict with perfect accuracy. The most interesting statement came from Heikal, writing on October 21, 1968, in his weekly column “Candidly Speaking” when he asked rhetorically whether or not the Palestinian resistance movement was even capable of leading a total popular war of liberation. His response was in the negative, explaining that in his view the struggle was an Arab-Israeli, rather than a Palestinian-Israeli, struggle. Heikal added that thinking of Palestine in the logic of Vietnam was a mistaken idea because the two theatres were different. The Palestinian resistance alone could never achieve anything meaningful since its basis of operation was the popular war of liberation, he added. Only regular Arab armies and official Arab sponsorship by states such as Egypt would restore Palestinian rights.47 Heikal’s deft management of the information campaign leading from the War of Attrition until the Rogers Peace Plan succeeded only too well due to his relationship with Nasser, as well as Heikal’s own sense of political timing. It was clear throughout that media campaign, however, that Heikal was entrusted with crafting a series of articles designed to express public anger at the great defeat but without touching upon Nasser’s own responsibility and role in that failure. Thus, several factors and political actors were selected for admonition, such as the Arab states, the United States, the Egyptian military establishment, Israel’s treachery, the myth of Israeli military superiority and the U.N., but not the actual leader of Egypt at the time. Furthermore, it was clear during those years that only Heikal was allowed to direct his heavy verbal firepower at top figures of the regime due to Nasser’s personal support. One reason for this was the strong public perception that any newspaper story that displeased Nasser would bring quick retribution to its author.48 Egyptians recalled all too clearly that when Fikri Abaza, the dean of the press establishment in the royalist era, published a piece about democracy and freedom not exceeding ten lines in his weekly satirical column, “The Attractive Private Eye” (Al-Jasousah al-Hasnaa), he was sacked from his editorial duties at al-Hilal in 1961 upon Nasser’s personal order. Only after much prodding from Heikal and the publication of an apology on the front page of al-Ahram four months after the appearance of the offending piece was Abaza restored to his previous position. Public perception of the authenticity and reliability of Heikal’s pieces was also due to his personal involvement in the secret negotiations between Egypt and the United States. This allowed Heikal to be privy to information that was unavailable to other journal-

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 195

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

195

ists. Not even Sadat, who was the vice president at the time, had any inkling of the nature of these contacts leading up to the Rogers Peace Plan.49 Louis Awadh, one of the harshest critics of the Nasserite era, always contended that Heikal never attempted to criticize Nasser and his foreign and domestic policy blunders.50 Heikal did level serious charges at high-ranking pillars of the Nasserite regime, which surprised everyone. But he could not have done this before the declaration of March 30, 1968, which promised to institute far-reaching reforms in order to address the root causes of the 1967 debacle. But even so, aiming his firepower at some of the denizens of the Nasserite regime amounted to a great risk. It was said at the time that even conducting a whispering campaign against these figures was liable to lead to imprisonment or worse. But despite all that, a leading article headlined “A Dangerous Incident” appeared without a byline in al-Ahram on October 13, 1968, and was immediately presumed to be in Heikal’s style of writing. The article attacked the enormous powers exercised by the Central Census Bureau, at the time headed by General Jamal Askar, and the powers reserved for the Central Intelligence Bureau, at the time headed by Amin Huweidi. The latter was attacked for his role in the arrest of Sayyid Abu al-Naja, a respected director of an economic and social research institute. The article criticized in particular the detention and interrogation of Abu al-Naja for a period of five days at the Central Intelligence Bureau before the case made it to the District Attorney’s Office. The incident resonated with the public immediately who were deeply resentful of the practice of torture by the secret service, dubbed as “the early morning visitors.” The intelligence officers involved in this case immediately responded with letters to the editor, sparking a huge debate that captured the public’s attention. But the debate remained confined to the pages of al-Ahram, without being taken up by any other publication. This confirmed the view that Heikal was officially encouraged to tackle such dangerous topics. The atmosphere created by the declaration of March 30 was also responsible for another attack on the ruling authority when the Jurists’ Club issued a statement around the same time calling for an investigation of the causes of the military defeat and the best way of confronting Israel. The Jurists explained that their request should not be construed as a judicial interference in the executive branch of government but as a civic attempt to get at the truth. The Jurists were actually pushed to adopt this tactic in response to a series of articles by Ali Sabri, one of the main figures of the ASU, which appeared in al-Jumhuriyah beginning on March 25, calling for the need to subject the judicial branch to public scrutiny and control by annexing it to relevant political institutions. The Jurists were further angered by the decline of all papers to publish their statement. Other stories detailing the suffering of the public as a result of

10_303_Ch5.qxd

196

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 196

Chapter 5

the defeat also made their ways to the papers. Nasser’s decision to hold new elections for all levels and units of the ASU opened an opportunity to take to task all these officials guilty of contributing to the defeat. None of these elections held more significance than those of the executive committee of the ASU, a body of ten representing the apex of the Egyptian political system under Nasser. Heikal’s references to the “centers of power” in his column was considered an authorized attack on Ali Sabri’s faction, which managed to hang on to power despite the emergence of a Nasserite and an independent faction. Nasser appeared reluctant to push very hard for the ouster of Sabri who was Egypt’s foremost Soviet expert because of the former’s need to maximize Soviet military assistance.51 Heikal made an unsuccessful effort against the powerful Sabri by demanding that the press should be considered as influential as a political party or “center of power” if genuine reforms were to take effect in the country.52 Heikal and other major journalists felt emboldened to ask critical questions before and during the War of Attrition because of recently placed emphasis on the political education of the troops. This task was entrusted to journalists and other enlightened civilians who were referred to as “the fifth column.” The group, formally organized in February 1969, was charged with the creation of a field of study called the psychological war, through which the troops were to be exposed to confidence-building measures designed to prepare them for the next formal war. The incentive for this was the realization that Israel’s future strategic course was unclear and that Egyptian troops should be ready for any eventuality. Both Heikal and Ahmad Bahaa al-Din were often invited to deliver lectures to the troops. Segments of these lectures would appear later in the press, as when parts of Bahaa al-Din’s address before recent graduates of the Egyptian Military College appeared in August 1969 on the pages of alMussawar.53 Bahaa al-Din, as well as others, joined Heikal in defending Egypt’s response to the Rogers initiative particularly as the views of the Arab opposition began to reach Egypt. Baha al-Din, for instance, wrote in al-Mussawar on August 7, 1970, that the sight of feuding Arabs, divided between those who maintained a ceasefire for the last three years and those proposing to accept a ceasefire for only three months, was indeed a tragic spectacle. He went on to castigate the Arabs by reminding them that the 1967 defeat was everyone’s responsibility. He defended Egypt’s acceptance of Security Council resolution 242 as being necessary if Egypt was to succeed in its political moves, in winning new allies and in acquiring new weapons in order to change the balance of power with Israel. He also announced that Egypt has committed five hundred million Egyptian pounds annually for the war effort and planned to draft six hundred thousand men. The entire Canal Zone will be evacuated in order to con-

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 197

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

197

vert it to a comprehensive battlefield. He pointed to all this information as proof of Egypt’s seriousness in pursuing the War of Attrition, which should be considered the main reason why the U.S. position has changed. Egypt has indicated that it considered the Rogers initiative the exact replica of the Security Council resolutions that call for Israel’s total withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands. These resolutions, he added, did not obligate Egypt or the Arabs to conduct direct negotiations with Israel, but instead opened a wide door for placing the issue of the political rights of the Palestinian people on the world’s agenda. There could never be a solution that was not based on military and political action. He ended his article by directing severe criticism at some Palestinian factions, accusing them of being no more than appendages of certain Arab political parties. Even a leftist writer sprang to the defense of the American initiative on the pages of al-Jumhuriyah. Muhammad Odeh wrote that going along with the American initiative did not mean surrendering to the United States. Surrendering to the United States, he explained, would have meant being completely led by the United States.54

THE JORDANIAN CIVIL WAR Egypt’s involvement in the Jordanian Civil War of 1970 called on the Egyptian press once more to chart a delicate course between supporting their country’s policies and explaining its delineations to the reading public. The war not only served as a reminder of the ramifications of the Rogers Peace Plan and its divisive effect, but also of the volatile and unpredictable nature of Palestinian-Arab relations. Jordan’s acceptance of the American initiative, the only other Arab country to follow this course, as well as the escalation of guerilla activities within Jordan, brought the simmering Palestinian-Jordanian dispute to a head by September of 1970. The cabinet of Muhammad Dawoud began to provoke PLO offices and concentrations in Amman, al-Zarqa, and other locations, while Arab heads of state met in an informal summit meeting in Cairo on September 17 to contain the conflict. Nasser and Arafat signed the Cairo Agreement during that meeting, promising to end the Palestinian operations on Jordanian soil. But fighting continued while the two warring sides carried on with talks regarding the removal of the fighters from Jordanian cities and towns. A detailed plan to that effect, known as the Amman Protocol, was signed on October 22, but failed to take effect. By 1971, a Jordanian hardliner, Wasfi al-Tal, headed a new cabinet promising to end the conflict in no time. Signs of the impending hardening of positions began to emerge with the distribution of a Jordanian memorandum to all Arab governments, accusing the PLO of plotting various acts of devastation and destruction

10_303_Ch5.qxd

198

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 198

Chapter 5

within Jordan. This led of the outbreak of the war, ending in driving PLO forces northward in the direction of the Syrian border. From the beginning these events were reported on the front pages of the three main Egyptian papers, expressing the government’s growing concern over the escalating of the hostilities. Egypt, for one thing, could not ignore its role in accepting the Rogers Plan and contributing to increasing disaffection of the PLO. The papers made a genuine effort to balance the views of both sides in the conflict while warning of the possible dangerous outcome of this confrontation. Al-Ahram, for example, made a strong attempt to balance views of the PLO with that of the Jordan government. On September 17, 1970, the paper published King Hussein’s views on this subject and his determination to re-impose the power of the monarchy throughout the country while at the same time safeguarding the PLO from its own enemies. This was the reason for insisting on surrendering the weapons of the errant militias to the proper PLO agencies. The paper also published the PLO’s own clarifications of its position in written messages addressed by Arafat to various Arab monarchs and heads of state. Arafat, it was made clear, held these heads of state responsible for averting the bloodshed being planned by suspect forces within Jordan. The same issue reported the result of the latest meeting of the PLO Central Committee, which chose Arafat as the leader of all forces of the resistance and extended to him unlimited authority to deal with the emergency. The next day, al-Ahram reported on Egyptian moves to diffuse the situation, such as a personal message from Nasser and presidents Jafaar Nimeiry and Muammar Qaddhafi to Jordan, calling on the authorities to stop the terrible massacre taking place in Amman. Among the eight points in the message was the denial of any interest on the part of these three to bargain over the lives of innocent people and exploit the praiseworthy aspects of the Palestinian resistance. The message, however, expressed regret over some actions that besmirched the reputation of the resistance and the Arab nation as well, blaming some elements within the PLO. Finally, the three leaders reaffirmed their support for the PLO despite some extreme behavior on the part of certain factions within the organization. The entire article ended up defending Egypt’s stand on the crisis and asserting that Cairo refused to adopt an emotional position based on sentiment alone since this would have jeopardized any attempt to contact all sides. The article reminded all parties that the estimated human loss in this conflict was anywhere between twenty to thirty thousand Arab casualties whose lives would be lost in a battle with no Arab or national importance. These reports were followed by news of the outbreak of street battles in Amman and pleas from Arafat to Nasser, inviting him to intervene and put an end to the conspiracy. More headlines followed regarding Egypt’s balanced approach to their question and appeals to both Hussein and Arafat to end the fighting and a Tunisian suggestion

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 199

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

199

to hold a summit meeting at Cairo. Again al-Ahram alluded to the possibility of American intervention and news of the closing in of American troops on Jordan.55 An editorial appearing also on September 17 in alAkhbar was headlined “America’s Arrogance and Its Intervention in the Destiny of the Arab World and Its Problems.”56 When the decision was made to convene the Arab summit at Cairo, the papers gave a better view of King Hussein, crediting him with ordering the cessation of hostilities after receiving an important message from Nasser. Al-Akhbar continued to report the tragic deterioration of conditions in Amman and the continuing looming threat of American-Israeli cooperation. This paper reported on moves by the Arab League of States to stop the bloodshed and the dispatching of Nimeiry; the Tunisian prime minister, al-Bahi al-Adgham; and the Kuwaiti minister of defense to Amman. The paper then began to focus on human suffering in the Jordan capital and the escalation of hostilities, resulting in a Jordanian call for the capture of the two Palestinian leaders, George Habash and Nayef Hawatmeh. Cairo and other Arab governments were said to have sent emergency assistance to the victims of the conflict. While this paper and others began to emphasize the human losses resulting from this war, Heikal continued to warn of American intervention. Writing in al-Akhbar on August 23, 1970 he warned that such an intervention would be considered a hostile act against peace and against the Arab nation. He emphasized that Egypt would not allow the liquidation of the PLO under any circumstances and that the primary task before the Arab heads of state was to stop the massacre. By September 26, al-Ahram reported Arafat’s arrival in Cairo and his meeting with the Arab heads of state, following this with front-page news of the signing of the Cairo Agreement.57 The paper summed up its coverage of the summit and its resolutions in the following words: “The question here was never a constitutional one concerning Jordan alone, but a historic responsibility concerning the fate of the entire Arab nation.”58

THE ISLAMIC PRESS During the Nasserite years, few Islamic voices expressed their views in print or attempted to revive the militant tone of the Islamic papers belonging to the last years of the royalist regime and the early years of the Nasserite period. Islamic papers were now confined to those published by the official Islamic institution represented by al-Azhar. Although differing very little from contemporary secular papers, their tone and general view of the Arab-Israeli conflict were frequently more intense than those of the semi-official press. Indeed, the Islamic press under Nasser published strongly for the adoption

10_303_Ch5.qxd

200

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 200

Chapter 5

of a confrontational line toward Israel without necessarily conforming to the official line. Following the Suez War, for instance, and perhaps anxious to capitalize on the pervasive patriotic climate of those years, al-Azhar made a strong call on behalf of the Palestinians. Sheikh Muhammed Shaltout, the head of al-Azhar religious and academic institution, called in 1957 for resisting Israel and eliminating its presence. He also wrote supporting the need to restore Palestinian refugees to their original homes. An international conference was also convened under the auspices of his office to discuss the Palestine question. The conference adopted resolutions calling on the Arabs and Muslims to support the Palestinians in their efforts to retrieve their lands, insisting that there will be no peace in the region as long as the Palestinians remained without any shelter or a homeland. These were published as the transactions of the Seventh Conference of the Society of Islamic Research. When it came to expressing the political responses of the religious hierarchy, the official paper, Majallat al-Azhar, served as the platform from which to publicize Islamic official views. But often, particularly when Azharite views were closely aligned with those of the regime, they would be given space in al-Ahram and similar papers. Thus, on June 1, 1965, Sheikh alAzhar, Hassan Maamoun, issued a strongly worded declaration that appeared in al-Ahram in response to President Al-Habib Bourgiba’s suggestion that it was time for the Arabs to negotiate directly with Israel. Sheikh Maamoun reiterated the widely held view of the illegality of Israel’s existence since it was created on usurped Palestinian lands. He declared that the only solution was to restore these lands to the Palestinians even if this necessitated the use of force. The solution, he explained, could not be based on achieving peace with Israel, as the president of Tunisia has suggested, since this recommendation violated Islamic principles. He reaffirmed al-Azhar’s position of long standing, which upheld the Palestinians’ right to resist aggression by resorting to the armed struggle until Jews evacuated Palestine. He expressed the view that any peace with Israel would be considered illegal unless it evacuated usurped lands. Following the 1967 defeat, Sheikh Maamoun wrote a series of articles for al-Ahram, calling on Muslims and Arabs throughout the world to seek revenge by attacking the Zionists and their imperialist allies by any available means, expressing strong faith in the Muslims’ ability to achieve victory by the grace of God. When news of the resurfacing of the idea of internationalizing Jerusalem came to the fore, he sent two telegrams to the secretaries-general of the U.N., and the Afro-Asian Organization in Indonesia, insisting on Jerusalem’s Arab and Islamic character. By publishing these, he disseminated the view of the Egyptian government widely. He accomplished the same thing once more by writing to the papers condemning Israeli transgressions on Islamic holy places in Palestine. By 1968, a widely publicized conference was convened by alAzhar to discuss the defeat of 1967. The conference declared the Jihad to be

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 201

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

201

a sacred duty one more time. Even though the only outlets available for the expression and communication of Islamic views during the Nasserite period were limited to al-Ahram and Majallat al-Azhar, the leadership of al-Azhar utilized these fully. The regime’s encouragement of views supportive of its foreign-policy goals was exploited in a similar fashion, to the extent that often the strident tone of al-Azhar exceeded that of the regime.59

CONCLUSION The Egyptian press underwent a great transformation during the Nasserite period. This was not only due to the establishment of a socialist system of government and one-party rule, but also to the emergence of new journalistic figures and personalities. Not only did faces change as a result of the nationalization of the press and the removal of prominent journalists from their previous positions, but the entire press institution became dominated by few figures loyal to the regime. A new relationship between the political and the press institutions was evolving, changing the focus of the royalist period from emphasis on the power of the fourth estate, to the management of that estate. The press now had different instruments, newer faces, a changed pecking order, a shattered syndicate, and definitely a new mission. More importantly, the press now had a dominant foreign policy issue, namely the Palestine question. The press continued to play a major role in the shaping of public opinion and communicating policy outlines to the reading public. One could even notice a greater readiness to share policy issues with the public through the media by publishing Nasser’s speeches in full and transmitting sensitive information. Yet the media spoke with one voice, experiencing a period of relative relaxation of censorship following the military defeat in 1967. Neither the Islamic press, nor leftist papers survived the officers’ regime. The Islamic press was now reduced to the organs of the al-Azhar’s religious and academic branches and reflected the news of the regime faithfully. Only when covering the Palestine question was al-Azhar’s hierarchy permitted to express a harsher line toward Zionism and imperialism than that of the regime. The Marxist press was eliminated totally, but its major figures were co-opted and enrolled in the major papers after serving a period of harsh imprisonment. The tone of the redesigned press emerged as decidedly leftist and pan-Arabist at the same time. After a brief honeymoon with the liberal press, most of which welcomed the officers’ government, this section of the press was tamed into submission by the imprisonment or driving away of its luminaries, such as the media moguls and innovative stars of that period, the Amin brothers, the Abu al-Futuh family, and the Syrian editors of the past. Official tolerance was extended

10_303_Ch5.qxd

202

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 202

Chapter 5

to Palestinian editors and reporters such as Nasser al-Din Nashashibi, but the shining star of that period and the man entrusted with state secrets and official announcements was Heikal. Other figures such as Ahmad Bahaa al-Din also basked in the warm sunrays of official approval, but none matched the close alignment of Heikal’s and Nasser’s thoughts. There was a state-approved alignment, however, between the press and the military officers charged with defending the shattered Canal Zone after the 1967 War. The press establishment was drafted in this trying task of rebuilding military faith in the possibility of defeating the enemy while shielding the regime from any criticism for past dereliction of duty. The other transformation of the press was actually the by-product of the transformation of the officers’ foreign policy priorities, especially following the 1956 Suez War. With the final repossession of the canal and the elimination of British bases, the Egyptian government was freed from its obsession with achieving genuine independence and began instead to focus on its role in the Arab region. The emergence of Egypt’s new position in the Arab world, nevertheless, was the result not so much of Nasser’s philosophy of the revolution, as much as it was the outcome of extant forces within the Arab world. Both the Suez War and the Egyptian-Syrian union excited the imagination of the Arab nationalists outside of Egypt who were buoyed into believing in Nasser’s suitability for the role of the one and only Arab leader of that period. Remnants of the Arab National Movement in Syria and Lebanon emerged weakened by struggles with the Baath party, only to seek a renewed Arab nationalist effort anchored in the leadership of Nasser. Despite the Egyptian leader’s clear reluctance to fulfill that role according to the specifications of the Arab intellectuals, especially after the dissolution of the Egyptian-Syrian union in 1961, he found himself subject to the pull and push of the Arab nationalist tide. Much of this pressure was the natural outcome of the deterioration of Arab-Israeli relations, particularly along the Syrian-Israeli border. It is probably safe to say that no one, not even Syria’s pan-Arab intellectuals, were able to foresee the results of Israel’s encroachment on the Jordan River’s waters or Egypt’s tightening of its grip on the Red Sea region. The outbreak of hostilities in June of 1967 finally forced Egypt to assume responsibility for the fate of Palestinians in a manner that exceeded the expectations of the pan-Arabists. But where the Egyptian press was concerned, 1967 inaugurated that phase of Egypt’s sponsorship of the Palestine question that characterized the rest of the Nasserite period. In the weeks preceding the war, an air of tranquility and self-confidence permeated Egypt. The press reflected this mood and was encouraged to convey military news as though no enemy had the country in its telescopic lens. The public, however, blamed the nonchalance of the press on its servile relationship to the state. Most of the demonstrations following

10_303_Ch5.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 203

Nasser’s Palestinian Passion: Advocating with One Voice

203

the debacle criticized the negligence and deliberate deceptive reporting of the press. Egyptians in general lost faith in this institution, the failure of which was matched only by the failure of military ranks at the time of battle. The performance of the press, in other words, demonstrated beyond any doubt the consequences of being an appendage of the country’s official party, the ASU. The rebuilding of Egypt’s military forces after the defeat, it was quickly realized, demanded a rebuilding of the country’s fighting spirit. This turned out to be Heikal’s challenge as he was formally charged with mounting a campaign of re-education designed to prepare the way for erasing the humiliating outcome of June 1967. This he accomplished deftly by decrying the mistakes of the past and building faith in the future while deflecting any blame away from the leadership of the state. Heikal even turned his heavy ammunition on powerful figures such as Ali Sabri, but survived because of Nasser’s backing and support. His greatest contribution to the status of the press in the post-1967 period was to hone its effectiveness as an educative and inspirational instrument of authority. Heikal accomplished this by demystifying the Israeli military achievement and explaining its success factually and realistically. Well aware of the national reach of his columns and journalism, he proceeded to instruct and teach the public about the premise underlying Israel’s swift wars, as well as their limitations. The other delicate task entrusted to Heikal was to sell the Rogers Peace Plan to a public long accustomed to Nasser’s nationalist bravado without appearing to have sold out the Arab cause itself. Again, he adopted a tone of realism to imply that good diplomatic work depended as much on stark realism as it did on projecting military strength and determination. The American plan was presented as something that suited Egypt’s recovery program only so well. When Palestinian guerrilla factions began to attack this imperialist scheme, Heikal responded by reminding them of the futility of their limited wars. He would often repeat that Egypt itself was no Vietnam and should not be expected to wage a guerrilla-style war against the enemy entrenched along the eastern shore of the Canal. But when the Jordanian Civil War loomed on the horizon, Heikal’s talent for defending the policies of the regime while refraining from any detraction of the credibility of the popular Palestinian guerrillas was called into play. Finding himself in the familiar role, which he played immediately after the defeat, he began to project the guerrillas’ rationale for carrying arms within Jordanian cities while at the same time providing space for the Jordanian regime’s declarations and communiqués. Only this time, a new tone crept up in Heikal’s editorials, namely emphasizing the shortcomings of the Arab governments, which he held to task for not diffusing the Jordanian-Palestinian crisis. There was also shifting of the blame away

10_303_Ch5.qxd

204

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 204

Chapter 5

from Nasser who was regarded as the great arbitrator by much of the Arab world. And so it went, until the Arab heads of state agreed to meet in Cairo for the final push toward ending the bloodshed. Throughout the Nasserite period, the Egyptian print media was to prove itself again as a very enlightening, if not always critical, public voice and instrument. If the royalist press was known for its fierce competitiveness, the Nasserite press gained great respect for the articulate expression of its major figures. Heikal, and to a lesser extent Ahmed Bahaa al-Din, where a new phenomenon in the life of the press institution—closely tied to the regime, yet capable of great analytical writing and the articulation of the objectives of regime and public alike.

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 205

6 E

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

T

he Egyptian press went through another tumultuous decade under Anwar al-Sadat. Not only was he determined to reshape Egypt’s foreign relations, but also to seek a revolutionary opening around the impasse of the Israeli-Egyptian relationship. In addition to this ambitious agenda, the Egyptian president was determined to restructure political and civil arrangements in such a manner capable of gathering all powers into his own hands. Like Nasser, Sadat was keenly aware of the enormous impact of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle on his own nation and the strong attachment of the Egyptian public to the concept of Palestinian political rights. For not only did he accede to power when Egypt was still straddled with the military aftermath of the 1967 June War, he was also conscious of the role played by the press in maintaining Egypt’s pan-Arab loyalties. Indeed, the most surprising aspect of Sadat’s regime and the radically altered direction of his domestic and foreign policies was precisely its emanation from such a Nasserite loyalist like Sadat himself. There were no surprises regarding the new president’s attention to the press establishment. Sadat himself enjoyed a long career as a professional journalist before and after Nasser entrusted him with running the affairs of Egypt’s major papers. Sadat had always claimed to understand what drives those who wield the power of the pen. His admirer, frequent speechwriter, and biographer, Musa Sabri, claimed that Sadat began to write when, as a young man during the 1940s, he was imprisoned for a period of thirty-seven months in a political assassination case. Upon his release, Sadat joined the publication of Dar al-Hilal as a professional journalist whereby he published his prison memoirs, as well as wrote a weekly 205

10_303_Ch6.qxd

206

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 206

Chapter 6

column. More significantly, he was appointed as the president of the administrative board of al-Jumhuriyah, the flagship publication of the 1952 Revolution. His new position allowed him to write a short political column that used to appear on the front page. He also used this opportunity to come out with four publications on his personal contribution to the 1952 Revolution. Sabri described the late president’s writing style as peppered with Quranic quotations and rich with insights gleaned from his extensive readings in the areas of literature, history, and politics. In some of his published prison memoirs, Sadat gave voice to many of his reactions to the political environment of the late monarchic period. He wrote that Egypt was run by corrupt political parties and leaders who betrayed the nation’s trust by succumbing to British colonial domination. After assuming the presidency, he made a great effort to revise and go over all of his public speeches, both in Arabic and English, as well as his published interviews.1 Although his journalistic career proved to be short-lived, he was fully focused on the power and influence of this institution, which he hoped to harness to his political career. What he inherited from the Nasserite period was a carefully worded constitutional statement defining press freedoms in a manner not all that dissimilar from constitutional guarantees of the past. In the 1970 constitution, Article 47 stipulated that “freedom of the press was guaranteed and that every individual has a right to express and publicize his views by the spoken or written word, or by photographic means.” A judicial rider was attached, however, stating that these freedoms were to be “within the law and self-criticism, as well as constructive criticism in order to guarantee the safety of the national structure.” Article 48 elaborated on this by adding that “Freedom of the press, of printing, and of dissemination of information was assured, press censorship was forbidden, and suspending, prewarning, or special conditions were added limiting these freedoms in times of national emergency or war when a limited form of censorship would be imposed on journals, publications and other means of information, in matters pertaining to the general safety or national security purposes.”2 Sadat often expressed his fear of the press prior to 1974, often intimating that he expected its full loyalty. But while he was proclaiming his dedication to democracy when confronting his formidable political enemies in the 1970s, his tone toward the press became threatening. His understanding of freedom of the press appeared to be only as a tool for conveying the political authority’s views to the public. His views of the Press Syndicate were equally as uncomplimentary, implying that he would push his critics out of this organization. The syndicate itself began to demand in 1972 the immediate lifting of censorship laws with the exception of censoring military and national security news.3 By June 1972, a member of the People’s Assembly, Egypt’s new parliament that succeeded the

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 207

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

207

ASU, by the name of Dr. Mahmoud al-Qadi, proposed a new law that would guarantee freedom of the press and outlaw the imposition of censorship without the consent of the Assembly. The proposed law also called for outlawing the transfer of journalists to other professions or preventing them from practicing their craft. This came about as the Press Syndicate demanded and eventually received the lifting of censorship, except over military news. The syndicate had actually sided with Sadat when he proclaimed his intention to get rid of his political adversaries by May 1971. Sadat first willingly went along with their demands by lifting all censorship laws, including those relating to telegrams of the foreign press. But within a month, relations between the president and the press worsened due to what he termed in several of his public talks as their abuse of newly acquired freedoms.4 Some of this worsening of relations was due to the involvement of most members of the press with the student riots of 1972–73. Students at the time were only one sector of the population that agitated for the resumption of fighting on the Canal front. A general wave of discontent had gathered momentum by then to demand an end to the situation of no-war and no-peace.5

SADAT AND HEIKAL BEGIN THEIR CONFRONTATION It should be noted that other factors contributed to Sadat’s decision to lift censorship laws, which came about as a result of the general political climate following the October War of 1973. The decision to end censorship was made in February 1974, at a time when Sadat began his economic liberalization policy that necessitated appealing to the West’s preference for the restoration of democratic freedoms. But this move did not imply that the president had the ability to tame and harness the press. For at that same time, two publicly watched events took place, namely the removal of Heikal from the editorship of al-Ahram and the release of Mustafa Amin from jail on medical grounds.6 As soon as Sadat came to power, he began to ease Heikal gradually from his influential role in Egyptian political decision making. Sadat quickly widened his contacts with members of the press establishment in order to bypass Heikal’s lock on conducting government views to the reading public. Some of the discredited old names were the recipients of favorable gestures, such as when Fikri Abaza, the dean of journalists during the royalist period, was asked to sit next to the president at a meeting with reporters. The president then began his private contacts and consultations with Musa Sabri, a veteran Coptic journalist eager to compete with Heikal for the persident’s ear. Shortly thereafter, Sadat’s regular telephone contacts included other prominent journalists such as Ihsan Abd al-Quddous,

10_303_Ch6.qxd

208

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 208

Chapter 6

Yousef al-Sibaii, Ali Hamdi al-Jammal, Ahmed Bahaa al-Din, Abd al-Rahman al Sharqawi, Ali and Mustafa Amin, Salah Hafiz, Muhsin Muhammad, and Muhammad Abd al-Jawad. The latter increased his closeness to the president by calling him each day at about ten o’clock in the evening to deliver to him a wrap-up of the most important Arab and international news as received by the Middle East News Agency. Abd al-Jawad also used to apprise Sadat of the gist of most telegrams issued by the resident foreign press. In later years when the regime began to bring out its two magazines, October, then Mayo, the editors of these, Anees Mansour, Ibrahim Saadeh, and Abdullah Abd al-Bari, began their regular contacts with Sadat. Mansour emerged as the president’s favorite literary companion with whom he used to practice walking every Wednesday afternoon, while Sabri emerged as the nearest thing to a close presidential press advisor since the distancing of Heikal. Sadat was not above co-opting major leftist literary and journalistic figures such as Abd al-Sattar al-Taweelah, Salah Hafiz, and Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi. Veteran leftist journalist, Lufti al-Khouli, praised Sadat in several articles, describing his new policies as “Sadatism,” just as the policies of the previous president were referred to as “Nasserism.” Ahmad Hamroush, a former leftist member of the RCC was also befriended and sent on a special mission to the Sudan in order to mediate a serious conflict between President Jaafar al-Nimeriy and rebellious communist officers. When Hamroush disappointed the president by recommending that Egypt recognize the communist coup in the Sudan, Sadat froze him from any official political role, driving him eventually to attack Sadat’s policies in the Kuwaiti press.7 The majority of the press, therefore, sincerely believed Sadat’s statements about the dawn of a new age of freedom and took heart in the knowledge that Sadat was seriously opposed to the system of the “foremost journalist.” It became perfectly clear to the general public that even though Sadat and Heikal began as friendly associates, and despite Heikal’s support for Sadat’s effort to remove his enemies from the centers of power, Heikal’s position changed drastically following Nasser’s death. For one thing, a new opportunity arose before the press, namely their unprecedented access to official news that was previously monopolized by Heikal. Many in the press establishment genuinely believed that Egypt was on the threshold of a liberal era where all journalists would be treated fairly by the authorities. But Sadat’s friendly approach to some journalists did not last long since criticism of his reluctance to reopen the eastern front began to mount.8 Among the leaders of this campaign were Marxist journalists who used the platform of the Press Syndicate to declare that Sadat was not prepared to resume the fighting and was in the process of writing the articles of surrender. Nasserist journalists were also part of this campaign, who claimed that all this talk about a possible war was simply for local and Arab consumption.9

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 209

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

209

Among these critical voices was Heikal’s. He was fully aware of student demonstrations and some internal disturbances because of the authorities’ reluctance to keep their promise of bringing matters to a resolution on the war front. These disturbances were also caused by the deteriorating economic picture and were covered by the press in the atmosphere of openness promised by Sadat. Little did the public know, however, that preparations for the resumption of hostilities were secretly underway and that Sadat’s military plans were placed on hold due to the outbreak of hostilities on the Indian-Pakistani front. Heikal was among the most prominent doubters. He wrote a series of editorials when still the editor-in-chief of al-Ahram between 1971 and 1973, which led to his trial by the public defender on grounds of contributing to defeatism. The first and most notorious of these editorials was titled “A Salute to the Men,” published on March 12, 1971, and was considered to be greatly discouraging to the men on the front, exaggerating the horrors of the war awaiting them.10 He wrote: The Egyptian Armed Forces are facing one of the most difficult battles in history. This is a reality, not an exaggeration. Let us for a moment conjure up the terrain that is facing Egyptian troops and what the enemy has constructed on this land, exploiting its features: 1. A dangerous water barrier, namely the Suez Canal. 2. Sandy hills along the eastern shore of the Canal. These have developed naturally but acquired additional height due to the continuing cleaning operations inside the Canal that deposited their material along the other side. The enemy has positioned its defensive front line immediately along the edge of the water. 3. An open sandy area beyond these heights, which was also bordered by the Canal’s shore and the beginning of the heights stretching toward Sinai, and which are only thirty meters from the Canal. 4. The area of the straits, which is extremely rocky, and which serves as the enemy’s second line of defense. 5. The open desert around the area of the straits, which provides many opportunities for an enemy greatly reliant on aerial combat.11

Heikal then went on to compare Egypt’s and Israel’s military postures in this manner: Why are we reluctant to say the truth for once in our lives . . . and that is the Egyptian army will face the Israeli army in its entirety.12

He continued to emphasize the difficulty of the upcoming battle by focusing on the line of defensive concrete bunkers known as the Bar Lev Line. Heikal explained that even though the Egyptian artillery had already succeeded in paralyzing this line and disrupting its cohesion, the enemy had begun to restructure this defensive stretch of bunkers within

10_303_Ch6.qxd

210

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 210

Chapter 6

the last few months. His understanding was that according to estimates by centers of strategic studies in Western capitals, the Israeli state has already spent over 200 million Israeli pounds (equaling 20 million Sterling pounds) on fortifying the Canal defenses. The reasons given for this massive expenditure were that Israel saw the need to adapt its fortifications to the challenge of the newly completed grid of Egyptian missiles in preparation for the coming battle. All this meant that the Egyptian army would face what was never faced by an army before, namely a difficult natural barrier such as the Suez Canal and a defensive line built immediately along its shore, which was the new location of the Bar Lev Line. He then commented that although warring armies in Europe during WWII faced water barriers such as the Volga in the east and the Rhine in the west, neither of these matched the Suez Canal in depth, width, or length. European armies during the same war faced formidable defensive fortifications such as the Maginot line built by the French and the Sigfrid line built by the Germans, but neither of these were built along a water barrier like the Suez Canal. He then proceeded to describe what the future strategy of the Israeli military will be like, predicting all along a dire fate for Egyptian forces stationed alongside the western shore of the Canal. He reserved his gloomiest predictions, however, for the role of Arab allies in this inevitable confrontation between the Egyptian and Israeli militaries. He stated emphatically that the Egyptian armed forces would face this battle alone. There will be some public statements declaring a state of heightened alert by other Arab armies, and even announcing that the forces of this or that country were being readied for advancing toward the front. But, unfortunately, he added, battles cannot be fought with official pronouncements and declarations, most of which end up aiding the enemy rather than the Egyptian army. Heikal then quoted Colonel Muammer Qaddhafi who was credited with a perceptive statement describing such Arab traditions, to wit, that we must be manly enough to admit that the Egyptian army stood alone at the battlefield. By claiming that there were other Arab armies at the battlefront, all that the Arabs accomplish would be to intimate to the rest of the world that Israel was surrounded by several armies and victimized by a number of colluding Arab states.13 Heikal then went on to describe the distribution of Israeli military forces along the borders of various Arab states, based on published information by Western centers of strategic studies. He claimed that the Jordanian front confronted only Israel’s internal security forces and the Syrian front faced only one Israeli brigade. The Egyptian front faced, in addition to the reservist forces that the enemy can quickly summon, two mechanized infantry companies, an armored company totaling four hundred tanks, an entire division of airborne commandoes ferried by helicopters, a hundred fighter planes stationed in nearby Sinai airports, and

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 211

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

211

between eight hundred and one thousand heavy guns. In addition, there were the other forces manning the Israeli fortifications along the waterfront. Thus, the Egyptian army will perform what was expected of it after the passage of the last four tumultuous years. The army was forced to accept responsibility for the sins of defeat when none of the fighting men were responsible for the losses of the previous war. But it was expected now to tolerate all kinds of military provocations by the enemy in anticipation of the moment when it would be permitted to return fire. In the meantime, the army was expected to rebuild its ranks, absorb new weapons and retrieve its faith in higher ideals. All of this was to be accomplished under the harshest of natural and human conditions ranging from suffering the cruelty of the desert to putting up with the enemy’s mastery of the skies. Sadly enough, the enemy has resorted to trickery by trying to penetrate to the depths of Egypt through targeting its vital services or going beyond the battle lines by raiding civilian targets and killing men, women, and children in factories, fields, and schools. Eventually, the enemy began to direct his madness at a thin strip of land along the western shore of the Canal, which was no more than thirty kilometers in depth. This strip, which was the heart of the advance lines of the Egyptian front, suffered an average of one hundred and fifty air raids daily over a period of one hundred continuous days.14 Once the satellite grid was established by July of 1970, the Egyptian army was called upon to move from the age of traditional warfare to the age of electronic warfare, using telescopes during the day to using infrared vision during the night. Then, in the middle of these seismic changes, the army’s highest leader departed. Despite the shock of Nasser’s death to the entire world, the army felt it the most. The fighters and Nasser enjoyed a special relationship. They knew that the leader who directed the battle of Suez was capable of directing the entire world. This leader enjoyed a historic position throughout the Middle East, through which he influenced the international system. He exuded confidence all the time, was relied upon during times of crises, and was a miracle man in an age bereft of miracles. Fortunately, the transition period from the battle as directed by Nasser to the battle directed according to his plans but by someone else, has passed peacefully. But the army has been asked in the end to await a political solution capable of resolving the crisis if peace loomed or to await instructions for the resumption of fighting. Finally, Heikal concluded that throughout this long road and from beginning to end, the Egyptian army always felt connected to its people and was anxious to resume the fight in order to eliminate some of the people’s burdens. This tendency, he emphasized, characterized a people’s army, not a political party’s army. This army was not a repressive instrument of the ruler, or a class-in-itself above other classes. During these final days

10_303_Ch6.qxd

212

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 212

Chapter 6

when Sadat declared to the nation in his address on the seventh of March, that time has come for each and every Egyptian to carry out his duty, the entire nation was straining to discern what the soldiers were saying from a distance. The soldiers’ thoughts echoed clearly and enthusiastically in a show of courage free of any of the other Arabs’ pretenses of courage. The soldiers were honest and expressed willingness to resume the fighting because there was no room on the front for engaging in a phony game of mutual political overbidding.15 Heikal, after recapitulating the entire article in his book account of the investigation by the attorney general, wrote that he was thoroughly amazed at the strange conclusions that were derived from his article. He reported that he was a victim of a concentrated campaign by the authorities. Such was the determination of the regime’s leading paper alJumhuriyah to vilify him, Heikal added, that at one time a single issue was devoted to four stories, the length of four entire pages, written by members of the ASU’s Executive and Central Committees. What surprised Heikal was that this group, representing the pro-Sadat loyalists who emerged after May 15 and the campaign to disperse the “centers of power,” were using the same arguments employed by the previous group. He then proceeded to defend the article and explain its nuances and intent. The reason behind the choice of the title “A Salute to the Men” was that the article was literally composed following government orders to place the armed services on red alert in preparation for a major military operation. The article was, in the main, an early effort to speculate and theorize about the shape of Israel’s military response to a possible Egyptian crossing operation of the Canal. The date of the article indicated that it was based on the author’s recent participation in several European political and strategic panel discussions and in-depth studies regarding the Middle East crisis. There he discussed urgent international issues with experts in order to assess various scenarios relative to the projected Egyptian crossing. Heikal protested that this activity was of the essence of the normal duties of a reporter in order to inform the Egyptian public of these necessary and useful facts. He also felt that this information would be a tribute to the fighting men in that the reading public would be informed of the challenges facing them and the nature of the duties assigned to them. In addition, if the public was educated regarding these military facts, it would make it easier for them to follow developments on the front. Besides, Heikal wrote, events surrounding the 1973 October War proved that the facts on which this article was based turned out to be an exact depiction of Israel’s military reaction to the Egyptian crossing. He should have been rewarded for coming up with this article instead of being investigated and attacked. He complained that his detractors claimed it was unnecessary for the ordinary reader to be exposed to all these facts.

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 213

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

213

But who had custodianship over the ordinary citizens’ reading rights, he asked? He also rejected the accusation that publication of the article was damaging to the morale of the fighting men by insisting that they probably knew what lay ahead of them when they started their operations.16 Heikal used this occasion to debate some vital freedom of information issues stemming from the interrogation. He confronted the main question posed by the prosecutor, namely why did he fail to pass all this information to the authorities in order to allow them the opportunity to act in accordance with their responsibilities? Heikal responded that this contention led to a wider question, meaning the responsibility of the journalist. There were some who considered journalists to be responsible to the ruling authorities, while others felt that they are accountable to their readership. The latter groups go to the extent of claiming that the journalist’s responsibility to the authorities is worthless unless it benefited the general reader. Heikal admitted to favoring this view, saying that he was motivated by his deep consciousness as an Arab journalist of his professional and national duty. That explained his decision to place everything he knew before the public, as well as the national leadership. He admitted also that one of his intentions was to alert the public to certain realities. He explained to his interrogators that the timing of the article coincided with placing the Egyptian military forces on a state of alert as a precursor to starting some operations. Tragically, he added, this activation of the front was launched in the midst of a serious struggle for power on the domestic scene. Heikal presented an irrefutable proof of this by quoting a passage from Sadat’s own book, In Search of Identity (1977), in which he referred to his struggle with the “centers of power” in January 1971 when he sought a decision from the ASU’s Central Committee, as well as the ministers of defense and the interior, regarding the Rogers Initiative. Those who were vying for leadership within the cabinet and the legislature recommended rejecting the American offer and launching the War of Attrition at a time when half of the country, namely Upper Egypt, was exposed to Israel’s punishing air raids. The same was true in 1968 and 1969, when the Soviet Union was procrastinating and refusing to deliver its promised missiles in order to protect national installations in Upper Egypt. Sadat concluded at the time that these tactics were a maneuver to embarrass him and the country. Sadat summed up by concluding the meeting of 1971 by rejecting the idea of another war of attrition until he received the promised Soviet missile batteries and secured the installations of Upper Egypt. Sadat also wrote that he then took the decision to extend the Rogers Initiative by one month only, ending on March 7, 1971, in order to put the world, the United States, and Israel on notice. Heikal reiterated that the timing of his article coincided with these events.17

10_303_Ch6.qxd

214

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 214

Chapter 6

Heikal, thus, fought vigorously against the charge of spreading defeatism among the general public and troops stationed along the Suez Canal. His interrogation lasted from June to August 1978, the results of which were referred to the People’s Assembly in a strange procedure calling on these political individuals to act as a judicial jury. The fact that the legal and political proceedings ended with lifting the ban on Heikal’s travel abroad did not remove the public sting of these motions. All published journals carried the details of the investigation, with general statements alluding to his disservice to Egypt by publicizing certain news abroad. Other journalists were subjected to the same procedure and were placed under a travel ban, but none stirred up such public emotions as Heikal’s trial.18 Heikal and Sadat squared off following the 1973 War in episodes which threatened the integrity and freedom of the press and revealed a great deal about Sadat’s views regarding these freedoms.

MUSTAFA AMIN GAINS HIS FREEDOM The release of Mustafa Amin from prison on humanitarian grounds due to poor health was interpreted by the public as another of Sadat’s proWestern gestures and a step in the direction of the liberalization of the press. The reality of the matter turned out to be something more familiar to Egypt-watchers at the time, namely the persistence of personalistic politics. The story of this release, which was recalled years later by Sadat’s close confidant, Musa Sabri, reads like a clichéd account of the power of women. Apparently, this development had very little to do with the removal of Heikal from al-Ahram a short while later. Sabri wrote that the effort to gain the release of Amin began as soon as Sadat came to power. The president’s initial response to these early efforts was to issue non-binding promises. Prominent Arab journalists like the Lebanese Said Freiheh pleaded on behalf of Amin. Sabri asked Sadat to remove the jailed journalist to a hospital on grounds of deteriorating health, only to be told that this would be considered a very political move. Then two women from Amin’s family interceded with Dalia, the wife of Mahmoud Abu Wafyah, Sadat’s brother-in-law, who reported back that Sadat closed all doors on this move because he considered it too risky. Another intercession came from Saudi Prince Talal ibn Abd al-Aziz, an old friend of Amin’s, but Sadat’s promise to allow transfer to a private hospital never materialized. Mustafa Amin’s brother, Ali, who was in self-exile in London, also began to appeal to any visiting Egyptian dignitary to help save Mustafa from jail. When reminded that Mustafa Amin has already spent almost nine of his sixteen years in jail, Sadat would say that the proper moment for carrying out this release did not arrive yet and that he would be released in

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 215

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

215

the company of a large number of political prisoners. Finally, Ali Amin ventured back to Egypt with the support of friends who lined up against Heikal and who, like Musa Sabri, hoped to bring out various allegations regarding Heikal’s contribution to Mustafa Amin’s fall from grace. Ali Amin then was able to meet Abu Wafyah through the friendship of the two men’s daughters. Amin put forth his brother’s case seeking his full pardon by the president though the latter had just approved Mustafa’s transfer to a hospital. Subsequently, Ali sent a respectful letter addressed to Jihan Sadat herself, asking for the privilege of spending his last years with his twin brother. Finally, Abu Wafyah arranged for an unplanned session between friends of the Amins and the president toward the end of the festivities accompanying the nuptials of one of Sadat’s daughters. That was precisely how Sadat finally yielded to pressure, with Amin’s friends describing Mustafa’s deteriorating health, his high blood pressure, and his hardening of the arteries at great length, while Jihan Sadat echoed their words. Mustafa Amin received the president’s full pardon the second day without, or despite, any intervention by Heikal. This achievement was great proof that Heikal’s star had finally fallen and a new firmament of media stars was about to emerge.19 Within a short period of time, Sadat began to surround himself with those who were on the receiving end of his largesse. First, Ali Amin was appointed as the editor-in-chief of al-Ahram following Heikal’s removal from the paper and entrusting the administrative board to Abd al-Qadir Hatem. Mustafa Amin, whose quick release from prison was delayed in order not to reflect on Sadat’s role as the heir of Nasser’s legacy was now appointed as a writer on the staff of Akhbar al-Youm, headed by Sabri. The only dissenting voice at that paper that resented the special favors bestowed on the recently freed Amin was that of Ihsan Abd al-Quddous. But the Amin twin brothers quickly re-established themselves at the center of the ideological battles raging on the pages of Egypt’s papers. Ali Amin took on the communist writing elite, sparring with Muhammed Sid Ahmed on the pages of al-Ahram. In a throwback to pre-revolutionary times, Amin also wrote defending the inheritance claims of a daughter of Shikoreil’s department store, which now belonged to the state. In addition, he recommends that Sadat open up to some neutral journalists like Ahmad Bahaa al-Din and Ali Hamdi al-Jammal in order to win them over to his side. But the Amin brothers began to irritate Sadat with their demands for the reopening of Mustafa Amin’s file and declaring publicly that Nasser falsely accused him of secret contacts with the Americans. In order to clear his name fully, Mustafa Amin demanded that the attorney general make public the testimony of certain people like Sudan’s former prime minister, Muhammed Mahjoub, which would demonstrate Nasser’s own efforts to sell the Americans news in exchange for some information. But the new minister of information, Kamal

10_303_Ch6.qxd

216

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 216

Chapter 6

Abu al-Majd, disapproved of the idea, which prompted the Amin brothers to subject him to their negative editorials.20 They also began to lose faith in Sadat’s support because he tolerated references to their alleged spying past in a university publication that was printed by al-Ahram. Ali Amin, who held weekly meetings with Sadat in order to get information for his column, “Tomorrow’s News,” was particularly miffed. At the same time, his leading line in this column that read “President Sadat has told me. . . ,” irritated those in the know. But the Amins’ fall from official grace came also as a result of the intrigues of one of Sadat’s closest advisers, Ashraf Marwan. Dubbed by Ali Amin at one time as “the miracle child,” Marwan was closely placed within the president’s collection of advisers by virtue of his family connections, being married to Nasser’s youngest daughter, Muna. The Amins felt all along that Marwan’s publication of his pictures with Sadat and rich Arab businessmen reflected negatively on the president. But the situation reached rock bottom with the publication of Mustafa Amin’s book detailing sophisticated torture methods in Nasser’s jails. Sadat’s hostility to press accounts of Nasser’s abuse of civil liberties was because some in the Arab opposition press, like Qaddhafi’s papers, began to insinuate that Sadat was behind this vilification campaign. Never one to tolerate or appreciate the vagaries of a free press, Sadat became increasingly impatient with the Amin brothers, especially as Ashraf Marwan began to portray them as a burden on the regime. Marwan had his own reasons for backstabbing the two prominent journalists, especially when they began to publish stories about his use of a government-owned plane to travel on his business trips to other Arab states. The Amins contended privately that Marwan’s ventures were also harmful to the president’s reputation, which did not reduce the latter’s resentment of this high-handed exposure of one of his closest operatives. And when it came to the Nasserite regime, the Amins’ determination to expose all of its cruelties overcame any desire they might have had to placate the president. Thus, when Ali Amin died after a short illness, Sadat did not console the surviving twin. Despite these differences with the President and their determination to continue with their exposition of the Nasserite regime even though Sadat would be implicated in these deeds, the Amin brothers enthusiastically supported all of Sadat’s major policies. Mustafa Amin always claimed that “Our position is we stand with Sadat’s regime.” Neither did the president’s attack against the British journalist David Hirst and his expulsion from Egypt stir Amin’s ire, who claimed that granting total freedom to foreign correspondents did not mean the freedom to lie, sensationalize, and distort the truth.21 Mustafa Amin’s attitude toward the Sadat regime began to change gradually after Ali’s death. His daily column in Akhbar al-Youm, “The Political

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 217

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

217

Scene,” and his takeover of his brother’s column, “An Idea,” in al-Ahram, as well as his column in Akher Saaha, became vehicles for unjustifiable selfcongratulation and taking credit for any of the other journalists’ achievements in these two papers. Flexing his muscles further, Mustafa Amin began to express indirect disapproval of everything related to Sadat’s rule. When Sadat authorized some opinion surveys, Amin countered by describing what it would be like to live under freedom and democracy while resisting personal rule and absolute rulers. His pre-revolutionary tendencies finally resurfaced when he began to support the newly founded Wafd Party, founded by Fouad Siraj al-Din. Mustafa Amin persisted with his support even after the new Wafd began to denigrate the 1952 Revolution by calling it a coup d’etat while defending the previous feudalist regime and the Pashas’ rule. Amin’s columns began subtly to express doubts in the historic necessity of the Revolution of the 23rd of July. For instance, one of “The Political Scene” columns greeted the legalization of the new Wafd Party by claiming that this was a return to freedom, democracy, and human rights. Sadat personally complained against the implications of the article to Musa Sabri, wondering if Mustafa Amin had joined the ranks of the Wafd Party. Sadat claimed that Amin was colluding with the Wafd in order to attack the revolution despite public knowledge of this party’s corruption and vices in the past. It was Amin himself, Sadat reminded Sabri, who convinced him of the corrupt nature of Wafdist rule before 1952. Sadat claimed that such misguided editorials will only serve to derail the nation’s youths, adding that this was not about the freedom of the press. Sadat added that Amin will not rule Egypt and will not be given an opportunity to destroy the Revolution through his alliance with Siraj alDin. Just because Amin was used to joining in the forming and removal of cabinets in the past, said Sadat, Amin must understand that that period was over. Sadat then demanded that the journalist launch a series of articles revisiting the subject of corruption under the old regime. But Amin objected, stating that if he focused on the story of corruption then, he must also focus on corruption now, and there was plenty to go around. But Sadat did not pursue the matter, being perfectly satisfied with this latest pressure on Amin as a form of serious criticism and informal restraint. Amin, however, never ceased his private criticism of the president, often referring to him in print as “the head of the company,” which Sabri used to edit out as “the Chief Executive.” Thus, Amin’s jabs persisted but in a more camouflaged manner, although he continued to affirm his love for the president whom he wished to save from himself. Amin would proclaim before the tightly knit circle of the president’s loyalists that if Sadat were to go, Egypt would be ruled by a communist or a Muslim Brother.22 Sadat’s disdain for Mustafa Amin grew when the latter began calling members of the People’s Assembly opportunists and lacking in self-respect,

10_303_Ch6.qxd

218

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 218

Chapter 6

simply because they aspired to join the president’s newly proposed political group, the National Democratic Party. Motivated by his favoritism toward the New Wafd Party, Amin refrained from attacking the Revolution but did not hold back when it came to analyzing the regime’s new institutions. Pressure by the deputies finally induced Sadat to come to a public break with Amin and suspend his activities. Sadat’s ire also grew when Amin began maligning the regime on the pages of the foreign press. Musa Sabri, nevertheless, insisted to Sadat that Amin always repeated that he was not like Heikal and would not write one word against Egypt in the foreign press. Sabri succeeded in buying time for Amin, who was allowed to use his editorial office at Akhbar al-Youm and was eventually allowed to return to his writing duties. The personal rapprochement between Sadat and Amin culminated in inviting the journalist to the wedding of Sadat’s son, Jamal, an invitation denied to Heikal who was then in the thick of the campaign against the Camp David Peace Accord. But all of this did not prevent Amin from launching a bitter attack against Sadat after his assassination.23

CONFRONTING HAMAMSY The intensity of the personal battle between Sadat and the Amin brothers was only matched by the president’s effort to tame another influential journalist, Jalal al-Din al-Hamamsy, whom he had known since 1943 when both were jailed at al-Zaytoun Prison. Sadat chose al-Hamamsy to be the deputy head of the administrative board of al-Jumhuriyah when Sadat was placed in charge of this publication by Nasser. After Sadat became president, however, his relationship with Hamamasy cooled and the president refused to receive him in his office for unknown reasons. Hamamsy then began to express a great deal of criticism of the president in his daily column in al-Akhbar, “Smoke in the Air.” Sadat did not appear to take this seriously until Hamamsy published a book titled, Dialogue Behind the Fenses, in which he accused Nasser of having pocketed the sum of ten million Egyptian pounds intended as a government loan from King Saud. Sadat flew in a rage and ordered the immediate freezing of alHamamsy’s position at al-Akhbar and barring him from the paper. Subsequently, a government inquiry by the attorney general and another one by the prime minister revealed that the story had no basis in truth. Apparently, what caused Sadat’s furor was the publication of the same story by Mustafa Amin in al-Akhbar. Sadat, who used to scream in defense of the maligned late president and the inappropriateness of calling him a thief, also expressed surprise that the same Hamamsy endured fourteen years of service on the editorial staff of al-Ahram without ever writing a single offensive word. Sadat was simply unable to accept this faithless act by someone whom he considered a friend.24

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 219

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

219

THE PRESS FOLLOWS THE GOVERNMENT’S LEAD BEFORE 1973 Despite Sadat’s intolerance toward free-wheeling and influential members of the press, his ability to influence the press corps and mobilize it prior to the October War boded well for the future of government-press relations. Sadat’s guidance of the press was actually the achievement of his minister of information during that period, Abd al-Qadir Hatem, who succeeded brilliantly in coordinating the regime’s informational and strategic policies. The press was encouraged to reflect a spirit of resistance and optimism and to reject defeatist stories released by the outgoing “centers of power” who wished to cast doubt on the competency of the Sadat regime. In addition, the press succeeded in breaking through to the Arab and international press, gaining a new credibility beyond the distortion that characterized its coverage of the news during the 1967 June War. The most successful strategy of the Egyptian media just before the 1967 War turned out to be capitalizing on the Israeli brutality toward the population of Gaza. But the greatest transformation of the press during the early 1970s was its ability to speak to the public mind and regain its faith in the written word. This was the unexpected dividend from the relaxation of press controls beginning with Sadat’s elimination of his former enemy holdouts from the Nasserite regime. Thus, the press utilized its new latitude to emphasize a deeper meaning of resistance, relying on historical precedents of other popular struggles by instilling a spirit of confidence and acceptance of the inevitability of the resumption of the war. The media also were allowed an opportunity to cover the diplomatic offensive preceding the October War and use it as one more tool toward qwelling the public’s fears and anxieties. Shifts in foreign policy, such as the gradual cooling of Egyptian-Soviet friendship following the signing of the treaty of 1972, were covered fully in perfect coordination with the regime’s intention of bringing the public on board when dismantling the pillars of Nasserite foreign policy. At the same time, any criticism of the United States was couched in softer terms, complaining mostly against its limitless support for Israel. The press attempted to bring forth interviews and new information about the enemy, in clear contrast to the exaggerations of the pre1967 period. The same freedom to broach new foreign policy areas was extended to the domestic front where news of student riots and subsequent trials were routinely covered, but without inflammatory opinions. Trials of the former “centers of power,” however, were debated openly, while the press always sided with the regime.25 Thus, Akhbar al-Youm launched an investigative study in October 1971, detailing Israeli plans for occupied Gaza, which was lost to the Egyptians in the 1967 War. The paper reported the net result of Israeli controls as fifteen thousand Palestinian refugees and the demolition of two thousand houses. The paper claimed that it was the plan of the newly appointed Israeli governor of Gaza to expel about seventy thousand residents and demolish six

10_303_Ch6.qxd

220

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 220

Chapter 6

hundred and sixty homes. The same report interjected a hopeful note in its story by claiming that despite the encirclement and starving of Gaza, it was still a source of great danger to Israel. The press also reported in great detail the United Arab Kingdom plan of King Hussein of Jordan. The idea, wrote al-Jumhuriyah on March 16, 1973, was to come up with a solution for the Palestinian issue by transforming the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan into a bi-national state made up of the liberated West Bank and the Jordanian East bank. The paper commented that the Jordanian monarch offered no inkling as to what steps he was willing to take toward the realization of the plan. The paper also argued that the proposed plan benefited Israel since it denied the Palestinians the right of self-determination and ignored Gaza’s special situation. Egypt soon revealed its opposition to the plan because it focused on the future of the West Bank only. The Egyptian government feared the implication of the plan, namely the idea that other lands that fell under Israel’s control after the 1967 War were also subject to negotiation. The Egyptian press reiterated the government’s insistence on restoring Egypt’s rightful possessions, even if this meant an imminent war. To strengthen the general public’s resolve in the coming battle, the press on its own hightened the emphasis on the lost canal and Egyptian nationals who were forced to become immigrants. Some articles even suggested that the entire 1967 June War was motivated by the desire to avenge the loss of the canal concession to European control. The press also willingly carried Sadat’s patriotic speeches on the occasions of commemorating Nasser’s death in which the president used to seize the moment to revisit the subject of the 1967 War in order to ease the nation’s sadness and grief. Sadat would always assert that Egypt had passed the point of crisis and was getting ready to bring to an end the state of no peace and no war. Indeed, during the third anniversary of Nasser’s death, the head of the ASU’s Peasants Secretariat and the assistant chief of the Women’s Cadre expressed similar views.The press reported the latter as having said that if women lost their freedom they would simply die. Ihsan Abd al-Quddous wrote in Akhbar al-Youm in September 29, 1973, under the heading, “We Paid a Great Deal in Order to Continue the Battle,” that people should regenerate their old feeling of hope and resistance in order not to give up on the possibility of liberating the land. He claimed that the effort to take the battle to places like the Congo, Yemen, Algeria, and the rest of the world had indeed succeeded and that the Egyptians were in a state of mobilization. The diplomatic campaign to take the war on Israel to other countries, continued Abd al-Quddous, was due to the fact that Egyptians have learned a great deal from the experience of defeat.26 The most remarkable achievement of the Sadat period in regard to the press was its leadership and control of this institution prior to the outbreak of the 1973 October War. Not only was the public’s eye riveted toward events on the canal front and the War of Attrition, which Israel

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 221

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

221

waged by virtue of its entrenchment on the eastern shore of that waterway, but a subcurrent of popular dissent continued to dodge the government. The question on everyone’s mind was the immediate necessity of attacking the enemy in order to evict it from Egyptian soil. The challenge to the regime was how to pursue its rearmament and military build-up, maintain the spirit of the public, and operate a visible diplomatic campaign, while maintaining a curtain of silence over its strategic plans. This studied secrecy succeeded in diverting attention from Egypt’s war plans so well that even the major powers were taken by surprise when Egypt launched its surprise attack in October of 1973. In his book on the diplomacy of peace (Peace Process, 1993), William B. Quandt, a national security adviser to President James Carter, described how the United States and the Soviet Union missed all the signs of war. Sadat’s war was as unexpected to the Egyptian public as it was to these major players.27 In retrospect, it was easy to detect the attention paid to information by the Egyptian regime prior to the war. Remarks made by Minister of Information Hatem on October 1, 1973, on the airwaves of Sawt al-Arab, hinted at the planning that was taking place in order to chart a new role for the media in the upcoming battle. He said that Egypt’s information policy was now committed to presenting the Egyptian public and the entire world with facts only, and it will do so objectively and with moderation. The government was determined to avoid exaggerations when assessing its military strengths and its victories. At the same time, the enemy’s strength will not be underestimated. The new policy was to present reality devoid of any emotionalism. Finally, he emphasized, the new attitude toward information was to report the facts and not to be entangled with baseless rhetoric. True to this policy, some interesting information began to surface on the pages of the press, indicating the existence of secret coordination with the media. On October 1, for instance, al-Ahram published a story about dispatching a large Egyptian military mission on the pilgrimage to Mecca. Another group of officers was said to have been granted visas for travel abroad. On October 5, one day before the Egyptian attack across the Canal, news of the Jarring Mission and how analysts viewed its results, as well as other diplomatic stories concerning contacts with the great powers filled the papers. None of the papers mentioned that an important meeting had taken place on October 5 that brought together the top military leaders of the country.28

NEWS COVERAGE OF THE 1973 WAR The first inkling of an opening salvo in a new war came two hours after the Egyptian attack, which appeared in an official communiqué at 2:00 P.M.

10_303_Ch6.qxd

222

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 222

Chapter 6

on the tenth of Ramadhan, or October 6. The announcement said that an Israeli attack on Egyptian soil had taken place and that Egyptian forces were offering a fierce resistance. The next morning, major Egyptian papers were describing the events of the previous day in an apologetic and understated tone. The papers emphasized that the domestic front was holding out well and that it was enjoying the solidarity of all classes in the country. News from the battlefront were transmitted by military correspondents who where permitted to accompany the troops when these crossed the Canal. The other major story was Egypt’s deft effort to explain its military action to the international community. This was followed quickly by news of efforts to align all the Arab countries behind Egypt and Syria for the duration of the war. Only one area remained shadowy during the first few days, namely the Israeli scene and what transpired inside that country. Some foreign broadcasting services continued to proclaim Israel’s invincibility during the early phase of the war, playing to a specific segment of international opinion. Major international papers were simply not ready to accept the reality of Israel’s military collapse during the early days of the war. It took the international media almost three days before coming around to the realization that Israeli reporting was not reflecting the actual picture. But when this media revealed the extent of Egypt’s initial victory, the Egyptian public became more receptive to such news. Egyptian news reporting from that point on was more credible, and a milestone has been crossed in terms of regaining the confidence of the reading public. As is customary in any war situation, the Egyptian media began to echo the voice of the government, carrying stories about accusations by the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Dr. Muhammad Hassan AlZayyat, who was visiting the United Nations at that time. He declared that Israel began the war and circulated his speech to all the members of the General Assembly, calling upon them to support all efforts to end the hostilities. The papers also routinely carried the reports of the Syrian government, especially its representative at the U.N., who made claims similar to those of the Egyptian official. Some official communications added to the public’s confidence in the management of the war. Such was the case with release to the press of the text of a telegram to U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger from King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, in which he responded to the American request to intervene in order to stop the fighting by shifting the responsibility to Israel and the United States. The Saudi monarch insisted that Israel initiated the war and that the fighting should be viewed as one in a series of Israeli moves to further its expansionist plans. The Egyptian papers, however, did not publish Kissinger’s responses and his message to the Israelis. Other morale boosting news items were published, such as al-Ahram’s account of the Indian government’s support for

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 223

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

223

the Egyptian position and its contention that Israel bore all responsibility for the resumption of the war. The Indian Foreign Minister added that his country stood foursquare with the Arabs, whose suffering has finally reached the explosive stage. Other supportive statements came from the Soviet Union whose statements insisted that Israeli hawks continued to defy peace forces around the world. The Cairo correspondent of the Soviet News Agency, Pravda, was reported as having assured his readership that the attack was meticulously planned at Tel Aviv. In addition, al-Akhbar reported the mobilization of Moroccan troops for joining the Egyptians at the front. Algeria’s president was also said to have instructed his military commander to remain vigilant and ready to be dispatched to the Egyptian front if need be. The Sudanese armed forces were reported to be in a similar state of military readiness. Thus, news of developments on the international scene, the Arab front, and within the neutral block of states was very reassuring. News from the Saudi Kingdom was particularly appreciated, especially when it was announced that this country, along with the other Persian Gulf states, reaffirmed their total backing of Egypt. Among the news stories of that period were accounts of popular mobilization, the economics of war, and the people’s steadfastness behind their government.29 The achievement of the Egyptian information campaign, which played out on the pages of the daily press in 1973, cannot be overestimated. For one thing, the government and the media succeeded in putting an end to the Israeli pursuit of a psychological war that began soon after the defeat of 1967. Some of this was waged by persistently inflating the story of the legendary invincibility of the Israeli military forces. But as of October 19, 1973, the Egyptian press began to respond to this negative propaganda by following a double-edged strategy of exposing the contradictions and inconsistencies of the enemy’s accounts while at the same time presenting photographic evidence in support of its own claims. Indeed, Israeli information outlets committed some of the same blunders perpetrated by the Egyptian side in the 1967 War. For instance, the Israeli media published Golda Meir’s complaint that her country was not only fighting the Arabs but the Soviets as well. This was reminiscent of Nasser’s often repeated statement in 1967 that American and British troops fought alongside Israeli troops and helped defeat the Arabs. The Egyptian media was bent on illustrating the fallacy of the 1967 Israeli wartime propaganda by duplicating its major themes. Just as the Israelis showed television images of captured Egyptian prisoners of war in 1967 with their hands above their heads, the Egyptians flashed images of captured Israelis subjected to the same pose. And just as the Israelis claimed in 1967 that Egyptian field commanders fled the battlefield abandoning their soldiers behind them,

10_303_Ch6.qxd

224

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 224

Chapter 6

the Egyptians were now reporting that captured Israeli fighters were found chained to their airplane and tank seats to prevent their escape. But old habits die hard, and the Egyptian media’s proclivity toward downplaying discouraging military news reasserted itself. This was clearly the case when reporting, during the latter phases of the war, on the Israeli crossing of the western bank of the Suez Canal. Thus, on October 20, alAhram began to soften previous news of the Israeli crossing by launching a series of analytical pieces claiming that the crossing was merely a psychological ploy, devoid of any strategic value. This view was attributed to the unanimous assessment of Western military experts such as the military editors of The New York Times and The Washington Post. The media made urgent effort to diminish the impact of Israeli penetration of Egyptian lines at the Defriswar region by giving full play to announcements of military leaders during specially convened press conferences. But by October 24, it became clear that the enemy had advanced through a weak area in Egyptian defensive lines. As of that date, Egyptian information outlets began to echo statements of the Egyptian military until al-Ahram published military report number 58 on October 25, which finally acknowledged the untruthful nature of the Israeli announcement of October 22 regarding Israeli control of an area twenty-four miles long and twenty miles wide, west of the canal. Thus, toward the end of the war, a gap developed between the public’s faith in the veracity of military communiqués and the inclination of the press to gloss over genuine reporting from the battlefield.30 The 1973 War proved once and for all that Egyptian information outlets were capable of ridding themselves of the complexities and negativism of the past. The Egyptian media appeared to be waging its own inner battle in order to regain the public’s trust by maintaining a rational and balanced approach based on a great deal of preplanning. For the first time, realism replaced the old habit of exaggerating official news. By waiting for events on the front to unfold rather than assume that the course of battle was moving smoothly in Egypt’s favor, the press was able to acquire a new credibility. Similarly, the media refrained from blowing up the heroic achievements of Egypt’s fighting men and waited for the international press to explain the end of the legend of the invincible Israeli military. There was even a different approach to addressing the Egyptian public than that of addressing international opinion. When framing news stories that were of interest to the international media, the Egyptian press stressed Israel’s responsibility for starting the war and often made reference to the possibility of using the Arab oil weapon. There were always reminders that the Arab countries did not wish to do harm to the economies of friendly countries but that Israeli intransigence made a future Arab oil embargo inevitable.31

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 225

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

225

LIFTING FOOD SUBSIDIES LEADS TO A CRISIS The press honeymoon did not last. Sadat reached a crisis point in his relationship with the press as soon as he turned his attention to Egypt’s postwar economy. As soon as he began to prepare for overturning the socialist legacy of Nasser, Sadat began to prepare the press for the future 90 degree turn that he planned to take. The first time Egyptian officials came face to face with the need to lift subsidies on food and other essential products was when the cabinet of Mamdouh Salem began discussions regarding improving economic conditions and ending corruption in the country. One of Egypt’s leading economic experts, Abd al-Moneim alQaysouni, who headed a committee known as the Economics Group, broached the subject of economic reforms during a cabinet meeting in 1975. He stated that the World Bank demanded the lifting of these government subsidies as a condition for lending the country the sum of two hundred million Egyptian pounds. He added that the ship of state (almarkab) was economically tilted and might even sink unless such decisions were taken. He was also very specific on the type of products, including food items, which needed to be allowed free floating without any outside subsidies. He added later that part of the blame for this situation lay with other Arab governments, which were reluctant to extend any economic aid to Egypt without prior consultations with World Bank experts. A huge debate ensued among cabinet members, some of whom were hoping to fix prices in order to ease people’s suffering rather than lift the cap on prices. It turned out that the cabinet was informed of this matter after Sadat was completely won over to the side of the economic reformers. At first, the discussions were conducted in complete secrecy, fearing violent reaction by the public. Journalists friendly to the regime, like Musa Sabri, were soon asked to launch a campaign in the papers to prepare the public for the impending reforms. Mamdouh Salem took this a step further by holding a meeting on January 12, 1977, with the parliamentary committee of the Misr Party that later became the nucleus of the National Democratic Party, Sadat’s main organized backers in the country, in order to get their support for the reforms. Premier Salem planned to present the reforms for discussions before the entire People’s Assembly. By January 18, Egypt had a full-fledged rebellion on its hands. The public became aware of what was afoot when taxicab owners were permitted to raise their prices as soon as they became aware of the lifting of gasoline subsidies, news that they received as a result of Sadat’s open discussions of this issue with members of the ASU.32 The economic reforms first came under attack by members of Misr Party as Salem unveiled the government’s proposals before the People’s Assembly. The deputies expressed anger in defense of the suffering Egyptian

10_303_Ch6.qxd

226

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 226

Chapter 6

public. Salem read their public outbursts as a bid for votes in the coming elections but took the extra precaution of ordering the minister of interior to take security measures and prepare to face inevitable public protests. Just as expected, the workers of Helwan industries began marching toward the People’s Assembly and university students gathered in large force and prepared to march. Eventually, the intensity of these protests threatened to cause the fall of the government by targeting police stations and government buildings. The army was deployed in a limited fashion, always keeping in mind that soldiers may join the demonstrators. Deploying the army in selected public squares and a declaration of a national state of emergency finally restored calm to Egypt’s major cities by January 20. The events surrounding the food riots came to be known as the “events of January 19,” that being the most violent day of the disturbances. Calm was restored only after Sadat rescinded most of the reforms, having avoided direct contact with the situation by remaining in his winter retreat at Aswan. He was convinced that the root causes of the riots were deeper than the issue of lifting government subsidies of food and fuel items. He was also told that leftist elements instigated most of the riots, but he resisted the temptation to prosecute these forces for fear of aggravating relations with the Soviet Union and instead removed Sayyid Fahmi, the minister of interior, from office. Sadat, in his usual fashion, focused his energies on mounting a strong public relations campaign with the intention of winning back some of his lost public approval rating. He authorized an information effort on January 19 by having Dr. Qaysouni face a battery of newspaper editors before the television cameras to answer questions about the economic policies of the regime. Defending government policies turned into a shouting match, particularly as Taher Abu-Zeid, one of Egyptian television’s leading personalities, attacked manifestations of wealth such as lavish wedding celebrations at major hotels. The inflammatory tone of the entire television session probably played a role in the burning of Akhbar al-Youm’s headquarters that same evening and demonstrations were resumed throughout the country.33 The media itself became the object of heavy criticism by members of the National Security Council in two lengthy meetings convened by the president in order to assess the situation. The media, particularly al-Akhbar, was accused of contributing to the loss of confidence in the government by publishing details of the anti-corruption trials. Musa Sabri, one of the staunchest loyalists of the regime, defended his paper al-Akhbar against such accusations by describing the difficulty of obtaining government documents to prove or disprove rumors of corruption and malfeasance in office. Additional attacks on the press came from the minister of foreign affairs, Ismail Fahmi, who complained about launching anti-Soviet attacks on the pages of the loyalist press even though Egypt relied heavily

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 227

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

227

on the Soviet Union. Fahmi pointedly referred to anti-Soviet articles on the front pages of al-Akhbar at a time when Egypt was earnestly trying to improve its relations with that power. Surprisingly, Sadat, who was present at that meeting, defended the paper by revealing that he was behind these attacks. Musa Sabri then explained that his editorials were in reaction to Pravda’s attacks on the Egyptian government during the January 19 riots and that they were cleared by the president. But Sabri was in the minority, while other papers were unrestrained in their analysis of the situation. Still basking in the afterglow of the October War, the press utilized the long leash allowed by the president to refer to the food riots as a popular uprising (intifada shaabiyah), placing the blame on Mamdouh Salem’s cabinet. Prominent journalists like Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi, Salah Hafiz, and Fathi Ghanem adopted a similar stand mainly on the pages of Rose al-Yousef, while maintaining all along that no specific ideological forces were involved. Mustafa Amin, however, described it as an uprising of thieves, echoing Sadat’s description. The food riots became an opportunity for foreign criticism of the regime such as the British Guardian’s foreign correspondent in Cairo, David Hirst. Closely associated with Heikal, Hirst targeted Sadat for criticism in all of his stories that appeared outside the country. Hirst quickly earned the animosity of some in the press establishment like Mustafa Amin who agreed with the president’s decision to expel him from Egyptian soil. Sadat was particularly unhappy with the response of the Marxist writers such as al-Sharqawi and Hafiz since he was the first to legalize an official communist party in Egypt and allow the publication of their papers. Expecting nothing short of blind loyalty to his regime in return, he was stunned to see that ideological considerations superceded private loyalties, at least where a popular uprising was concerned. He was also particularly angry to see his distinction between a group he considered to be nationalist Marxists and pro-Moscow Marxists disintegrate at the first instance of street violence. Sharqawi was one of Sadat’s favorites, having viewed him as essentially an Islamic thinker endowed with the typical simplicity and goodness of the Egyptian peasant. But even Sharqawi could not overcome his Marxist roots and was compelled to resign his position as the Editor of Rose al-Yousef, a government paper, by feigning ill health. A man of great integrity, he reportedly confronted the president years later after the signing of the Camp David agreements by expressing his rejection of the peace accord. When asked why, he asserted that Israel should not be allowed to open up an embassy in Cairo before the evacuation of the last Israeli soldier from Sinai. The president grew less and less tolerant of the press that he himself unbound, eventually blaming his minister of information, Jamal al-Atifi, for allowing the views of the parliamentary opposition to emerge freely during televised open sessions.34

10_303_Ch6.qxd

228

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 228

Chapter 6

THE RISE OF THE OPPOSITION PRESS Sadat’s view of the ideal relationship between the press and the regime was severely tested with the launching of the Camp David Peace Initiative. This dramatic reversal of Nasser’s pan-Arabist policy was preceded by gradual political liberalization, beginning with the legalizing of political parties and allowing for the emergence of rightist, centrist, and leftist “centers of power” within the ASU. This process was inaugurated early in 1976, and was followed by a vigorous election campaign to choose members of the People’s Assembly followed by the law regulating political parties, issued in June 1977. At first, the following parties emerged: the Misr (Egypt) Arab Socialist Party of the center, the Ahrar Socialist Party of the right, and the Tagamuu National progressive and United Party of the left. The law stipulated that no parties based on Marxism or religious affiliation will be allowed to function. A later amendment to the law in 1979 prohibited the regeneration of pre-revolutionary parties with the exception of the Nationalist and the Socialist Work parties.35 Following the tradition of the pre-revolutionary period, each of these parties began to publish a paper, adding to the intense competition of the free, or party, press, and the official, government-owned press. When the decision to allow the emergence of an independent press was made as a prelude, some would say, to the diplomatic battle for the Camp David peace, the government was the sole owner and operator of all of Egypt’s publishing houses. These monopolized all the print media through the ASU’s general ownership of all existing press institutions. The publishing houses of al-Ahram, al-Akhbar, Dar al-Tahrir, Rose al-Yousef, and al-Hilal in addition to the Minister of Information’s ownership of the Middle East News Agency and the Majellat of the Broadcasting Service, all expressed the government’s viewpoint. The role of a loyalist press fell to the papers of Misr Arab Socialist Party, which was considered to be the ruling party of Egypt. The party was headed at first by Mamdouh Salem, the prime minister, and its chairmanship was entrusted to Mahmoud Abu-Wafyah, the president’s brother in law. All papers, with the exception of Rose alYousef, edited by Salah Hafiz, and whose board of editors was headed by Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi, and al-Taliaah, edited by Lutfi al-Khouli, became mouthpieces for HIzb Misr, the ruling party.36 The authorities quickly moved to co-opt or control any new party papers. Al-Ahrar, voice of al-Ahrar Socialist Party, suffered such an attempt as soon as it emerged in November of 1977. According to Mustafa Kamil Murad, the head of this party, which was considered the loyal opposition by the regime, he was pressured by the government to disinvite Hamamsy from the position of editor-in-chief of al-Ahram since his loyalties did not lie with the regime. Hamamsy was then replaced by Salah Qabadhaya. But as soon as

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 229

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

229

the paper began to gain a wide readership, the regime determined that it was time to trim its sails. Word went out to al-Akhbar publishing house to cease printing the paper, as print paper used to be a government monopoly distributed to official publishing houses only. Murad appealed against this decision to Mustafa Khalil, the secretary-general of the ASU, only to be told to seek redress from Sadat himself. Murad was eventually made to understand that the role of the opposition was getting out of hand and that al-Ahrar must be suspended for a while, prior to the revamping of the entire editorial staff. Reissued in May 1979, al-Ahrar emerged as a shadow of its former self, limiting its coverage to the marginal issues of the day. Al-Shaab, the voice of the Socialist Work Party that appeared in May 1979, also suffered similar government co-optation. As soon as the party emerged, Sadat pushed some of his close advisers to join in order to secure its loyalty to his regime. Mahmoud Abu-Wafyah and others were suggested as necessary additions for the completition of the party’s legal quorum, but were soon embroiled in disputes with the original independent founders. The man who headed the editorial staff of alShaab, Hamid Zeidan, came under heavy pressure to cancel some critical editorials. This caused Abu-Wafyah to increase his pressure on the party and resulting in its loyalists instructing Dar Akhbar al-Youm, headed by Musa Sabri, to cease the printing of al-Shaab lest the party itself disintegrate. The upshot of all of this was the withdrawal of the pro-Sadatist forces within the party and the strengthening of al-Shaab’s oppositional role under its editor, Zeidan. Three of its contributing editors, Fathi Radhwan, Muhammad Asfour, and Hilmi Murad, emerged as powerful voices of the opposition with Murad’s contributions becoming particularly irritating to Sadat. Some of Murad’s subjects concerned Egypt’s “First Lady” and terrorist tactics of Sadat’s domestic rule. Radhwan came up with a particularly sarcastic deconstruction of Sadat’s often-repeated claim that he restored freedom to the Egyptian people and gave them an opportunity to practice democracy. Radhwan retorted that the Egyptian people were born free and were not indebted to the president for bestowing what was essentially their birthright. Al-Shaab continued to appear until No. 122, which was confiscated by the authorities in August 1981, but was later reprinted following the cancellation of these laws in September of the same year.37 The most prominent voice of the opposition turned out to be al-Ahali, which came out following the release of most of its future editors from jail by June 1977. Buoyed by Presidential Decree No. 40, issued on July 2, 1977, upon the approval of the People’s Assembly, the most determined opposition known as al-Tegamuu decided to publish their paper. The decree, which appeared in the official gazette on July 7, 1977, stated under Article 15 that each political party had the right to issue one or more papers without any

10_303_Ch6.qxd

230

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 230

Chapter 6

restrictions such as obtaining an official permit according to Article 1 and 2 of the Press Law 156 issued in 1960. Several obstacles faced this paper from the start. One was a financial issue, a question later resolved by adopting the suggestion of Hussein Fahmi, a veteran journalist and six-time chair of the Press Syndicate. His suggestion was to prepare a study of the cost of issuing a weekly paper, which proved that a minimum of 150,000 Egyptian pounds was needed just to launch a paper. Awed by this sum, the group turned to an alternative and simple measure, which was to come up with the cost of printing five or six issues only and rely on income from the sale of the paper and advertisements. This risky course was finally adopted and the first budget of the paper came from donations from friends and members of alTegamuu. A second question arose concerning the constituting of an editorial staff, since al-Tegamuu was newly formed and was composed of various ideological factions, which came together for the first time in their history. It was finally agreed to organize an editorial board headed by Salah Hafiz who used to head Rose al-Yousef, and joined by Muhammad Oudeh, Abd al-Ghani Abu al-Einein, Hussein Abd al-Raziq, Philip Jallab, and Mahmoud alMaraghi as members of the board. All served without any remuneration. Then the question of the paper’s name came up, generating considerable debate but finally being narrowed down to five suggestions: al-Ahali (The People); Al-Yasar (The Left); al-Taqqadum (Progress); al-Tegamuu (The Alliance); al-Masri (The Egyptian). The latter suggestion was made by Salah Hafiz, who declared that this choice would result in lawsuits by the publishers of the previous al-Masri, the Abu al-Futuh family, which would generate considerable publicity for the new paper. At the same time, there was some opposition to the title of al-Yasar, since it narrowed the readership of the paper to the leftist variety, intimating that the paper was the voice of communism in Egypt. Al-Yasar, explained others, should stand for Nasserites, Marxists, and Nationalists but was usually associated in the public’s mind with Communists. Those who rejected the title of al-Tagamuu complained similarly against a narrowed reference that would exclude considerable leftist elements still outside of the party. Thus, almost everyone swung to the choice of Al-Ahali, particularly after Dr. Rifaat al-Said, veteran Marxist ideologue, read a historical summary of a journal by the same name that appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century. He later wrote the history of the other al-Ahali in no. 16 of Sawt al-Tegamuu on May 17, 1978, explaining that the paper was published by Farag Antoun to coincide with the 1919 Revolution and was closed by the British occupation regime because it excited public opinion. Al-Said added that Antoun was not silenced, for he published al-Mahrouseh the second day in order to carry on with the original message of al-Ahali, but it too was closed. What clinched the choice of alAhali, however, was al-Said’s report of an Iraqi paper also called al-Ahali, which appeared in Baghdad on January 2, 1932. This publication was also

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 231

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

231

produced by an alliance dedicated to the idea of creating an Iraqi society based on new social, economic, and political principles. The name of this alliance was Jamaat al-Ahali and later became the nucleus of the Democratic Nationalists Party in 1946. The editor-in-chief of the Iraqi al-Ahali was Hussein Jamil who declared that the national task and the pursuit of democracy were two sides of the same coin, adding that democracy should not be limited to political democracy but must be inclusive of social and economic equality.38 At the same time when the free press began to rear its head, Egypt experienced the rise of a new Islamic press. Several of this genre appeared as soon as the press laws were relaxed in 1977. Some papers took on the title of bygone publications such as al-Daawa, along with al-Mukhtar al-Islami and alIitissam. These papers continued to publish the legally required number of issues in order to maintain their permits since 1952.39 Of all these, al-Daawa was the most authentic representative of the thought of the Muslim Brotherhood and the most strident in its coverage of the Palestine question. First issued on January 30, 1951, it was suspended in 1952 when the editor was the movement’s secretary-general, Saleh Ishmawi. When the paper was reissued in commercial quantities again in July 1976, its editor was no less than the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Omar al-Talmasani. This was the most experienced political chief of the Brotherhood and who served a fifteen-year prison sentence after being accused of involvement in the assassination plot on Nasser’s life at al-Manshiyah. Released in 1971, a year after Nasser’s death, he succeeded Hassan al-Hudhaybi after the latter’s death in 1973, a position he held until his own death in 1986. It was Ishmawi who continued to issue al-Daawa sporadically and in limited quantities so as not to lose its permit. Ishmawi himself was arrested in 1981 because of his journalistic activities and was not released from prison until Sadat’s death. Al-Daawa finally lost its permit soon after Ishmawi’s death in 1983, to be succeeded by another paper in February 1986, under the title of al-Basheer. Ishmawi always held the publishing rights to al-Daawa, which, when it reappeared fully in 1976, carried the official logo of the Brotherhood, namely two swords and the Qu’ran. This was in addition to the old motto of “The Voice of Truth, Power, and Freedom.” The paper, in addition to its claim of being the authentic voice of the movement after 1976, was committed to the thought and directives of al-Banna and al-Hudhayabi, often publishing directives and declarations of the movement. Among the people who regularly contributed to it in the 1970s were some of the Brotherhood’s old stalwarts such as Saleh Abu-Raqiq, al-Talmasani, as well as his successor as Supreme Guide, Muhammad Hamid Abu al-Nasr. The oldest among the Brotherhood’s old guard, Abu al-Nasr, was also a member of the committee that collected weapons for the fighters in the 1948 Palestine war. Al-Dawaa followed a set formula, devoting the lead editorial to the expression of the Brotherhood’s

10_303_Ch6.qxd

232

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 232

Chapter 6

views, which was always authored by the Supreme Guide. The rest of the stories, articles, and opinion columns were the true expressions of the authors’ views while at the same time hewing closely to the general guidelines of the Brotherhood.40 But access of the Islamic press to the news continued to be subject to the authorities’ pleasure. Sadat combined the lifting of government censorship and the old system of permits with a new and bureaucratized means of control. He issued new directives to the cabinet calling for the facilitating of the flow of news from government agencies to the public. Calling this a democratic move assuring a significant measure of transparency and equality of treatment, particularly after dislodging Heikal from his unofficial position as Egypt’s foremost public journalist, Sadat envisaged equal access by all the press establishment. A new section was created in every government ministry and public agency, known as the office of public relations, which was entrusted with the task of issuing press communiqués. Naturally, these communiqués released only the kind of information that the authorities wished to share with the general public and became a form of news management. In addition, some journalists began to apply self-censorship standards in order to avoid confronting the regime. To add to the stifling of freedom of expression, the Egyptian media was particularly dependent on foreign news agencies for outside news. As much as 78 percent of news coverage derived from these external sources. This led not only to focusing on the news of the advanced and developed Western countries such the United States and Western Europe, but also to the marginalization of news from the non-Western countries. When all contacts with the press of the Arab countries were severed, the role of Western news agencies became even more pronounced.41 Sadat also attempted different methods of control while at first avoiding a direct confrontation with the media. By publicly distinguishing between what he referred to as cheap and hyperbolic representation of the news and constructive criticism, he reserved for himself the role of an impartial arbiter of the profession of journalism. Thus, beginning in 1975, he issued an edict for the creation of the Higher Press Council under the leadership of the General Secretary of the ASU and including the membership of prominent members of the press and other distinguished government officials. By March 1976 a law was passed seeking the reorganization of editorial boards of major papers. Workers in ASU-owned publishing firms would own 49 percent of these companies. The Higher Press Council was entrusted with overseeing the conduct of those inside the publishing houses, as well as the creation of a code of honor, defined later as a set of national, religious, and political values that were to be observed by all those working in the journalism field. The public, however, interpreted these measures as no more than attempts to impose new re-

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 233

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

233

strictions and operating principles on the press.42 The idea of a higher press council had actually emerged in the 1960s and was intended to be a committee attached to the ASU regulating the political and press relationship. But the idea was laid to rest since the authorities maintained total control over the media. The idea resurfaced again in 1970 when Dr. Jamal al-Atifi, minister of information, came up with the idea of creating a council dedicated to the defense of freedom of the press in the interest of public opinion and not necessarily in defense of the media itself. Atifi was guided by the example of the British Press Council but the authorities rejected any attempt by the Press Syndicate to play a role in its creation. When the Council saw the light in 1975, the idea of serving as a self-regulatory agency had given way to its new role as an instrument of political control of the journalism profession. The Council was charged with the following: (1) Writing a code of honor governing the journalistic profession in order to guarantee freedom of the press, along with safeguarding the public interest and citizens’ rights, (2) preparing work regulations inside the press institutions, be that professional standards or journalists’ wages in order to maintain equality among all employees, (3) licensing newspapers and journals, as well as issuing licenses for journalists. The totality of these duties, thus, replaced the role of the ASU as a regulator of the journalism profession. The most revealing feature of this council was its membership. The government made sure to name the head of the ASU, who was the president of the country, as the nominating officer, and the general secretary of the ASU’s Central Committee, the head of the People’s Assembly, the head of the Press Syndicate, one of the attorney’s of the Appeals Court, as well as, three heads of press organizations and editors-in-chief, three public officials, the dean of Cairo University’s College of Information, two members of the Press Syndicate, three journalists whose work history did not exceed fifteen years and who will be nominated by the Syndicate and the chief of the printing and publishing tradeunion as members.43

THE PRESS AND THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS As soon as the October War of 1973 ended and following the signing of the Disengagement Agreements between Israel and its enemies during that war, the Sadat government launched a sustained campaign to prepare the public for peace. One of the remarkable things about the peace settlement with Israel was that it was accompanied from the beginning by a huge government information effort. This was designed to gain popular support for the future peace treaty with Israel through a very polemical debate emphasizing the practical advantages of that peace. The government’s line

10_303_Ch6.qxd

234

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 234

Chapter 6

began by linking openly Egypt’s economic woes and the country’s involvement in Arab issues, particularly in the Palestinian question. The argument went on to claim that wealth has now fallen under Arab (Gulf States) control and it was time for Egypt to attend to its own economic issues. It was said that a new peaceful era lay ahead and the public must reconsider its entrenched commitment to Arabism and re-examine its Arab identity. In support of this thrust, the following facts were marshaled: 1. Egypt had already suffered the loss of 100,000 martyrs in its wars against Israel. 2. The Egyptian people sacrificed more than 30 billion dollars in these conflicts. 3. The Soviet Union never supplied Egypt with adequate military equipment to insure victory over Israel. 4. The United States will never allow an Israeli defeat. 5. Egypt’s economic woes were the result of the Israeli military confrontations. 6. While Egypt has sunk deeply in dept, the rich Arabs are depositing billions of dollars in the bank. 7. Some Arabs do not wish to see a solution to the Palestine question since they profit from it. An intellectual argument as well as a political attack, this campaign managed finally to create real cracks in the Arab direction of Egypt’s foreign policy. A new emphasis was placed on Egyptian nationalism per se as a result of weakening the former Nasserite Arab identification of Egypt. This campaign was carried out through the official channels of information but was soon joined by leading intellectuals like Tawfiq alHakim, Louis Awadh, and Hussein Fawzi. The idea of signing a peace treaty with Israel was accompanied by unleashing visions of prosperity and economic well-being in the future. The media never tired of expounding on the deteriorating condition of the sewer system, telecommunications sector, highways, and bridges. It was said that all aspects of Egypt’s physical infrastructure were in need of massive repairs that could only be accomplished through putting an end to the hemorrhaging of war and opening the door to foreign investments.44 Sadat also had powerful loyalists in the media who supported the Egyptian peace initiative fully. Among the strongest voices to applaud the president’s new diplomatic foray was Musa Sabri. Strangely, this prominent editor had opposed the idea of seeking a peaceful and diplomatic solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict on the pages of al-Akhbar on October 29, 1967, claiming then that a peace settlement can only be pursued as a specific stage in the nationalist struggle. The Arab question, he continued,

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 235

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

235

can only be resolved on Arab soil despite America’s pressure in favor of relinquishing the armed struggle. He wrote that Egypt was living its most crucial days in the wake of the 1967 defeat and was literally fighting for its own survival. He then proposed that each and every working unit in the land must declare itself a revolutionary cell and that the domestic front must prepare itself to confront the Israeli enemy just as if it were the fighting military front along the country’s borders. By the 1970s, Sabri had made a 90 degree turn, describing Sadat’s decision to visit Jerusalem as a masterly stroke and the most dangerous stage in the entire history of the Middle East since thirty years ago. Those countries that opposed Sadat’s peace initiative were described as merchants wishing to use the Arab cause as an item in their commercial deals.45 Sabri accompanied Sadat on his historic journey to Jerusalem, and always remained a staunch defender of the president’s peace initiative. Sabri, who viewed himself as an insider and privy to the president’s innermost thoughts, felt perfectly comfortable in extolling the president’s innermost views. In his biography of the president, titled Al-Sadat, he wrote that the enemy was equipped with weapons from NATO, and Egyptian troops had never confronted this type of weaponry before. This development took place after the Israelis managed to penetrate Egyptian lines toward the end of the October War. Sadat was therefore behaving with realism, knowing full well that he was incapable of standing up militarily to U.S. power. President Nixon himself had acknowledged this intervention by the northern Atlantic states. When Sadat brought out the case of the Aswan Dam, Sabri eagerly repeated the same line. Egypt’s survival was now tied to the safety of the dam. No country in the world was tied to the safety of one dam except for Egypt, not even the United States where a dam collapses every four years. But world seismic experts have concluded that if the Aswan Dam suffered a military hit, then all of Egypt would drown. Sabri added that even Nasser worried about the defenses of the great dam, which pushed him to entrust the entire aerial defenses of Egypt to Soviet forces. Nasser did not sacrifice Egypt’s independence but was merely trying to ensure that Egypt would not suffer the consequences of a totally demolished dam.46 Sabri then slyly moved to the topic of Nasser’s openness to diplomatic approaches in order to ward off another attack by Israel, for had not the former president endorsed the Roger’s initiative, which Sadat at the time rejected while a member of the Socialist Party’s political department? Nasser’s acceptance of the Roger’s Plan took place while he was in Moscow and where he realized that relying on the Soviets would not generate any results. Egyptians should realize, added Sabri, that today the country cannot compete with the way in which Israel reinforced its military. Suffice it to mention that Israeli pilots were being trained in America and France free of charge. Thus, Egypt will find it difficult to maintain its

10_303_Ch6.qxd

236

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 236

Chapter 6

strategic superiority since the race was an unequal one. Sabri then directed his attack at those Arab states that opposed Sadat’s peace initiative, repeating Sadat’s claims of Arab treachery. He wrote that Egypt cannot rely on its own resources in strengthening its military and was pleased to accept the economic pledge of Saudi Arabia before the October War. But the Saudis conditioned their aid on the availability of a loan to Egypt by a U.S. bank in the amount of 60 million Egyptian pounds, which they would guarantee. Saudi Arabia simply refused to have its loan to Egypt guaranteed by Egypt’s Central Bank. Kuwait also proved to be an unreliable source of aid. When Kuwait was beseeched by Egypt to extend economic assistance during the late 1960s, Kuwait resorted to the dubious method of instigating official reports that claimed that its oil revenues were drying up. Sabri’s final argument was that the uppermost urgent question for Sadat was whether or not to submit to the guardianship of the Arab states that possessed neither a war nor a peace plan since all of them, with the exception of Syria, never experienced the after-effects of war. But Egypt can neither give up Syria nor start a new war.47 Sabri then gave expression to most of Sadat’s complaints against the Arab states. The truth was, repeated Sabri, that Libya and Saudi Arabia were not anxious to strengthen Egypt, since a strong Egypt, in their estimation, posed a threat to their security. Syria did not look forward to dealing with a strong Egypt, while Iraq viewed Egypt as an axis of power permanently challenging its hegemony along the eastern flank of the Arab world. The Arab states, he added, wished to see Egypt act as a sick man who resisted dying by suffering a continuous state of war and a deteriorating domestic front as a result of having our neutral resources under the control of the enemy. Now, asked Sabri, if Egypt had an opportunity to realize its own liberation through a peaceful approach, why would it place that decision under the hegemonic control of the Arab states? Egypt rejected that alternative since the choice of a solution remained within its natural prerogatives as a sovereign state. Egypt, he emphasized, was not within an Arab federal system, neither can the charter of the Arab League of States compel it to consult with other Arabs. Sabri asserted that it was never Sadat’s intention to seek a unilateral peace with Israel since he traveled to Syria to seek its participation in this endeavor. He also hoped that Saudi Arabia would come on board. Sadly, he came to realize that most of the Arab states were only interested in posturing. Again, he slipped into a comparison with steps taken by Nasser to pacify the eastern front. Sabri wrote that Nasser knew that securing the peace for both Egypt and Israel meant reliance on international troops. During Nasser’s period, international troops took up positions at Sharm al-Sheikh, which was Egyptian territory. Nasser also permitted the passage of Israeli goods through the Canal as long as they were transported on non-Israeli ships. Therefore, Sa-

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 237

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

237

dat’s decision to adopt whatever policies were suited to Egypt’s national interest was perfectly defensible. He never forced any Arab head of state to join his initiative, neither did he pressure any Egyptian officials, save the foreign minister, to join the Egyptian delegation to Israel. At the last moment before the trip to Jerusalem, Saad Muhammad Ahmad, minister of labor, was asked to join the president’s entourage in his capacity as head of the Federation of Trade Unions.48 In his usual rambling style, Sabri reverted again to the topic of Sadat’s efforts to win over Syria’s cooperation. Here the story was intended to portray the Egyptian president as an honest and straightforward fellow who never deceived any of his Arab counterparts. Sadat traveled to Damascus, along with a large contingent of reporters, Sabri wrote, in order to inform the Syrian president of Egypt’s plans. The Syrian presdient was considered a comrade-in-arms and a partner in the previous, short-lived peace negotiations during the Geneva Conference. After engaging Assad in conversation until four o’clock in the morning, Sadat insisted that he was taking the dangerous step of visiting Jerusalem on his own and was not seeking the support of Assad. Sadat’s only wish was that he be spared Syria’s animosity. If the peace plan worked, Sadat felt that its benign results would reach every Arab state, but there was no intention to sacrifice Arab rights. If the initiative failed, Sadat claimed that he alone would bear all the consequences and he would inform the Egyptian public of his failure, including resigning from office. Sadat returned to Cairo, thinking seriously that he won Syria’s neutrality in this manner, only to be greeted by calls for his head on Syria’s official radio. Sabri then appealed to the loyalty of the Egyptian common man and woman by recalling that the Syrian Baath party, meeting concurrently with the Assad-Sadat meeting, had taken a vote to arrest and try the Egyptian president for treason before his departure from Damascus. But the Party’s decision needed Assad’s approval, which they were unable to obtain before Sadat’s flight back to the Egyptian capital. Sabri, having summed up his account of the Syrian visit according to Sadat’s recounting of its details, then wrote of his further involvement in this project. Sabri was asked to compose the president’s speech before the Israeli Knesset while on the trip back from Syria. He was given forty-eight hours to do so, after which he produced a version stressing humanitarian values and respect for all faiths. Sabri’s text was integrated into another text prepared by Usama al-Baz, the president’s adviser, which emphasized broad political themes.49 Not only was the peace initiative presented regularly on the pages of alAkhbar and other papers as the epitome of realism, the initiative was repeatedly portrayed as destined to succeed since it was based on a clear understanding of the Israeli psyche. Echoing the president’s own statements, the paper began to refer to the peace initiative as an effort to break

10_303_Ch6.qxd

238

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 238

Chapter 6

the psychological barrier that destroyed any sense of trust between Arabs and Israelis in the past. Thus, the Egyptian president recognized that a new style of negotiations, different than what prevailed during the Geneva Conference, should be found in order to escape the empty circle of Israeli objections and Arab responses.50 Ismail Fahmi, Sadat’s foreign Minister, who later resigned his post in protest, wrote that the president had never given expression to this theory of the “psychological barrier” before his decision to journey to Jerusalem.51 Boutros Boutros Ghali, however, asserted on the pages of al-Akhbar on November 19, 1981, that the theory of breaking the psychological barrier and lack of trust between Arabs and Israelis was definitely behind the initiative. He added that it was intended to treat the security complex afflicting the Israelis because of specific historic and geographic circumstances. Ghali asserted that this approach takes a long time, and the results of which will not become apparent until much later.52 Beating the drums for the peace initiative, it soon became apparent, was a natural progression from the erosion of Egypt’s Arab identity following the end of the Nasserite regime and the conclusion of the October War. It was during that period that the self-confidence of the Egyptian public and their faith in their state were subjected to subtle onslaughts that weakened their pan-Arab loyalties. Some of that barrage of new ideas emanated from those disillusioned with Nasser’s domestic and anti-liberal politics and most were silently endorsed by the Sadat regime. This assault on the Arab identity began with Tawfiq al-Hakim’s controversial Awdat al-Waii (The Return of Consciousness) in which he attacked the Nasserite legacy. Later, his articles called on Egypt to become a neutral, Mediterranean country. Egyptians were asked to recall their Mediterranean links, which endowed them with a different non-Arab civilization. The argument stated that the ancient civilization of the Egyptians had more in common with that of Greece and Rome rather than with Arab and Islamic civilizations. Therefore, Egypt belonged to the progressive cultural family of Europe, which endorsed the idea of peace, while the Arabs firmly believed that peace with Israel constituted uncivilized behavior. The only way Egypt could prove its civilized nature was to conclude peace with Israel and adopt a posture of neutrality toward the Arab-Israeli conflict. To be considered fully civilized, ran the argument, Egypt must prove its commitment to peace, reduce its military budget and concentrate its efforts on social and economic development. Thus, the peace initiative proved to be an intense revival of the identity crisis frequently experienced by the Egyptians since the 1930s. The debate finally subsided during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, when Egyptians once more began to feel the return of their Arab sentiments. The invasion was clear proof that Egypt’s peaceful intentions did not impress the Israelis with the need to pursue a peaceful policy to-

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 239

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

239

ward other Arab countries, hence the Egyptians’ disillusionment with the effectiveness of the peaceful approach. Experts today recognize that the manner in which the regime pursued the peace initiative had a great deal to do with its immediate popular reception. The Sadat government, apparently, was aware of a different kind of psychological barrier between government and the governed that always bedeviled public receptivity to its policies. This phenomenon was older than Sadat’s era as generations of an increasingly educated public were routinely denied access to the secret hallways of power. Nasser chiseled away at this barrier as he began to disclose sensitive information in his public addresses. In the 1970s, television opened the way for revealing incidents and events that were never made accessible to the public before. Thus, despite the fact that the initial public reaction to Sadat’s Jerusalem visit and address before the Knesset was nothing short of gloomy and desperately pessimistic, eventually the public was made to share in these grave events unfolding before their own eyes. This was open diplomacy at its most effective, which convinced the public that nothing was concluded behind its back. Sadat’s Knesset speech, hitting all the high notes, also came very close to relieving the shock and despondency of the Egyptian public. Added to this was the orchestrated media effort, which paved the way for the Jerusalem visit by honing the economic argument and promising a new age of peace and abundance. The nation’s economic well-being was said to be tied to the abandonment of war and the pursuit of peace. Indeed, the public was made to feel that it was a participant in one of Egypt’s great national dramas. Some would even argue that the general public’s inability or unwillingness to challenge the government’s radical foreign policy switch was due in large part to the silencing of one of the country’s great opposition papers, al-Ahali.53 This paper, along with the papers of the Islamic opposition, played a significant role in solidifying the anti-peace effort leading up to the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli agreements. Great success was achieved by the pro-government press, however, particularly in ridiculing and belittling Palestinian guerilla organizations. Never before did the Egyptian press engage in similar attacks on the military activities of the Palestinians, as well as the political aspirations of the people of Palestine in general. Never before had Egyptians read open greetings to Israeli leaders on the pages of their leading papers as they did during the peace negotiations. Musa Sabri, for instance, wrote in al-Akhbar about a visit to Egypt by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin under the headlines: “We Welcome the Visit of Begin,” expressing pleasure and surprise at the speed with which Israeli leaders were responding to the Egyptian initiative. He deduced from this visit that the Israeli leadership was simply yielding to the will of its people who desired to coexist with their Egyptian neighbors after Sadat opened up a new page in the history

10_303_Ch6.qxd

240

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 240

Chapter 6

of Egyptian-Israeli relations. Mustafa Amin went a step further in his enthusiasm for Sadat’s Jerusalem diplomacy, claiming that this policy will not only benefit Egypt but all the Arabs and the Palestinians as well. Amin then waxed eloquent by suggesting that a combination of Jewish financial resources and Egyptian genius was bound to reconstruct the new Middle East, but made no attempt to demonstrate how this will influence the Palestinians. His attack on Arabs and Palestinians were particularly vindictive, writing in al-Akhbar that Arabs in general hated democracy and worshipped dictatorship. He added that they simply regard executing Moscow’s orders as an act of patriotism, while independence from Moscow as treason. Those who call themselves the rejectionists among the Arabs and Palestinians were simply a minority that should not be allowed to determine the fate of the vast majority by refusing the peace treaty. Anis Mansour, another journalist loyal to Sadat, justified the vagueness surrounding Egyptian-Israeli talks regarding the Palestinian issue by writing that this was the result of the seriousness with which Egypt regarded its obligations toward the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian guerilla organizations.54 The height of the Egypt-first phase resulting from Sadat’s peace initiative occurred between 1977 and 1982. This was the period in which Egypt witnessed anti-Palestinian demonstrations for the first time, particularly following the 1978 assassination of Egyptian novelist and journalist Mustafa Sibaii in Cyprus, at the hands of Palestinian guerrilla factions.55 Sadat, furthermore, was known to be contemptuous of the Palestinian guerrilla operations, claiming that they did not have an impact, one way or the other. He used to say that Israel will not retreat from the occupied territories except as a result of a massive military attack and told the Palestinian leadership at one point that their activities were kids’ play. Their military exploits, he was reported to have said, were of the type that he himself carried out when twenty years old. He added that what Egyptians and Palestinians needed was a military strategy capable of achieving victory in a historic military battle.56

THE ISLAMIC AND THE RADICAL PRESS BARE THEIR TEETH The opposition of Muslim and leftist organizations on the peace initiative did not come as a surprise. In the case of those on the left, their position was more nuanced because of historic contact between Arab and Jewish supporters inside and outside of Egypt. In the end, however, the Islamic rejection of Sadat’s peace diplomacy proved to be the more lethal and more ideological. By the 1970s and the launching of the Egyptian peace initiative, Islamic organizations were openly opposed to any settlement

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 241

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

241

with Israel that proposed putting an end to the Palestine question. Their position was now somewhat different from the Azharite call for Jihad in order to save Palestine during the 1948 War. The Islamists of the 1970s were more radicalized through their experience in Nasser’s, and later Sadat’s, jails and years of exile in the Persian Gulf oil countries. Additionally, they were now a part of a universal movement of religious revival and rededication that fired their concern for the fate of the Palestinians and their lands. Central to this universalism was a new reading of the obligation of the Jihad. A modern-day analyst of the Egyptian Islamic movement, Dr. Abdullah Shalabi, wrote the following assessment based on interviews with jailed Islamists during the late 1990s. Any peaceful approach to the question of Palestine was now seen as providing a secure future for Israel. They were firmly convinced that Israel had already reached maturity and was now in the process of decline. The Arab states, on the other hand, were in the process of regeneration due to the rise of Islamic consciousness. Therefore, the Islamists felt that the future equation of forces was not favorable to Israel and that if the struggle was to continue for two more decades, the equation will be favorable to the Arabs. The peace process was simply an attempt to interfere with the progression of Arab and Israeli history. They also advocated that the only way to deal with this ongoing struggle was to declare it an Islamic-Jewish confrontation. The only appropriate policy here was the Jihad. Any alliance with the Jews or any peace agreements with them must be considered contrary to the rules of the Sharia. Such a peace was automatically null and void because it interfered with the obligation of the Jihad. Egypt’s peace agreement with Israel was reminiscent of the Prophet’s peace with the Jews of Medina, which was rescinded by them. Once these Islamic groups seized power in Egypt and other Islamic countries, all the peace agreements that the heathen Arab regimes have concluded with the Jews will be annulled. Once the Islamic groups seized power, the struggle against the Jews will be inevitable. Once Egypt was ruled by Islamic groups, then the position of the Muslims toward the Jews will become very clear, calling for the cancellation of treaties and declaring an incessant war.57 The bulk of the Islamist argument revolved around the centrality of the Jihad as a key to the concption of the ideal foreign policy. The Jihad, it was believed, was tied to the existence of an Islamic state. They felt since the 1970s that the Jihad could not be sanctioned against Jews except under a state living according to the rules of the Sharia. Therefore, applying the obligation of the Jihad under the Sadat government would have been improper and should be held in abeyance until the rise of the Islamic state. The Islamists’ final conclusion was that fighting the nearby enemy—meaning the heathen, secularist regime—was the first round in the struggle

10_303_Ch6.qxd

242

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 242

Chapter 6

against the distant enemy—meaning Israel. The Islamic state was now understood to be the outgrowth of a new Islamic identity and citizenship. Islam was the citizenship of any Muslim wherever he or she resided. Thus, there was no other nationalism or citizenship under Islam because this faith was their homeland. Any country that lived by Islamic law was part of the Muslim world, its people being part of that vast Islamic nation to which all Muslims belonged. The Islamic homeland was not an outgrowth of a shared history and geography, a shared physical existence, a shared culture and economy, or even a shared psychological make-up. That kind of a homeland was no more than a stone idol worthy of destruction. The true Muslim’s homeland was his or her faith. Therefore, national flags and national anthems were considered among the rituals of heathendom, features of a modern “Age of Ignorance.” Modern nationalisms were seen as racist ideologies since they separated Muslims from other Muslims. These nationalisms were no more than a colonialist fabrication, while religious universalism was the only salvation. As a result of this particularist definition of where the Muslim’s loyalty should lie, Muslim organizations during the 1970s labored hard to raise consciousness of the Islamic identity above and beyond the secular national identity, to the extent of challenging the legitimacy of such an identity within an Islamic state. Accordingly, a virtuous and God-fearing Muslim, even if not an Egyptian and regardless of his or her nationality, was preferable to a heathen and immoral Egyptian. Developing the Islamist nationality theory further, Egypt’s new generation of Islamic activists claimed that Pakistani and Indian Muslims were more deserving to be the nation of Muhammad than the Prophet’s Arab followers such as the Christian Michel Aflaq, founder of the Baath Arab Socialist Party. Other Arabs who should not be included in the Prophet’s nation were the Christian and Marxist George Habash, founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), as well as Arab Nasserites, communists, and atheists. Islamic citizenship, therefore, belonged only to Muslims, for citizenship was a matter of faith. If a war was to break out between two states, one Islamic and one secular, loyalty should be accorded first to the Islamic faith, regardless of the nationality or geographic location of its adherents.58 These were views of the radical fringes of the Islamic movement, several of its wings having always been integrated within mainstream organizations and groups. Their commitment to the Palestine issue and their readiness to challenge Sadat’s peace initiative toward Israel varied according to their distance from the centers of power. Beginning in the 1970s, one could even speak of several Islamic movements, groups, and trends. A broad sector could be identified as consisting of officially organized groups such as al-Azhar, those harboring Islamic tendencies within Egyptian political parties, the core group of the Islamic Brotherhood who returned to the Egypt-

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 243

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

243

ian political arena during the early 1970s, Islamic groups within Egyptian universities, radical, and militarized Islamic factions or the so-called Jihadist groups, as well as those wealthy individuals who were considered a continuation of the Islamic revival movement. There was another sector, both unorganized and highly politicized, consisting largely of independent sheikhs and mosque preachers. Islamic intellectuals who called for an Islamic renaissance that would include the regeneration of Arab civilization capable of resuming the secular creativity of the classic Islamic age as part of the Arabo-Islamic heritage were also included in this Islamist mosaic. During the Sadatist period, the Azhar establishment began the trend of infusing the political debate with religious overtones, resulting in the adaptation of the thought of Pakistani Islamist activist, A. A. Mawdudi, to the Egyptian arena. These same sheikhs produced the philosophy of “anathematization and flight” (takfir wa hijra), which divided the Egyptian political classes into believers, extremists, and atheists. This trend at first battled Egyptian leftists, then turned its attention to the remaining Islamists who were not opposed totally to Sadat’s regime claiming that they have abandoned Islam. Only they, the Azharites felt, had an exclusive monopoly on interpreting Islamic laws by virtue of their religious training. The official Azharites claimed to themselves the exclusive domain of issuing fetwas in order to prevent other Islamists from exercising any interpretation of the Sharia on their own. When Sadat initiated his peace drive, the Azhar establishment attempted to justify his policy and cover it with a religious veneer. Thus, Sadat’s journey to Jerusalem was sanctioned as the first stage in the struggle toward restoring the holy city to Islam. Al-Azhar claimed that only Sadat had the exclusive right to weigh issues relating to war and peace. Pushing this line to its extremist limits, Al-Azhar concluded that the only true enemy of Islam and Muslims was Shiism and not Israel.59 It should not be forgotten also that an Islamic lobby of sorts had always inhabited the inner circles of the ruling National Democratic Party. Most of these were beneficiaries of Egypt’s liberalized economic policies, and were engaged in external and internal commerce, as well as in banking and finance. Some were visibly active in the black market, tourism, and even the illicit drug trade. These groups were in perfect harmony with the regime’s policies, particularly as these coincided with their own economic interests. The greatest enemies of this group were the leftists, as well as reformist and radical Islamic elements. This lobby had always claimed that the policies of the National Democratic Party were the perfect alternative to the platform of radical Islamic groups since it always carried the banner of Islam and its principles. This Islamic lobby, however, was not concerned with issues of social justice and instead constantly justified social inequality and absolutist government in religious terms. The group followed an agenda that was preoccupied with personal status law, the application of

10_303_Ch6.qxd

244

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 244

Chapter 6

the Islamic system of punishments (al-hudud) to all those who defied the regime, and providing religious rationalization to the regime’s suppression of the religious opposition.60 Another Islamic trend can be traced to the inner core of the Socialist Labor Party. This included elements that split from the Muslim Brotherhood and others who were descended from the political thought of Misr al-Fatah and its founder, Ahmad Hussein. Some of these factions were known for their Marxist background before turning to Islam, which was evident in Aadel Hussein’s massive study: Al-Iqtissad al-Masri min al-istiqlal ila altabiiyah (The Egyptian Economy From Independence to Dependence). The younger Hussein called for a new Islamic thought capable of exchanging the objectives of the nationalist revolution for other targets leaning toward Islam and capable of coordinating with the requirements of modernization and the achievement of social justice and true independence. Hussein, thus, called for a civilizational Islamic project emanating from the nation’s innate creative impulse. A new nationalist Islamic revolution must rise in order to work for social justice and independence, he wrote. He also called on the common people to engage in this revolution in the name of Islam since they were the primary target group in this national transformation. The public’s participation in the social and political transformation of Egypt was truly an Islamic obligation. Hussien’s approach was starkly different from that of the regime, which downgraded and marginalized the public’s political role.61 Among the most significant centers of Islamic power was al-Tagamuu Party. Part of the explanation for this seemingly odd alliance between the predominantly socialist party and Islamic groups was the former’s faith in the mobilization capability of Islam and its political rhetoric. The Tagamuu’s pragmatist streak and willingness to recruit various groups often clashed with its ideological base, leading some within the party to complain against a strong streak of intellectual opportunism. But those in favor of the cooptation of the Islamic trend apparently based their calculations on the futility of ideological correctness in light of the liquidation of Nasserism and the decline of socialism worldwide. The solution, according to this group, was to dress the Nasserite and Marxist trends with an Islamic garb in order to make them more acceptable to the masses. Some within the Tagamuu during the late 1970s went as far as calling for a tactical alliance with Islamist groups in order to stand up to the regime. Lutfi al-Khouli, one of the Tagamuu’s leaders, suggested that as long as religious forces controlled the Egyptian street, the Tagamuu was incapable of crossing that barrier. He added that if the Egyptian Left failed to recruit among the popular masses, then perhaps Marxists ought to consider importing a whole other nonreligious nation with which to establish the desired revolution. He felt that the Islamic religion possessed unique pro-

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 245

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

245

gressive and revolutionary tendencies that could be identified in order to create a specifically enlightened and democratic Islam. It was that Islam which had the power to confront the salafis (traditional Islam) and the latest Islamic currents inhabiting the past.62 Islamic perspectives on politics during the 1970s also predominated within Egyptian university circles. Initially confined to the academy, functioning under the rubric of the Religious Committee, these groups eventually engaged in political activities outside of the campuses of major public universities. Student Islamists, collectively known as Jamaa Islamiyah, became an important force in Egyptian underground politics by virtue of their sheer numbers and organization within the universities. At first sustained and encouraged by the Sadat government as a tool against Nasserite and Marxist hegemony within the academy, which prompted some to regard this current as totally allied with the government, Jamaa Islamiyah survived long enough to prove its independence. The Jamaa became a microcosm of the heavily Islamized Egyptian society of the mid1970s through its recruitment of students by convening summer camps. Jamaa Islamiyah was actively involved in the food riots during the Sadat period through the utilization of its journalism and graffiti of the wall but did not aim its wrath at the government directly until the 1977 crackdown on the extreme Islamist conspirators of takfir wa hijra groups. Five members of the leadership of Jamaa were sent to jail as a result of the events of 1977. But the real confrontation took place as a consequence of Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem and his peaceful diplomacy, which elicited the same opposition from this group as from other Islamist groups. By that time, it was easy for the regime to dispense with these groups, which were viewed as having already fulfilled their intended mission, namely breaking the previous Nasserite and Marxist hegemony over the academy. By 1978 the government had succeeded in falsifying most university student elections by eliminating the names of Islamist student leaders, depriving the Jamaa organization from its share of student activities dues and closing all Islamic summer training camps. These pressures finally drove the Jamaa to withdraw from campus organizations of major cities and to concentrate its efforts on recruitment within the mosques and universities of Upper Egyptian cities, particularly in Asyout.63 The head of al-Azhar, Dr. Abd al-Halim Mahmoud, was the first in 1977 to come out in support of Sadat’s Jerusalem visit. Through issuing declarations as the Mufti of Egypt and through interviews on the pages of alAhram, he asserted that the visit was the first step along the road leading to the restoration of the people of Palestine to their own homeland. He declared that the Camp David Agreements were a victory for Islam since they put an end to all wars. But the Mufti also insisted on the necessity of liberating Jerusalem, adding an exposé of the Islamic rule governing

10_303_Ch6.qxd

246

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 246

Chapter 6

treaties. He claimed that the peace treaty with Israel enjoyed Islamic legitimacy since God almighty has repeatedly called for peace. He also defended the right of Muslim leaders and heads of state to determine the perimeters of Islamic worldly interests. As long as the peace was of benefit to Muslims, then God and Islam considered it a legal and legitimate peace. As expected, he made an analogy between the Camp David peace treaties and that of Hudaibiyah, which the Prophet concluded with the heathen rulers of Mecca as a pragmatist step toward guarding the wellbeing of the Muslim nation. He went on to say that it was perfectly legitimate from an Islamic viewpoint to align with a non-Muslim state against an atheist enemy such as the Soviet Union. He wrote that this peace was negotiated from a position of strength following the Arab military victory of 1973. He vehemently denied in his interviews that this was a unilateral peace since several Islamic nations desired to join the peace. The only reservation he had was to caution against treaty obligations that might restrict Egypt’s ability to come to the aid of another Muslim people. Islam, he wrote, only sanctioned the war of self-defense. In another declaration by Azharite Sheikhs in al-Ahram, foreign Muslim scholars who complained that the treaty had already divided Muslim ranks throughout the world were criticized, claiming that their views were not based on religious considerations.64 The Muslim Brotherhood, however, not only objected to the peace but also criticized al-Azhar’s position in various booklets and publications. The Brotherhood lambasted the analogy between the Camp David treaties and the Hudaibiyah peace, which did not involve such issues as Islamic holy places under foreign occupation and an Islamic people without a homeland. It should be noted however, that the Brotherhood’s attack on al-Azhar’s support for the peace treaties did not extend to an attack on al-Azhar establishment itself. But all Islamic groups, whether the official or the underground groups, resorted to the liberal use of such terms as “Jewish” and “Jews,” which they used interchangeably with “Israel” and “Zionism.” The choice of language clearly reflected these groups’ deeply held conviction that the Arab-Israeli conflict was essentially a religious struggle.65 While the university Islamic groups resorted to declarations, wall journalism and demonstrations in order to voice their opposition to the Egyptian peace initiative, the Muslim Brotherhood used its own journals and publications to achieve similar results. As soon as al-Daawa, the Brotherhood’s premier paper, resumed publication in June 1976, a call for convening an Arab-Israeli peace conference at Geneva was made in a joint American-Soviet declaration. Al-Daawa immediately responded by rejecting any call for a peaceful resolution of this conflict, suggesting that any such effort was doomed to failure given Israel’s reluctance to surrender

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 247

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

247

occupied Arab lands. The paper also claimed that the only purpose of such a conference was to enable Israel to wipe out completely Palestinian rights. The American-Soviet declaration was said to be part of a plan between the two superpowers to maintain the current status quo in the region. This effort, the paper feared, would convince the Arabs that accommodation with Israel was their only hope. The United States, it was speculated, would play the greatest part in promoting such a settlement and would probably secure a better position for itself in the Middle East while the Soviets would be accorded concessions in other parts of the world. Much of al-Daawa’s argument centered on emphasizing the ill-effects of a peace settlement on the Palestinians but also on the impact of the peace on all the Arabs in general. As early as Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem, the paper feared the consequences of forcing the Arabs to recognize Israel, implying that this would eventually entail the normalization of economic and cultural relations with the enemy state. In return, all that the United States would be willing to guarantee was recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinians. The United States would never undertake policies that would harm Israel’s interests. Subsequently, the paper spent a long time cautioning its readers against the consequences of such a peace. The paper directed its message at the Islamic world as well, reminding them and the rest of the Egyptians that the war with Israel was essentially a religious, Islamic war. To that end, al-Daawa continued to report on Israel’s militant policies toward the occupied Arab lands, such as several attempts to destroy the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem and replacing it with a Jewish temple and expanding illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. It was asserted that these policies were backed by all Israeli political factions, rendering it futile to make a distinction between Israeli hawks and Israeli doves. The difference between these two camps, al-Daawa wrote, was simply a matter of tactical approach. Thus, the paper called on all the Arab states to maintain the Arab boycott against Israel. These editorials appeared between 1976 and 1977 under such titles as “The Dispute between the Americans and the Jews Was a Hoax,” “The Secret History of Communism in Egypt,” “The Issue of al-Aqsa Mosque Becomes More Dangerous,” and “Begin (Menachem) is Israel’s Unadorned Face.”66 Following Sadat’s journey to Jerusalem, the attacks grew stronger. AlDaawa editorialized that this step had already divided Muslim ranks, which was exactly what Israel hoped to achieve. Muslim nations were now pushed down a slithering slide by the forces of Judaism and Zionism. While the Arab states were hopelessly divided, the Jerusalem visit achieved a unity of ranks among Jewish and Crusader forces in the United States and other Western countries. Al-Daawa at first limited itself to this point, without necessarily indulging in a wholesale attack on Sadat’s foreign policy. Under the heading of “Palestine is an Islamic Cause,”

10_303_Ch6.qxd

248

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 248

Chapter 6

the paper called for calm analysis, away from all shrieking sounds of protesters and supporters alike. This new policy, it added, should not be viewed as a heinous crime or a brilliant strategy, since this approach will only deflect attention from the core issue of the peace. Writing under the heading “Falsifying History Because of the Jews is Also a Crime,” the paper accused the supporters and critics of the Jerusalem visit of exceeding the limits of moderation. This cautionary note, however, was directed more at those beating the drums in support of Sadat, meaning the official channels of information, rather than forces of the opposition. At the same time, the paper escalated its attacks against Israel, claiming that any peace treaty that it signed will merely be one more truce like all the others in the past. In the end, Israel will use this peace in order to buy time and score one more victory against the Arabs. Evidence for this was Israel’s longtime habit of adopting a set of strategic goals along the way to creating an expanded state. Israel may work very hard to prove its good intentions toward the Arabs by surrendering some territory here and there, but it will retrieve all once it succeeded in establishing peaceful relations with the Arabs. Thus, the expectation of a quick peace settlement and the return of prosperity exceeded all logical and rational limits. Editorials by the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, Omar al-Talmasani, used even stronger language in May 1978 by alerting Arab leaders to Israeli’s true intentions. Under the heading, “Muslim Rulers, Don’t You Fear God?” he claimed that the peace being pursued by Egyptian policy makers was part of the Zionist great design to pursue a peaceful settlement in order to establish Israel’s control over lands conquered by war. Other editorialists reacting to the identity debate raging in Egypt during the 1970s insisted that the expansion of Zionist Rotary clubs in recent years was also part of the general Zionist blueprint to change the hearts and minds of Egyptians and make them more accepting of imperialist and Zionist schemes. Titled “The Zionist Rotary Spreads in Egypt,” the editorial continued to avoid a direct attack on the regime, claiming only that it behooved Egypt’s policy makers to distinguish between a peaceful settlement based on justice and the retention of land and religion, and permitting Zionist organizations the freedom to infiltrate all classes of Egyptian society.67 Al-Dawaa also accused the Nasserite regime of being the main cause of what afflicted Egyptians since it fought Islam and Muslims and weakened the religious fabric of society. It was not surprising, therefore, that Egyptians forgot the obligation of Jihad and began to view a negotiated peace settlement as the only solution to their problems. Sadat did not invent a new policy, the paper wrote, since Nasser himself sued for peace following the defeat of 1967 by accepting U.N. Resolution 242, which acknowledged Israel’s right to live within secure boundaries. The deterioration of national security, which was pushing Egypt to negotiate for peace was the

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 249

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

249

result of the false claims made by Nasser’s regime, leading to the 1967 defeat. Nasser’s alliance with the Soviets, battling Islamic tendencies and veering away from religion, must be considered the prelude to seeking peace with Israel. Thus, the peace settlement was merely the logical outcome of all that was wrong during the Nasserite era. Not surprisingly, alDawaa used the occasion of the Camp David talks to blame the Nasserites for Egypt’s moral, economic, religious, and military decline. When it came to Egypt’s military weakness, which paved the way to Camp David, the paper attributed this to the October War when the United States threatened to extend military support to Israel and deprived Egypt from scoring a total military victory. This led to a situation along the borders that could only be rectified through peace talks.68 The Brotherhood continued with its policy of avoiding direct criticism of Sadat himself and instead targeted Israel, the Nasserite era, and the Soviets until June of 1978. By that time, it became very apparent that Sadat was not willing to succumb to Egyptian and Arab pressure by ending the peace talks. Talmasani abandoned all caution when he granted an interview to a Canadian paper, printed simultaneously in al-Dawaa under the title, “The Muslim Brotherhood, Legal Status, and the Zionist Entity,” and criticized the president directly. He stated that the Brotherhood’s position on the peace initiative was based on Islamic beliefs that delegitimized the voluntary surrender of Muslim lands. Even if sheer power forced a Muslim to approve the usurpation of land, he or she should decline to grant approval. The Brotherhood, he said, considered Zionists to be usurpers of the land of Palestine and the rules of justice decreed that justice must be restored to its original people. Another tactic used was expressed in an editorial titled “Begin Declined Your Recognition,” which hammered at Israel’s belligerence during the talks. Israel would never retreat from one foot of Arab land, the paper wrote, and would not sign anything short of its own advantageous peace treaty. For years, Israel’s primary objective was merely to gain a seat at the negotiating table of any Arab leader in any foreign capital. Today, however, Israel claims that it does not seek any Arab diplomatic recognition. But once the Camp David treaties were signed on March 26, 1979, al-Dawaa’s attacks shifted to the enumeration of the anticipated negative impact of the treaty on Egypt and its people. Several economic objectives were said to be on Israel’s main list of achievements, the primary being to resolve its own problem of inflation. Once Egypt opened its doors to Israeli products, then all of the Arab world would become Israel’s market. A byproduct of this development would be to facilitate the expansion of Israeli industries and employment opportunities for its own people. As proof of this, al-Dawaa translated some Israeli projections as to the expected gains from the peace. Israel would also penetrate the Egyptian economy and would eventually control it since

10_303_Ch6.qxd

250

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 250

Chapter 6

there was no economic parity between the two states. The paper quoted an Israeli cabinet minister as saying that it was not only Egypt, which was in dire need of peace, Israel’s economy also needed the peace. Israel would extend its control to the economies of Arab states and gain an opportunity to supplant Beirut as the region’s foremost financial center.69 The Brotherhood expressed concern for the impact of the peace treaties on the Arab world in general, since unlike the extremist Islamist groups it viewed Arab unification as a prelude to the realization of the unity of the Islamic world. Thus, al-Dawaa editorials laid great emphasis on Israel’s regional objectives and its desire to lead the Arab region in place of Egypt. The whole Arab world would then be annexed to Israel, in accordance with Begin’s claims that great things would develop when the Israeli genius was allowed to lead and develop Arab capabilities and resources. The most dismal prospect feared by the Brotherhood was Israel’s success in exiling Egypt from the Muslim world. This would cause the decline of the Muslim states, since Egypt was always the beating heart of the Muslim nation and its thinking and leading head. Egypt was also the strategic center of the region, commanding and controlling some of the world’s most important transport routes. Therefore, once Israel entrenched itself in Egypt, it would find it easy to control the rest of the Arab countries. Similarly, once Israel succeeded in changing the mental attitudes of Egypt, it would facilitate brainwashing the one single defender of Arab rights, namely Egypt. Israel’s ideological objective was also to overcome the Islamic faith. Israel had always felt that it was in a constant battle with Islam and must fight it or eliminate it completely. Al-Daawa then detailed several means used by Israel, as well as states in the East and in the West, in its grand design to conquer and subjugate Islam. First, there was the use of psychological warfare and accusing Muslims of intolerance and prejudice. Then there was the method of distorting Quranic texts and other religious tracts in order to sow confusion among Muslims everywhere. Israel was not above supporting sectarian communities within various Islamic societies, such as in Lebanon. One way in which Israel had achieved this was its utilization of Zionist channels of information to persuade Christians that Muslims were not entitled to apply the Sharia laws. These would harm the interests of Egypt’s Copts, but Copts and Muslims were equal before the law. Israel, al-Dawaa stated, had already extended its protection to the Christians of Lebanon and may do so toward the Copts of Egypt. The paper blamed sectarian violence in Egypt on the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaties.70 After the signing of the Camp David Agreements, al-Dawaa focused on analyzing their impact on the West Bank and Gaza. First, the separate treaty concerning the Palestinians provided no guarantees for Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian lands since the continued presence of the Israeli military will not allow for free elections or the estab-

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 251

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

251

lishment of genuine self-rule. Also, the treaty called for Jordan’s participation in negotiating the future of those territories, which, since Jordan’s refusal was expected, would leave no incentive for the Israeli military to leave. Israel’s stance toward the West Bank and Gaza remained unclear and mired in ambiguities. More importantly, the treaty purposely ignored the future of Jerusalem, which strengthened Israel’s claim to the city as its eternal capital. Al-Daawa reported that the two statements by Egypt and Israel attached as an annex to the main treaty on the Palestinians stated Israel’s position as favoring the continued unity of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The paper emphasized that the treaty left Palestine’s political future vague and undetermined. Serious doubts were also raised concerning the security of Sinai. Israel’s withdrawal from Egyptian Sinai was viewed as incomplete as long as the Camp David Agreements limited Egypt’s military presence to a fifty-kilometer strip stretching along the Suez Canal and Gulf of Suez. Egyptian troops protecting that area were limited to a lightly equipped military company. Sinai’s total size of sixtyone thousand square kilometers, thus, was left mostly to the protection of international troops. But unlike the situation that prevailed following the 1956 Suez War when Egypt enjoyed the right of requesting the removal of such troops, the Camp David Treaty limited that privilege to the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Thus, al-Dawaa argued that the international troops assigned to Sinai had the status of permanent troops. The paper lamented the treaty’s stipulation against surrendering Israeli military airports in Sinai to Egypt, which now was expected to transform these into commercial airports only. The United States, added the paper, has pledged to replace Israel’s lost Sinai bases with newer military bases and airports in the Negev. Talmasani, however, continued to egg the government to work toward the restoration of sovereign rights over Sinai and other lost territories. But despite all this heavy ammunition directed at the Camp David Agreements by the Muslim Brotherhood, the official Islamic religious establishment inside and outside of al-Azhar continued to support the government’s line. This was the result of steady government pressure, epitomized by devoting three numbers of the 1978 main religious circular report, Al-Din wa al-Hayat (Religion and Life) by the Ministry of Awqaf (Religious Trusts) to a justification of the peace treaties. The purpose of these reports, which were begun in 1968, was to keep all local sheikhs and religious functionaries abreast of the regime’s religious and political perspectives. The Egyptian government felt sufficiently moved to bridge the widening gap between it and an essentially observing public regarding its new peace policy with Israel by calling on all mosques to hue to the government line.71 Some of the public’s mistrust of the peace negotiations was not entirely the result of the ideological and hardened critique of major opposition groups such as the Brotherhood. As the negotiations between Egypt and

10_303_Ch6.qxd

252

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 252

Chapter 6

Israel moved along in fits and starts, the Egyptian government was in the habit of publicly complaining about Israel’s intransigence. Occasionally, Sadat’s own tactics to speed the peace talks further amounted to a bizarre exercise in fanciful thinking that did not contribute to his standing in the eyes of the public. There was, to mention but one instance, the story of the waters of the Nile that Sadat hoped to enlist in his support when the Palestinian autonomy talks with Israel began to stumble over the question of the future of Jerusalem. This story turned out to be one more example of his fertile political imagination and willingness to operate by his own rules. Finding himself mired in detailed obstacles marshaled by the Israelis when he was visiting Haifa in 1979, Sadat hit on the idea of tempting Prime Minister Begin with the suggestion of irrigating the Negev desert with waters of the Nile. He floated the idea without any specific details and left it there, hoping that Begin would bite. His rationale for coming up with this idea was his conviction that Begin would never withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza on his own and needed a powerful incentive to accept this idea. Sadat, known for his impulsiveness, did not wait to hear Begin’s response, and instead mentioned the idea of supplying Israel with water in an impromptu press conference. But Sadat did run this idea by his prime minister, Dr. Mustafa Khalil, who was asked to study this question and investigate its feasibility. Sadat argued that the question of the Nile waters was one more card in Egypt’s hands, adding that Egypt throws billions of meters of water annually in the Mediterranean Sea. What if Egypt allowed Israel to build pipelines capable of transporting 36 billion meters of water to its territory? What if Egypt succeeded in convincing Israel to build settlements in the newly irrigated Negev rather than in the West Bank? But Khalil was not encouraging, pointing out that the rest of the African states whose access to the Nile waters was regulated by an international treaty did not allow Egypt to dispose of these waters unilaterally. Were Egypt to make a separate deal with Israel, Ethiopia, whose relations with Egypt were particularly tense, would surely object and may request a renegotiation of the treaty. Khalil added that the Egyptian peasant was likely to feel some bitterness over this step even if his water needs were met. In other words, domestic crisis would surely ensue. Sadat then reconsidered and agreed to limit his offer to supplying only East Jerusalem with water, but again the idea proved to be unworkable. In the meantime, Moshe Dayan, Israel’s foreign minister, declared that Begin was a man who would not give up his principles for water and would not be persuaded to go along with the idea of settlements in the Negev. But Sadat never gave up hope, thinking that his water scheme would be just the thing to break up the logjam over the future status of Jerusalem. As Begin prepared to visit Egypt, Sadat took the matter to the People’s Assembly where he proposed two unusual schemes: replacing the Arab League of States with a League of Islamic States, and the ques-

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 253

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

253

tion of the Nile waters. When Prime Minister Khalil was given the podium to speak, he expressed opposition to the idea of offering Israel a share of the Nile water, proclaiming his readiness to support the scheme only if the president invoked his constitutional powers to carry it through. Sadat then agreed to table both subjects, but the opposition latched on to these schemes and hammered away at the credibility of the president’s peaceful diplomacy. The opposition’s campaign, which used the daily press as a platform, rejected Khalil’s insistence that the idea of the Nile waters never reached the stage of implementation. Sadat continued to lobby for this plan, including holding a closed meeting with members of the press to solicit their support. He told them that the entire Palestinian autonomy plan was stalled after the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty because of the Jerusalem issue. Nothing could bridge Egyptian-Israeli differences over the issue of Jerusalem. Sadat noted that he offered Begin control over security matters in Sinai—total control except over the questions of land and sovereignty—if he would only budge from his position on Jerusalem. Sadat said he offered the total demilitarization of Sinai without asking for reciprocal demilitarization on the Israeli side of the border. That was when he brought up the subject of the Nile waters with Begin directly. To demonstrate how clever he was, Sadat boasted that whatever was the outcome of this deal— water in exchange for Jerusalem—he would always be able to shut off the water at will. Sadat would repeat to Begin, “we are your neighbors,” but Begin would respond, “We do not sell our national objectives for any price.” The president reported that not only did Begin reject his offer, the Israeli press were forbidden from mentioning anything about it. Anees Mansour was told of this when he held meetings with the Israeli press several months later.72

AL-AHALI AND CAMP DAVID No newspaper or publication, however, matched the determined opposition of al-Ahali, voice of al-Tagamuu party. The paper began publication around the time of Sadat’s surprise visit to Jerusalem, which amounted to an earthquake that shattered the security of Egypt and that of the Arab world. The party quickly articulated its position regarding this momentous event following a long meeting of its political committee. This body, following hurried consultations with the party’s Cairo secretariat, issued a declaration calling on the president to rescind his decision regarding peaceful negotiations and reminded him of the dangerous road ahead. Immediately, many members of this party were targeted for arrest and imprisonment. The party’s challenge was not only to rescue its members, but also to communicate its views to the general public via its main publication at a

10_303_Ch6.qxd

254

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 254

Chapter 6

time when Sadat managed to promise an era of affluence and prosperity following the peace. But these concerns were expected and anticipated. What was not expected, however, was the reaction of some of the party ideologues, who expressed full backing for the idea of peace with Israel. These were among the prominent members enjoying a long history of Marxist affiliation. Their reasoning was different than Sadat’s, yet they approved the final outcome of the peace process if it succeeded in bringing about lasting peace, prosperity, and democracy. The issue of democracy was very dear to their hearts, arguing that it was the absence of peace that permitted dictators for the past thirty years to rule Egypt under emergency regulations. Peace, they claimed, would simply kill this line of reasoning leaving no excuse to delay democracy any longer. More importantly, peace would simply diminish the role of the armed forces in public life. This group publicized their views in various papers and were headed by the man just nominated to be the head of al-Ahali’s editorial board, namely Salah Hafiz. The first issue of the paper was due to come out in January of 1978, but Hafiz offered his resignation because of his differences with the official position of the paper. His replacement was Mahmoud Oudeh, but that did not end the paper’s problem. Al-Ahali had no choice but to entrust its printing to a government approved company known as Dar al-Taawun, while distribution was by al-Ahram, another pro-government paper. As to advertisements, the paper was denied any such business from government agencies or the public sector. The paper, however, managed to attract prominent journalists to its editorial board, such as Muhammed Sid Ahmad, and Farida al-Naqqash, as well as well-known Marxist writers such as Lufti alKhouli to its advisory board.73 When the first issue of al-Ahali appeared on February 1, 1978, its frontpage story concerned the peace talks between Egypt, Israel, and the United States, and the editors’ explanation why they opposed the peace negotiations. The paper questioned America’s commitment to the peace, especially as the United States hurried to supply Israel that same week with a shipment of 150 planes. Soon thereafter, the American C.I.A. published a report about Israel’s nuclear capability, feeding the paper’s suspicions about the realistic possibility of achieving military parity with Israel. The paper also published the party’s previous declarations against the tactic of direct negotiations with Israel. At the same time, the first issue devoted considerable space to economic and consumerist issues facing ordinary Egyptians, demonstrating with facts and figures that all was not well with consumerist markets. The paper’s attacks were directed at the class of merchants who exploited Egypt’s erratic economic conditions. The attacks were a continuation of the party’s campaign against Sadat’s economic liberalization policy, known as al-infitah. At the same time, a whole page was dedicated to coverage of Arab and international

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 255

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

255

developments that were intended to re-establish contact with national liberation and leftist movements around the world. The paper also created a special niche for caricatures, which always depicted political situations. Fearing personal attacks, several of the paper’s contributing writers hid behind an assumed pen name, with the exception of Hafiz who never camouflaged his Marxist identity. Thus, al-Khouli commented on Arab affairs under the name “Abduh Masoud,” Farida al-Naqqash under “Salma al-Badri,” and prominent Marxist analyst Rifaat al-Said under “Historian.” A member of the ruling National Democratic Party, Saad alDin Wahbeh, reveled in writing a column exposing the idiosyncracies of politicians and hangers on, using the pen name “Abu-Shadouf,” or “The Waterwheel Man.” Wahbeh apparently was writing from the center of power as he was a personal friend of Mamdouh Salem, the head of the official party. Other prominent party members, nevertheless, signed their columns with their full names, such as Coptic politician Milad Hanna, Islamic progressive Amin Huweidi, civil rights activist Nabil al Hilali, leftist artist Inji Aflatoun, historian Tareq al-Bishri, radical feminist Nawal Saadawi, progressive Islamic thinker Muhammad Ammarah and many others. Muhammad Sid Ahmad also continued to defy the secret police by writing under his own name. But among the most daring stories carried by the paper was coverage of the military trial of popular poet Ahmad Fouad Nijim, his wife Azzat Balbaa and the musician Imam Isa. All were implicated in the recitation and artistic production of Nijim’s satirical attack on Sadat, which appeared as the folk poem “An Important Communiqué from the Radio of Shaqlaban.” The poem was fist presented at Cairo University in 1976, and then appeared as part of his poetry collection, which was published in Beirut. Its publication in al-Ahali was the first time the poem appeared in print within Egypt. Other stories appeared to be intended as direct attacks on Sadat or his closest associates. Among these was the first interview with Heikal since his departure from al-Ahram in 1974, the story of the sale of Public Cinema Institute to a wealthy Saudi businessman, a comic strip featuring a female character resembling Jihan Sadat, and an expose of the economic activities of Othman Ahmad Othman, the president’s relation by marriage. The Othman story was presented as an example of parasitic capitalism. Another series targeted the sale of radio stations to American corporations, which appeared under the title “Egypt’s Mind Is Up for Auctioning.” In response, the president began to attack al-Ahali in his public addresses, referring to it as “stupid” and claiming that he did not object to the rise of a leftist Egyptian formation, but rather to the presence of foreign agents within these formations. He also threatened to incite the peasants and workers against the paper. After the sixteenth issue of al-Ahali, Sadat began to say that he was ready to refer al-Tagamuu to the special committee within

10_303_Ch6.qxd

256

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 256

Chapter 6

the Arab Socialist Union, charged with overseeing political parties. The decision to seize issue number 16 in May of 1978, and shut off the paper followed quickly.74 Following the suspension of this number by one month, the decision was made to reissue the paper every Wednesday, and veteran RCC member Khaled Muhye al-Din was asked to assume the position of secretarygeneral of the party. Ahmad Lufti Waked assumed the position of editorin-chief of the paper, of which ten issues were published under his direction. Seven of these issues were confiscated, but some managed to cover news of the government’s vast operation designed to interrogate most journalists and activists opposed to the regime, beginning with the famous interrogation of Heikal. Although many individuals were caught in the dragnet, which was supposed to intimidate and pressure people into submission, Heikal’s case was the most interesting. He was questioned at length, not only about his assessment of the superpowers and of Israel, but also about his 1971 article “A Greeting to the Men,” and other anti-peace articles. Heikal later reproduced these interrogations in his widely popular book, Proceedings of a Political Investigation by the Socialist Public Defender (1986). Others suffered a similar fate. Salah Isa was questioned about an article in Baghdad’s Afaq Arabiyyah, titled “Political Notations about a Deceptive Issue . . . Egypt’s Arabism Hovering on the Edge of a Blazing Pit.” As for Farida al-Naqqash, she faced questioning simply for publishing three articles on the art of Nijim and others in the Lebanese paper, al-Safir. Muhammed Sid Ahmed was investigated for a translation of one of his articles in Le Mond Diplomatique on the possible outcome of the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations. Al-Ahali continued to criticize the government on all fronts, but the most stinging attack came out in an article in issue 21 in which Sadat was said to have granted Bruno Kreitszky’s request to bury Austria’s nuclear waste in Egypt’s Eastern Desert. Sadat was said to have given his approval despite strong objections by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. Al-Ahali also wrote of a suspected link between this story and the Israeli negotiations since the Austrian chancellor was closely involved in the secret stage of these contacts. What broke the camel’s back for Sadat, however, was a story by Muhyi al-Din in issue number 22, in which he reminisced about the Free Officers and the 1952 Revolution. The story enraged Sadat because it set the record straight by stating that it was Nasser and not Sadat who actually created the first secret cell within the army. Sadat understood this to be an assault on his own version of history according to which he claimed the honor of founding the original cell. In the sam issue, Rifaat al-Said also narrated the story of Egypt’s last monarch, explaining how he succeeded in creating an Iron Guard to carry out his intimidation of the politicians. Sadat, as it was long rumored, was at one time a member of the Iron Guard. After this issue,

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 257

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

257

Sadat’s decision to close the paper was only a matter of time. The paper continued in its attack on the Camp David negotiations and its coverage of the deteriorating economic situation at home, corruption, third world liberation movements, and Egypt’s willingness to bury foreign nuclear waste in its soil. Thus, when issue number 23, came out, the state’s security agency charged the paper with such offenses as harming the interests of Arab and Islamic society, inciting hatred and rebellion, defying the law and committing the crime of publishing and spreading false news. The issue was seized and destroyed, but the paper continued in its attacks on a broad front targeting all aspects of Sadat’s government. The government then began to prevent the paper from reaching the public by confiscating it, one issue at a time. As of August of 1978, government agents would appear at the printing plant and seize the paper before it was sent out for distribution. Among the defenders of the paper who used to argue against its seizure would be Nabil al-Hilali, noted civil rights advocate. In the meantime, the party issued specific reports attacking the recently signed Camp David Agreements. Sadat himself began to attack al-Ahali publicly. Finally, the editors refused to appear before the court to answer charges by the Attorney General regarding disturbing the peace. Then al-Ahali’s advertisement on public television was cancelled by orders of the Public Censor, followed by the decision of the printer to cease producing the paper, which put an end to the paper since it was the only place authorized by the government to print al-Ahali. This prompted the party to distribute an expanded version of its own internal report, titled al-Taqqadum, in lieu of the paper and began to send it not only to party members but also to opposition leaders, members of the domestic and foreign press and to various independent writers. An editorial board was set up and the report— of which two thousand copies were printed at first—was produced by the offset method and as double quarto, which brought it close to the size of Rose al-Yousef and Newsweek. Al-Taqqadum eventually was printed in ten thousand copies and began to charge five, then ten Egyptian piasters per issue. Emphasizing news reporting, the editors avoided all semblance of political writing but continued to disclose secret news that was kept from the general public. Some of these stories were provided by friendly journalists whose own papers declined to print them for fear of alienating the regime. Some of the news stories that appeared in al-Taqqadum were provided by people like al-Ahali’s jailed editor, Salah Isa, who received the information from fellow prisoners. One of these that made it in print was told to Ameena Naqqash by Isa, her husband, after a visit to his jail. The story revolved around a secret cell being organized within the armed forces, known as “The Free Officers.” The story was considered dangerous enough to require the approval of Muhyi al-Din before appearing in print, particularly since it included details of the plot, implicating two

10_303_Ch6.qxd

258

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 258

Chapter 6

Egyptians who were backed by Iraq and were said to have been in contact with dissident General Saad al-Din al-Shathly in Athens. Al-Taqqadum became a hot item and printed ten thousand copies of this issue, while this story was immediately picked up by the Arab and foreign press. After complete silence by the regime for about one week, al-Akhbar carried a scathing attack on al-Taqqadum by Musa Sabri, in which he accused the paper and al-Tagamuu of publishing fabricated news, laying the blame on Muhyi al-Din and editors Abd al-Raziq and Fahmi. Abd al-Raziq was called before the state’s security apparatus for questioning but managed to avoid imprisonment by arguing that if the story was untrue, then the press law allowed for retraction if the state presented proof to the contrary. Since no such official correction was made, then he was still within the law. Al-Taqqadum managed to reach 86 issues until the government crackdown of September 1981, when the Sadat government sent many journalists to jail. Abd al-Raziq was jailed twice before that when he was accused of organizing a new party, the Egyptian Communist Party. AlAhali, however, resumed publication on May 19, 1982, after President Husni Mubarak assumed office. The paper was issued as Number 32, Year 5, in order to demonstrate continuity.75

THE PRESS AND THE PLO During the Sadat period, the Palestinian question received as much support in the Egyptian press as the country’s foreign policy allowed. That was in the beginning. The Camp David diplomacy, however, created a deep gulf between the perception of the government and that of the opposition press. During the year leading up to the 1973 October War, the PLO’s attacks against Israel and its worldwide interests were met with general approval. Al-Ahram, for instance, published on September 7, 1972, news of the PLO attack on Israeli athletes at Munich on the front page. Editor Ali Hamdi al-Jammal wrote defending the Palestinian guerillas in his daily column. He called on the world to wait longer before assaulting them since they were not committed to murder but subject to pressures applied by the Israeli enemy in Palestine. Under a front-page picture of the three Palestinian guerillas captured in Germany, the paper wrote that they were victims of a trap prepared by the Israeli secret intelligence service. Another columnist in the same paper stated that the Munich attack should be considered a new phase in the Palestinian guerilla warfare and that a war of attrition against the Palestinians has just begun. The paper explained this news as being something that will generate varied reactions, but the international public was reminded that the PLO resorted to violence as a direct result of the crime committed against the Palestinian

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 259

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

259

people. Blame must be directed at the Federal Republic of Germany, which failed to protect the hostages and to keep its promises to the guerillas. Some of these condemnatory words were penned by Anis Mansour and Philip Jallab. The two other major papers at the time, al-Jumhuriyah and al-Akhbar, accused the German government of falling under the influence of the Zionists. All three papers accused West Germany and Israel of being within the American orbit and that of NATO. PLO military activities were also highlighted during the entire month of October in 1973, sometimes competing with news of fighting on the Egyptian-Israeli front. But beginning with November of the same year, Palestinian news took a back seat to the story of an impending peace conference and the likelihood of it being joined by Palestinians. Al-Ahram, however, cautioned against any attempt to tamper with the strong bonds between the Palestinians and Egypt. Cairo must continue, it wrote, to bolster Palestinian connection to the Soviet Union, which would contribute to providing a just solution to the Middle East crisis. What needed to happen in the wake of the 1973 War was that the gains of this war should be utilized in order to retrieve Arab rights, including the rights of Palestinian Arabs to their own homeland. Al-Akhbar repeated that the PLO alone was the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. But none of these three papers, the most important papers of that period, came up with a definite idea for achieving the desired peace plan. In November of that year, al-Ahram went as far as to publish non-Egyptian views of the desired shape of the peace, such as a framework for peace suggested by British historian Arnold Toynbee. He was the only one to come with a specific plan based on Israel’s return to the pre-1967 boundaries, the creation of an independent Palestinian state and the internationalization of Jerusalem. Immediately thereafter, the Palestinian resistance was quoted as suggesting that the 1947 partition plan was the minimum requirement of the Palestinians. By December 9, these papers were reporting that official Egyptian voices were suggesting that Egypt’s participation in the proposed conference was conditional upon Israel’s withdrawal from occupied Arab lands and recognition of the right of Palestinians to a state of their own. Thus, a number of contradictory views on the peace were published, with the papers repeating the vague notion of Israeli withdrawal and safeguarding Palestinian rights. At one point, the three main papers echoed the official Egyptian line calling for the establishment of a Palestinian government in exile as a precondition for participating in the peace conference.76 It is woth recalling that the Camp David peace initiative coincided with some of the most momentous events in the life history of the PLO, such as the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in April of 1975, the Syrian intervention in Lebanon and the various massacres that took place in the Lebanese refugee camps. Being physically removed from this arena of

10_303_Ch6.qxd

260

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 260

Chapter 6

conflict made the expression of Egyptian public support for the PLO a lot easier. Thus, Syria’s intervention in Lebanon and its subsequent implication in the Tall al-Zaater massacre opened the way for direct Egyptian attacks on its former ally. The Egyptian press went as far as accusing Syria of coordinating its attacks with Israel. But this attack disappeared as soon as Sadat and President Assad settled their differences. Surprisingly, and despite the brief U.S. involvement in that war, the bulk of Egyptian attacks were leveled at the ruling Syrian Baath Party. The Egyptian mainstream press even took the side of the PLO in its struggle with its runaway, pro-Syrian faction, al-Saiqa. The papers repeated Egypt’s official backing of the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, which guaranteed its participation in the peace settlement. The papers also continued to appeal to the U.N. Security Council in order to put an end to Israeli attacks on the Palestinians. Following Sadat’s peace initiative, however, the PLO’s military operations were completely ignored or buried in the inner pages of the papers, except when Palestinians carried out spectacular operations that were difficult to overlook. This was the case when a major incident took place in Tel Aviv, resulting in the seizure of three buses and the killing of thirty Israelis. Al-Ahram wrote that no matter how well-protected Israel was, nothing could prevent attacks by a people who demanded recognition of their internationally approved rights. Thus, Begin’s only guarantee that these attacks would not target his people again would be to accept the creation of a Palestinian state. Al-Jammal added in the same paper on November 28, 1973, under the headline of “Far Away from Sensitivity and Embarrassment,” that the Tel Aviv operation was an expression of the desperation of the Palestinians due to Israel’s continued denial of their rights. He added that the incident also amounted to an invitation to Israel to invade Lebanon. Thus, a new tone emerged on the pages of the official press, a tone just as sympathetic to maintaining peace and security for the Israeli public as it used to be toward the Palestinians. This time, the papers were addressing the Israeli public directly while subtly reminding Begin that recognition of Palestinian rights was the only way to save Israelis from panic and fear. It was also the first time that the papers referred to Palestinian attacks as a form of desperation while in the past guerilla activities would be described as acts of Palestinian resistance. Also, for the first time, Israeli sources would be utilized and Palestinian guerillas would be described as “armed men.” By December 1977, the main papers were attacking Arab governments as a result of rejecting Egypt’s peace diplomacy, often without any distinction between them and the PLO. In December 1977, alAhram attacked efforts to convene an Arab rejectionist summit meeting, which was driven by the feverish response of the Arab street. The headline ran, “The Rejectionist Summit and the Rejection of the Summit.” The

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 261

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

261

Arabs were reminded that any movement toward the achievement of peace, whether originating from Jerusalem, Cairo, or Geneva, was bound to result in an Arab-Israeli, not an Egyptian-Israeli settlement. These articles were accompanied by Salah Jahin’s caricatures, one of which depicted Egypt as the mother of all Arabs, while the latter were portrayed as a small child engaged in play. The caption was the mother’s words, calling on the child to come along and not to waste time. In another caricature, the same Jahin depicted the Arabs as a large man standing next to a wispy young girl representing peace. The caption read that it was necessary before convening a peace conference for Arabs and Israelis to do the same for Palestinians and their factions, Baathists and their branches, and for Arabs and other Arabs. On December 6, 1977, al-Ahram carried news of severing diplomatic relations with Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq, and the Republic of Southern Yemen in response to action taken by the Tripoli summit meeting, which froze these countries’ relations with Egypt. The paper also reminded these states of their past and scandalous policies toward the Palestinians. A few days later, al-Ahram carried a translation of Sadat’s interview with the Italian paper, La Stampa, in which he repeated that there could be no peace in the Middle East without Palestine. The paper carried a summary of Sadat’s press conference with European journalists in which he emphatically said that Egypt would not withdraw its recognition of the PLO and actually had invited the Palestinian organization to participate in the peace conference. Al-Ahram also reported President Carter’s soothing words during his Aswan meeting with Sadat, in January of 1978, as he proclaimed that all aspects of the Palestinian issue must be resolved and that the Palestinians must participate in determining their own future. Al-Ahram presented these words as the new American policy on the Middle East. By March 1978, al-Ahram directed a strong attack at the Palestinian factions that followed the dictates of the Arab rejectionist front and hovered on the brink of political desperation by arranging the assassination of one of its London representatives, Said Hamami. The headline for that story read “The Palestinian Revolution Devours Its Own Children.”77 Eventually, the Egyptian regime’s verbal support for the Palestinian cause faced its greatest crisis with the assassination of Egyptian novelist and head of Board of Directors of al-Ahram, Yousef al-Sibaii, on February 19, 1978, in Cyprus. The murder was committed by radical Palestinian guerilla groups, ostensibly to get back at the Egyptians for betraying the Palestinian and the Arab cause. Al-Ahram immediately went on the attack, writing under the headline of “Black Terrorism,” that the perpetrators of this crime were harming the noble Palestinian struggle. The application of the term “terrorism” to activities of Palestinian factions was new and signaled a dramatic shift in official Egyptian attitude. After the Egyptian military mission

10_303_Ch6.qxd

262

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 262

Chapter 6

to rescue Egyptian hostages resulted in more casualties, al-Ahram accused the Saiqa faction of attacking the Egyptian military. Sadat went a step further in a letter published in al-Ahram, in which he referred to Palestinian guerillas as paid agents. He also was reported as threatening to repay this blow tenfold, while at the same time continuing to work for the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from the occupied Palestinian territories. On February 25, al-Ahram’s al-Jammal unleashed a strong attack against Arafat, claiming that the leader’s role and legitimacy have ended the moment he joined the venomous tide spilling out of Libya’s rejectionist summit meeting. The PLO, he added, was in a state of loss and incapable of taking action. It was now driven by personal interests, its leadership being made up of agents of Arab governments, which in turn took their cue from the Soviet Union. Only Egypt, he wrote, struggled to save Palestine. By February 28, al-Ahram reported on discussions in the People’s Assembly calling for the re-examination of the status of the Palestinian residents of Egypt. On March 3, al-Ahram, al-Akhbar, and al-Jumhuriyah printed Sadat’s interview with an American television station in which he laid the blame for Sibaii’s murder on the PLO. Sadat, however, left out the condemnation of Saiqa by most Palestinian factions. From that point on, mainstream pro-regime papers continued to focus on the international struggle between various Palestinian factions while printing, without any comment, declarations by Arafat in which he reaffirmed his gratitude to Egyptian efforts on the Palestinians’ behalf.78 The only paper to direct criticism at the regime for bungling the rescue of Egyptian hostages at Larnaca was al-Ahali, which launched its first issue barely three weeks before the attack. Al-Ahali explained the circumstances of the assassination fully without neglecting to emphasize Sibaii’s significant position as the Secretary of the Organization of Afro-Asian States, in addition to his leadership of al-Ahram editorial and administrative staff. Al-Ahali explained in detail how the taking of hostages to an airplane parked at Larnaca’s airport and the subsequent landing of an Egyptian plane full of soldiers ended up in a shoot-out for which only Egypt must be blamed. The cost to Egypt was the death of fifteen of its soldiers and the wounding of twenty without achieving the hostages’ release. The official media, on the other hand, laid the blame on the Cypriot government, thereby damaging Egypt’s good relations with that country. Al-Ahali commented that Sadat was in essence imitating his new friends in Israel by duplicating the strategy used at Entebbe. Al-Ahali, did not refrain from condemning the assassination. Instead it wrote under its editorial “Terrorism and the Responsibility of Confrontation,” that this murder and the subsequent resort to violence by the Egyptian authorities were the expected results of a phenomenon bedeviling Arab societies lately, namely refusal to discuss differences of opinion face to face.79

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 263

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

263

MIGRATION TO THE ARAB PRESS One of the results of tightening the noose around the neck of the Egyptian press was the flight of many journalists and editors to other publications of the Arab world. The freedom exercised by these writers in attacking Egypt from the outside quickly became a great irritant to the regime. This trend began in April 1974 when the Press Syndicate was asked by the ASU to take action against members who deal with papers that were hostile to Egypt. In May 1978, Sadat addressed a meeting of journalists by claiming that he was not seeking the expulsion of Marxist writers from the syndicate, but only for the syndicate to take disciplinary action against those who malign Egypt’s reputation in other countries. In June 1978, five journalists were referred to the attorney general’s office for their role in publishing negative articles outside Egypt. The syndicate, however, refused to go along with these measures by issuing a declaration stating its refusal to condemn the political affiliation of its members. It added that it was a professional organization, not a political party. The syndicate stood its ground until October 1981, a month after the regime’s onslaught on Egyptian journalists within Egypt, when the attorney general’s office recalled 120 journalists working outside of Egypt because of their anti-regime articles in the foreign press. The syndicate continued to be threatened with elimination of its registration and disciplinary duties and turning it into a social club, a fate similar to that of the Lawyers’ Syndicate.80 But the Arab press, in particular, continued to open its pages to Egyptian journalists of the opposition, targeting not only the Camp David strategy but also Sadat’s lavish lifestyle; he was said to have owned or appropriated ten villas. Heikal was in the forefront of these attacks by supplying intimate information about Sadat to the foreign press. Heikal, the administration feared, never lost his close contact with the foreign press, including the editor-in-chief of the London Sunday Times and some journalists associated with European and American television networks. His articles in the Arabic press were general analytical works in which he predicted that the United States would soon lose interest in Egypt, even suggesting that the Middle East was at the bottom of President Carter’s foreign policy agenda. Heikal also trailed Sadat during his 1975 journey to the United States, to deliver invited lectures where he used to address the issues of Egypt’s failed economy and declining status in the Arab world. This was considered a personal affront by Sadat who was particularly irked by Heikal’s 1975 interviews in The New York Times, considering them deliberate contradictions of his own statements to the press. But Sadat’s intolerance of foreign contacts by the Egyptian press extended to others beside Heikal who eventually was subjected to special interrogations. Mustafa Amin began to write a column in the Saudi paper alSharq Al-Awsat, based in London, at a time when Egyptian-Saudi relations

10_303_Ch6.qxd

264

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 264

Chapter 6

were at their lowest level. So did Ihsan Abd al-Quddous. But for Sadat and his key press advisors like Musa Sabri, any Egyptian writing in a Saudi paper was viewed as being in support of all the paper’s diatribes against Egypt. Therefore, when Ibrahim Saadeh, the deputy editor-in-chief of alAkhbar, and a man at the beginning of his journalistic career, was offered a lucrative contract to direct Al-Sharq al-Awsat’s Cairo office, he came under intense pressure to turn the offer down. Eventually, Amin, Abd-alQuddous and Saadeh turned the Saudi paper down, the latter being rewarded for his loyalty by Sadat with the position of editor-in-chief of Akhbar al-Youm.81 Some of the strongest attacks against Egypt appeared in the Kuwaiti press and were written by dissident Egyptian journalists. Most were angry at the Camp David peace initiative, but to Egyptian authorities they appeared to be lured by the power of the Kuwaiti Dinar. Egypt’s expatriate journalists defended themselves by claiming that Kuwaiti papers offered a platform for the expression of their political views that was simply lacking in Egypt. Since most of these attacks were directed at Sadat, and not at Egypt, the expatriate journalists did not feel that they were being unpatriotic. Musa Sabri, al-Akhbar’s editor, was the most vociferous in targeting the Kuwaiti media. He asked in one of his editorials sarcastically, whether the Emir of Kuwait has suddenly turned into the secretarygeneral of the Communist Party in the Arab world? Noting the Kuwaiti government’s reluctance to rein in the press, he was not impressed by refusal of the Kuwaiti authorities to ban al-Akhbar from Kuwait. This verbal war escalated when Kuwaiti editors in al-Qabas and other papers began to attack the record of Egyptian nationals in Kuwait, leading at one point to physical attacks by Kuwaiti students against their Egyptian instructors.82 The media war during the years following the Camp David initiative finally culminated in the so-called Fifth of September 1981 massacre and government attacks on the press. This onslaught began with the Morality Law of April 1980, which defined certain actions as attempts to disturb the social peace and alarm public sensitivities. Law No. 148, of 1980, restricted powers of the press and was used finally in the arrest of a large number of journalists and removing them from their positions.83 Sadat arrested more than seventy members of the Tagamuu party, which included many journalists. By August 1981, al-Daawa and al-Shaab were closed, followed by the closure and seizure of all the assets of al-Iitissam, al-Mukhtar al-Islami, al-Wattani and al-Kirazeh. Presidential decree Number 498, also in 1981, resulted in the transfer of seventy employees of major papers, radio, and television stations throughout the country to the Ministry of Information and other government agencies. These included the Ministry of Irrigation and the Department of Highways and Bridges. Sadat invoked Law Number 74 in the constitution, which allowed such measures in cases of extreme emer-

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 265

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

265

gency, a condition that clearly did not exist in September of 1981. Even though these measures sent fourteen prominent journalists to jail, including three members of the Press Syndicate’s executive council, the government press, such as al-Jumhuriyah, applauded these measures as a “new revolution.”84

SADAT AND THE WESTERN MEDIA Among the important press delegations that accompanied Sadat on his historic journey to Jerusalem were Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters, two of the most prominent television pundits in the United States. Cronkite had already conducted two interviews with Sadat while still in the United States via satellite. Cronkite also interviewed Begin in an effort to apprise the American public of the momentous breakthrough that was about to happen in the Middle East. Sadat seized the opportunity provided by the interviews to proclaim his willingness to travel to Israel if he received an invitation from Begin, and the Israeli prime minister indicated his interest in issuing such an invitation. Both of these media figures were favored by joining Sadat in his airplane and were later to comment on his cool nerves as he embarked on the most risky adventure of his public career. Sadat, as this event demonstrated, was not only convinced of the power of the American media, he was also confident that he would be able to manipulate it to his advantage. There was one issue in particular for which he sought the support of the American press, namely to convince American public opinion that America’s involvement in the Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations was absolutely necessary. He was already made aware of the ability of Israel to influence American public opinion through its own network of supporters within the United States. As soon as the peace diplomacy began, Israel unleashed a frenzied campaign against America’s participation in the peace talks, arguing that these should involve only Israel and Egypt. Pro-Israeli information outlets in the United States also claimed that Israel would be flexible on many issues, meaning that it did not look forward to being subjected to American pressure. Sadat instigated his own media campaign in the United States to gain acceptance for the notion that America was indeed a partner in the peace process. He would state before members of his own entourage that the new Egyptian line should be to use the United States now and in the future in the struggle for the achievement of Arab rights. The American public, he felt, was easily won to his side and that the only way to detract from his record as a brave peace maker was to magnify Egypt’s domestic troubles, particularly in the economic area. That was the reason for his resentment of the campaign waged against him by Le Monde, which he claimed was influenced by French communists who originally

10_303_Ch6.qxd

266

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 266

Chapter 6

lived in Egypt. Eric Rouleau, who headed the Middle East section in that paper, was a source of great annoyance to Sadat who feared him for formerly belonging to the Egyptian communist party, HADATO, of the 1940s. But Sadat was unable to sustain his image as a calm and determined head of state, soldiering for the cause of peace all the time. The foreign press began to allude to his attack on the Egyptian media in September 1981, especially since it resulted in Heikal’s imprisonment. That was when a press conference for foreign journalists at Sadat’s birthplace, Mit Abu Al-Kom, caused the president to explode. Sadat came to the meeting after having been given a summary of the latest American articles about Egypt, and he was not pleased. He then began to respond to these media accusations with a great deal of sarcasm. When a reporter asked him if he sought permission from newly elected President Reagan before journeying to the United States, the Egyptian president exploded with anger. He banged his fist on the table and roared back that Egypt was an independent country, and were it not for this thing called democracy, he would have shot the reporter right then and there. When Jihan Sadat heard of the president’s outburst, she called him to counsel calmness, but he continued to complain about reporters who demean Egypt. His worst battles with the foreign press continued to be waged against David Hirst of The Guardian whom Sadat expelled from Egypt because of his reporting on the food riots. Convinced that leftist and Palestinian elements were behind The Guardian’s attacks on his government, Sadat turned his intelligence services against the paper in order to intercept its reports before reaching Egypt. Such was his interest in this paper and its reporters, that when David Hirst gave an interview to the American ABC television station in Cairo before Sadat’s 1981 visit to the United States, the Egyptian secret service destroyed the tape before it was sent to the United States. What infuriated Sadat about that interview was that it repeated what has become a common theme among his media detractors, namely that he was facing a fate similar to that of the Shah of Iran. All of the protests of ABC’s headquarters went unanswered and no reporter from that station was allowed in Egypt until after a formal apology was offered to the Egyptian embassy in Washington. Sadat’s animosity against this network continued for years and extended to Peter Jenings, with whom Sadat also had an earlier dispute.85

CONCLUSION Sadat’s relationship with the press during the 1970s, which proved to be a decade of profound change, turned out to be more than just a record of dictatorial abuse. Indeed, the Egyptian leader was aware of the power of this institution, having been a part of it himself and having witnessed its

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 267

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

267

successful silencing and control by the Nasserite regime. Yet, he found himself the object of its defiance and revilement regardless of how far he went in order to win its friendship and support. Indeed, the one word that aptly characterizes this relationship would probably be frustration, since the Egyptian president tried all possible methods to win the media’s support, save respecting its total freedom to live up to its professional standards and ideals. Furthermore, this relationship illustrated the pitfalls of personal rule, which produced in this case nothing less than a record of erratic commitment to liberalization and genuine democracy, as well as several dramatic moments of embarrassment for the regime. Much of this strain resulted from the president’s naïve underestimation of the political and ideological commitments of the opposition press and its ability to withstand government pressure. There were some shining moments of restrained and responsible press reaction to some of Sadat’s policies. One of these was the media’s coordination with official news departments, such as Abd al-Qadir Hatem’s Ministry of Public Information, during the October War. The media, which was still restricted to the government-approved Akhbar al-Youm, alAhram, and al-Jumhuriyah, behaved extremely responsible and promoted the government’s objectives of initially deceiving the enemy, then adopting and advocating the official line that blamed the enemy for initiating the aggression. As a result of its natural reflex against the torrent of media misrepresentation and lies during the 1967 War, the press in 1973 neither wallowed in exaggerations nor in misrepresenting the realities on the military front. The press was also buoyed by Sadat’s successful efforts to disestablish some figures of the Nasserite regime who used to enjoy a near-total monopoly on the news and on contacts with foreign governments and the press. This led to the rise of a new cadre of favored journalists who were privy to the president’s policies, plans, and even intimate thoughts like Musa Sabri, Anees Mansour, Ahmad Bahaa al-Din, and others. But the president’s desire for the complete loyalty of members of what became known in his day as “the fourth estate” proved to be unrealistic since his freewheeling policies often alienated the press on ideological grounds. Sadat unleashed the opposition press, dormant since the Nasserite period, in the hope of achieving two things: One was to demonstrate to Western allies that his commitment to liberalization went beyond economic policy and embraced the concepts of free political parties and a free press; the other objective was to win over members of this cantankerous profession and harness it to his policies. But as soon as the freedom of political association was restored, barring the Muslim Brotherhood and the Communist party, the opposition press emerged as powerful as during the royalist era. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian left were allowed to publish

10_303_Ch6.qxd

268

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 268

Chapter 6

their papers, represented by al-Daawa and al-Ahali and proved themselves worthy representatives of the ideological press of a bygone era. Perhaps Sadat’s biggest mistake was to remain oblivious to ideological and tactical changes that materialized within his extreme right and extreme left as he launched his comprehensive liberalization plan. On the Islamic front, three groups galvanized the masses against his regime. These were university groups such as Jamaa Islamiyah, the extreme Jihad organizations and the centrist Muslim Brotherhood. On the leftist front, a new broad coalition of opposition groups, known as Tagamuu, also emerged. The president, apparently, was unaware of changes among the Islamic groups due to their long years of imprisonment, exile, and exposure to radicalizing non-Arab Islamic ideologies. Neither did the president appreciate the depth of their deep-founded convictions such as the concept of anathematization of secular regimes and the centrality of the Jihad to any operative Islamic policy. Such was the depth of their new commitment to the Jihad that they refused to perceive the Arab-Israeli conflict in purely strategic or tactical light and insisted on analyzing the entire conflict in strong religious terms. The concept of coalition and alliance building allowed the Tagamuu party to coexist and operate in a novel and reliable manner based on harmonizing policy among its various groups, issue by issue. Sadat proceeded to advocate his new Arab-Israeli diplomacy with total self-confidence, unaware of his weakened position because of the food riots and the depth of the commitment of his opposition to the Arab cause. His effort to change hardened and long held perceptions on Palestinian rights and Israeli danger to Egypt’s strategic security proved to be too little and too late. The regime’s thesis in preparation for the Camp David diplomacy hinged on two ideas: The extreme cost of this Arab-Israeli confrontation to the Egyptian public and the advantages of harmonizing Egypt’s interests with those of the United States. But the regime failed to generate public trust in the new Israeli ally or faith in America’s willingness to play an even-handed role in any Arab-Israeli negotiations. Added to this was Sadat’s propensity toward inventing or dreaming up unrealistic schemes designed to cut the Gordian knot of the Egyptian-Israeli impasse. Such was the idea of tempting Israel with the waters of the Nile, and Israel’s summary dismissal of such offers as an affront to its political commitments and ideals, which detracted from the Egyptian president’s credibility and statesmanship. His failure to deliver a meaningful settlement of the Palestinian issue or to bring the Palestinians on board also weakened his claims that the negotiated peace settlement would bring the Palestinian issue to a successful conclusion. Neither could the pro-government press cover up Israel’s stiff negotiating stand as these papers oscillated between condemnation and praise for the Israeli negotiators. The opposition press went as far as belittling the achievement

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 269

Sadat Plays Circus Master to a Liberated Press

269

of the Egyptian-Israeli peace, harping constantly on Sinai’s demilitarization as the price of restoring it to Egyptian sovereignty. Sadat’s effort to win over the American media was also seen as part of his failed campaign to create a rift between Israel and the United States. The Egyptian president confidently approached the American press following its initial warm reception of his peace initiative only to discover that pro-Israeli forces were still as entrenched in the United States as ever. He also experienced first hand the independence of the American media, whose members he threatened with physical harm if they persisted in subjecting him to unfriendly questioning. In the end, his handling of the foreign media, particularly the British and French media, succeeded only in tarnishing his image as a uniquely liberal head of state in a sea of dictatorships. His final crackdown on the press just months before his assassination put an end to his honeymoon with the “fourth estate.” What survived of Sadat’s bold foray into the uncharted waters of seeking a permanent peace agreement with Israel was the Press Council. This was another attempt to contain and control the Egyptian press and its representative syndicate, which also floundered on the bedrock of Egyptian authoritarianism. Egyptian censorship laws appeared to have entered a new phase that, instead of resorting to police methods, would resort to packing the syndicate with figures of the regime, or pushing this profession to discipline itself subject to the whims of the government. With the inauguration of the Mubarak period, the press resumed its struggle to exercise self-control while battling unpopular policies that dealt with the Arab-Israeli issue by reinvigorating the previous regime’s futile effort to harness Egypt to the American wheel.

10_303_Ch6.qxd

4/29/10

12:29 PM

Page 270

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 271

7 E

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

T

he Mubarak period was inaugurated in a sea of blood and violence as the assassination of a president intensified the battle against Islamic radicalism and opponents of the Egyptian-Israeli peace. The press, at the same time, was confronted with new governmental tactics using the threat to domestic national security as a justification for suppression and control. By 1981, the Egyptian regime was committed to upholding its regional treaties and further developing its relationship with the United States. The Camp David treaties, nevertheless, deepened, rather than lessened, Egypt’s involvement in the Palestine question. By becoming the major ally of the United States in the Arab world, Egypt’s foreign policy became constrained within the boundaries of the larger U.S. policy for the Middle East region. The opposition parties and their press, hardened by their experiences under the Sadat regime, became seriously intent on rolling back the Camp David agreements and ending Egypt’s visible and total reliance on the United States. Events in Palestine heightened the Egyptian public’s desire to break out of the Camp David straitjacket and respond to Palestinian and Arab cries for help. If the Egyptian-Israeli treaties and the American alliance seemed to be inimical to Egypt’s posture as the leader of the Arab world during the Sadat decade, they seemed to be particularly onerous and intolerable during the Palestinian intifadas. The press emerged once more at the forefront of oppositional forces, only this time it was an experienced institution that has weathered a variety of onslaughts by a series of regimes. As always, the struggle between the government and the press in the 1980s and 1990s was waged over Egypt’s national identity and the ideological direction of its foreign policy. The 271

10_303_Ch7.qxd

272

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 272

Chapter 7

Mubarak regime was armed with a battery of emergency regulations, cooptational policies and the backing of the government press, while the opposition press was equipped with a powerful syndicate and the support of a variety of parties and political groups. The story of press-government relations under Mubarak was also punctuated by the contrasting views of the Palestine question in the postCamp David years. It was very clear from the beginning that the Egyptian position on Palestine had been radically transformed, while the opposition’s commitment to upholding the rights of Palestine’s Arabs was strengthened. The polarization of views had a great deal to do with the opposition’s alarm over the deepening of the official Egyptian and Israeli relationship. This trend went to the extent of proposing normalization of relations as the desired outcome of the peace. Egypt’s Palestine policy now threatened to infringe on Egyptian cultural values and norms in a manner never experienced before. The more American sponsors of that polarization pushed for cultural change, the more the mass of the politicized Egyptian public stiffened their opposition to the entire regime. The Palestine question, thus, acquired an unusual immediacy. The press, just as in the past, spearheaded a public confrontation with the authorities in defense of age-old notions of genuine independence and democracy. Having experienced various institutions of control such as governmentcreated councils, the press, represented by its syndicate, seemed ready once more to face jail terms, closures and seizure of papers, and vicious attacks mounted by regime-friendly papers.

A HISTORY OF CENSORSHIP The first act to regulate the press and impose limits on its freedom was issued in 1881 by order of Khedive Tawfiq, specifically in order to curtail the power of pro-British papers such as al-Muqattam.1 This measure was a step or two beyond the previous practice of issuing a threat to a specific paper or closing a publication for a few weeks. The 1881 decree included twentythree clauses, stipulating such requirements as depositing the sum of one hundred Egyptian pounds for each license application. The government reserved to itself the right to withhold such licenses or withdrawing them at will. The importation of paper from the outside was also severely restricted. The Khedive wanted to silence the press in anticipation of the looming national crisis and the threat of army intervention in politics. When Mahmoud Sami al-Baroudi’s nationalist government took control in 1882, the public expected the elimination of this law. Instead, the law was maintained and was even used to pressure or silence Syrian papers such as al-Ahwal, al-Ahram, alMahrouseh, and Misr. The nationalists forced the resignation of pro-Khedival

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 273

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

273

editors, such as Hamzeh Fathallah of al-Burhan. Similarly, when the British gained control of government, they too acted to restrain the power of the press by ignoring Lord Frederick Duffrein’s proclamation guaranteeing freedom of the press. Some papers associated with the nationalist revolution such as al-Zaman, al-Taif, al-Nafir, and al-Najah were closed. Several journalists were prevented from practicing their craft through exiling, or as in the case of Abdullah al-Nadim, through issuing a death sentence that he escaped by going into hiding. The government also began subsidizing antirevolutionary papers such as al-Ahram and al-Mahrouseh. The final step was to prevent such pro-Uraabist papers as Abu-Naddhara and al-Urwah alWuthqa from entering the country.2 British attitudes toward this nationalist institution were best exemplified by Lord Cromer’s 1903 report to his home government. In a threepage discussion he justified ignoring this important area during the past twenty years of service in Egypt by claiming that there were no incidents of note involving the press. He attributed his perception of an inactive press to the deep entrenchment of British power in the country. Much of his report expressed utter disdain for the potential of the press, especially in the area of influencing national policy, by claiming that journalists were merely interested in leveling personal attacks on public figures. Since these rarely targeted the Khedive or foreign heads of state, they remained harmless.3 But despite Cromer’s boastful contention that the British occupation had indeed fostered a free press, there was no evidence to support his claim. Instead, the government used laws and dubious practices such as secret funding of papers to subvert the very principle claimed by Cromer.4 In addition, both the Khedive and Cromer were guilty of manipulating the press and resisting the adoption of further restrictive laws, which would have led to the weakening of their own favored papers. A vivid illustration of manipulating the press in order to wage smear campaigns against political enemies was provided by al-Thaher’s campaign against Muhammed Abduh. This paper, owned by a noted pro-Khedive lawyer, Muhammad Abi Shadi, launched a strong attack calling for Abduh’s resignation as the head of al-Azhar. The respected advocate of Islamic reform was accused of sanctioning the eating of poultry without applying ritual slaughter laws. This incident gave rise to a loud public cry in favor of legislating against journalistic chaos and irresponsibility. Cromer resisted the call for restricting the powers of the press, fearing the potential use of these laws to muzzle the pro-British papers. He contended instead that the criminal code had just been fortified by the addition of two recent laws, no. 282 and no. 283, both of which were capable of restraining the errant press. The penalty for abuse of freedom of expression under these laws was set as high as imprisonment for three years. The laws stipulated that the most egregious crimes of the press were extortion of

10_303_Ch7.qxd

274

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 274

Chapter 7

funds, smearing public figures, or simply intrusion on the banquet halls of the rich and famous.5 British authorities in Egypt, however, changed their mind regarding the advantages of an unfettered press when Egyptian papers increasingly moved to support the nationalist struggle. Thus, the 1881 Law of Publications was restored on March 25, 1909, eliciting a strong protest by the Wattani Party and al-Liwaa that called for a public protest against this law. The paper and its allies were particularly incensed over the immunity extended to the foreign-owned press since these could only be tried under the owners’ national laws in Egypt’s mixed courts. The Law of Publications was merely intended for use against papers of the nationalist opposition. Among the first casualties of this law was a 1909 article on the Dinshaway incident of 1906 in al-Liwaa, which was considered to be an attack on the head of government. The author of that article, well-known writer and nationalist, Sheikh Abd al-Aziz Jaweesh, was sent to jail, which precipitated an extensive debate on the pages of most papers. But the Law of Publications did not deter nationalist papers from waging a war of words concerning another political issue, namely the 1909 proposal to extend the Suez Canal concession agreement. The proposal incited nationalist leader, Muhammad Farid, to wage a strong battle against it on the pages of al-Liwaa mounting a powerful argument based on logic and a battery of laws that were cited by the rest of the Egyptian press and by foreign publications. Farid’s argument would have won the day except that in the midst of this campaign, Egypt’s most celebrated twentieth century political murder took place. On February 20, 1910, Egyptian Premier Boutrous Ghali was assassinated by Ibrahim Nasif al-Wardani for a variety of perceived offenses. These included Ghali’s enthusiastic endorsement of the extension of the Canal concession as well as his cabinet’s adoption of the Law of Publications, his role in the Dinshaway incident, and the signing of the 1899 Sudan Agreement. Despite outcries by the Wattani Party and others against this murder, a number of the pro-British press laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of al-Liwaa. The Ghali assassination prompted the passage of the laws previously rejected by the Legislative Council, namely: (1) removing misdemeanors committed by the press from the purview of investigation judges to ordinary criminal courts where there were no jury and no judicial appeal, (2) expulsion of any student from school if he or she engaged in public demonstrations, or if a student wrote for or supplied any newspaper with harmful information, (3) outlawing all manner of secret societies.6 The main objects of British wrath before World War I turned out to be al-Liwaa and al-Alam, the two publications of the Wattani Party. The latter was suspended for a period of one month in 1910, and then for three months, while al-Liwaa was totally closed around the same time. The Wat-

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 275

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

275

tani party then issued a new paper in place of al-Liwaa, namely al-Shaab, which debuted in 1912.7 The government’s excuse for closing al-Liwaa permanently was the appointment of an editor-in-chief without prior permission and the involvement of its editors in anti-government riots. After al-Alam met the same fate as al-Liwaa, al-Shaab was entrusted to one of alWattani’s most prominent journalists, Amin al-Rafii, who struggled to avoid permanent closure until 1914. It was then that he finally lost the battle that he fought largely over the paper’s right to publish Muhammad Farid’s European letters.8 Following Britain’s entry into World War I in August of 1914, emergency regulations were imposed on Egypt and censorship laws went into effect by November of the same year. Within one year all of the nationalist press were closed. The British regime continued to supply print paper to its own journals, which were devoted increasingly to news of British exploits on the battlefront and Britain’s readiness to defend Egyptian lands if necessary. Between 1914 and 1919, the Egyptian national press was practically dormant, leaving only such prominent pro-British papers as al-Ahram and al-Muqattam and some underground papers and leaflets. Emergency regulations were not lifted until the beginning of the Revolution of 1919. As soon as the Egyptian public learned of the arrest and exiling of Saad Zaghloul and his compatriots, demonstrations and riots swept the country, while the press jumped into the battle in support of the nationalist cause. Several papers, including al-Ahram adopted a pro-Saad position, while al-Muqattam became almost tonguetied. In response to these general disturbances and the call for a constitution, British authorities authorized an investigative commission on May 15, 1919, headed by Lord Alfred Milner. The arrival of the Milner Mission prompted outcries by the press, increased popular agitation and the reimposition of censorship laws on the nationalist press. By May of 1921, censorship was lifted again in a move designed to reduce public anger, but in reality the nationalist press continued to be subjected to close security. Special laws were enacted to protect certain groups and exalted personages from the wrath of the press. By 1922, for instance, Law No. 32 changed the crime of defamation against the Khedivial government to an anti-defamation law against the Royal government, increasing the penalty for such crime to imprisonment for five years. Law 37 of the same year raised the penalty for advocating sedition and attacks on the authorities from imprisonment for two years to five years. Sedition was defined as spreading ideologies opposed to the constitution. The two laws served, thus, to tighten government’s grip over the press as a substitute for the lifting of wartime emergency regulations. The constitution of 1923 provided many rights and freedoms for members of the bourgeoisie and the upper strata of society, but sought to protect the new liberal regime against the biting criticism of the press. Although stating that freedom of

10_303_Ch7.qxd

276

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 276

Chapter 7

expression was guaranteed, allowing individuals the right to express themselves in pictures or words, the final constitution draft succeeded under Article 15 to provide further restrictions on these theoretical freedoms. Article 15, in essence, stipulated that it was lawful to warn papers or suspend them if the need arose in order to protect the social order. The intent of the law was to criminalize socialist and communist agitation, which surfaced after the 1919 Revolution. Among the critics of this law was Amin al-Rafii, who as editor of al-Akhbar, lamented this infringement on freedom of the press and considered the law a contradiction of that very same freedom. Similar views were expressed by Muhammad Hussein Heikal, editor of al-Siyaseh, who argued further that this was a case of abusing an important freedom. Providing a provision for suspending papers when such a commandment was absent from the constitutional text was considered to be a grave matter. Among the most vocal critics of this law was the Egyptian Communist Party, which issued a declaration attacking the constitution and describing it as an autocratic document.9 Egypt’s liberal nationalist government soon succumbed to the dictatorial tendencies of the palace and British authorities during the cabinets of Muhammad Mahmoud of the Liberal Constitutional Party (1928–1929 and 1938–1939), and Ismail Sidqi of the People’s Party (1930–1933 and 1946). Both of these immensely unpopular premiers fought the Wafd Party by silencing the press and curbing constitutional freedoms. Much of the press had enjoyed relative freedom as soon as the 1923 Constitution became effective with the opening of parliament on March 15 of that same year. Rarely did the government close papers by executive order, although it resorted sometimes to the courts to obtain legal orders against papers deemed to have overstepped the boundaries of permissible criticism. But the Egyptian government eventually learned to seek other means of silencing the press whenever there was no satisfaction from the courts, such as suspending the constitution, thereby removing any constitutional safeguards of freedom of the press. In 1928, for instance, Royal Decree Number 46, suspended the latter section of Article 15, which was followed by a cabinet order to revive Article 13 of the Law of Publications, stating that the suspension and closure of papers was the privilege of the cabinet only. During the Mahmoud cabinet nearly one hundred papers were suspended and their licenses cancelled. Such opposition papers as al-Bilad and Rose al-Yousef were suspended for four months, while Wadi alNil, al-Ahram, al-Hurriyah, Kawkab al-Sharq, al-Wattan, and al-Afkar were permanently closed. Eventually, Rose al-Yousef joined their ranks. The Sidqi cabinet in 1930 followed suit in collaboration with the Palace and British authorities. This government cancelled the 1923 Constitution and a new constitution was adopted in 1930, which, under Article 153, allowed for the suspension of papers by orders of the Appeals Court on the

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 277

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

277

basis of protecting the government against hate crimes. In the declaration that accompanied this article, the authorities blamed the press for the unstable conditions in the country and the continuing crisis that paralyzed various institutions. The press was also charged with corrupting public morals and poisoning people’s minds with a variety of untruthful antigovernment accusations. By May 15, 1930, most of the pro-Wafdist papers were suspended and on their way to closure, leading to the elimination of the government’s main opposition voices. The most ideological papers at first resorted to voicing their ideals on the pages of the remaining non-political papers but this outlet was soon closed. By the end of 1930, around twenty daily papers and fifty or sixty weekly publications were closed. The old Law of Publications was revived and given sharper teeth by adding to the list of forbidden subjects the notion of threatening public morals and leading to a state of chaos. Another addition to the list of crimes of the press was the use of inflammatory language that would expose the government to contempt and hatred or raise doubts regarding its competency and credibility. With the restoration of the 1923 Constitution under the government of Tawfiq Naseem in 1935, a new era was entered. A national front made up of al-Wafd, the Liberal Constitutionalists, alShaab Party, al-Ittihad Party, and some independents began to support the Wafd government that resumed power and commenced negotiations for the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty.10 When World War II began Egypt came under emergency regulations and censorship laws, including censoring of the mail. This was also a period of new leftist and feminist publications that emerged immediately following the cessation of hostilities on the world stage. But no sooner were restrictive laws relaxed than Egypt’s decision to enter the Palestine War in 1948 saw the re-establishment of emergency regulations and the prime minister assumed the position of the military governor of Egypt. The assassination of that same official, Mahmoud Fahmi al-Nuqrashi, at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood soon thereafter led to the extension of these laws and the persecution of the press. Several papers were closed for failure to observe the new laws and some chief editors of papers such as al-Kuttlah al-Wafdiyah were prosecuted in the courts.11 The restoration of Wafdist rule under premiership of Mustafa Nahhas in 1950 brought an end to the emergency regulations and saw a variety of ideological papers unleash a powerful campaign against the monarchy, the capitalist system and the British presence in Egypt. The only major crisis that threatened to revive hated censorship laws involved the failed effort of a Wafdist deputy, Istephan Bassily, to secure legislation that would have prohibited any mention or criticism of royal privilege.12 The press also reached a milestone during the late royalist period by organizing itself into a professional syndicate. It was the Lawyers’

10_303_Ch7.qxd

278

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 278

Chapter 7

Syndicate that led to the creation of similar important institutions of the Liberal age in 1912. To this day, it remains the unchallenged illustrious member of this chain of fourteen organizations that survived under regimes as different as the royalist, the Nasserite socialist, the Sadatist infitah period, as well as the Mubarak regime. The journalists created their own syndicate in 1940 and suffered the blows of various authoritarian governments while benefiting perceptibly from the expansion of the educated classes during the second half of the twentieth century. While most of the country’s professional syndicates stepped beyond the limits of professional groups in the past, the most politicized remain the lawyers’ and press syndicates. The latter had often found itself locked in a confrontational embrace with the authorities because it championed campaigns of anti-censorship laws. Successive governments always found it essential to control syndicates, particularly that of the journalists, as these articulated the views and demands of an increasingly restive public. The most crucial organizational activity of all syndicates was always convening the general assembly, which met annually in order to elect a board of directors and to adopt general policies. When governmental pressure on these organizations mounted, the result was always the forced postponement of these elections. Governments often interfered directly by fielding their own candidates, presumably genuine editors of government-controlled papers. Competition for control of the syndicates’ directorial positions or even merely for membership within each syndicate was never because of the amenities that came with that membership; these merely guaranteed a small pension and few insignificant social benefits. The real attraction has always been gaining a strong voice for the articulation of oppositional views or gaining prominence as a stepping stone to a political career.13

CENSORSHIP: THE NASSERITE PERIOD The Press Syndicate began to suffer as a result of the Nasserite effort to control or eliminate all institutions immediately following the 1952 Revolution. This was due to the military officers’ perception of the ideal centralized state and their contempt for the liberal bourgeois institutions of the past. The state was now determined to push through projects affecting massive social change and was unable to tolerate the divisive luxury of competitive politics. This radical transformation of political attitudes was reflected in the language of the 1964 Constitution, which, unlike the language of the 1956 and 1958 Constitutions, which guaranteed freedom of the press and the publication and dissemination of information “according to the public interest,” guaranteed these freedoms “according to

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 279

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

279

the limits of the law.” Rather than create new institutions for the press, the Revolution sought to exercise its control through revolutionary councils of its own such as bringing the Press Syndicate under the umbrella of the National Congress, the Socialist Union, and the Revolutionary Union. The first blow to the press in 1952 was the elimination of political parties, which then deactivated their own papers. The officers were in charge of censoring the remaining papers and eventually the entire independent press was nationalized in 1960.14 But even before that, the Nasserite government began to place the presidency of the Press Syndicate in friendly hands, such as Salah Salem. The syndicate was denied the right to convene its annual general assembly as of 1962, but elections were held in 1964 because of the protest resignation of some board members. The regime then attempted to dilute the power of the syndicate by increasing the representation of provincial journalists in the Cairo headquarters. Members of the ASU, Egypt’s single ruling party, began to argue in favor of including all the syndicates in their ranks in order to maximize the party’s mobilizational ability. Syndicates were encouraged to recruit people with lower professional standards. In 1964, a new law on labor unions attempted to blur the line between professionals and workers by converting the former into proletarians. Unionized labor proved to be suspicious of the professionals, fearing eventual control by the better prepared professionals. By 1964, the government announced its intention to assimilate the press fully within the ASU by creating a “higher council for the press,” which was presented as a self-governing entity. This innovation, which was permanently established during the Sadat period, was ostensibly intended to assure total autonomy in the areas of administration, organization, and financial regulations. When the Press Syndicate rebelled against these measures during its general meeting of January 10, 1965, the National Assembly voided the syndicate’s decisions. The syndicate, nevertheless, continued to resist the ASU’s hegemonic moves by choosing officers who were unwilling to go along with the party’s efforts. This led to a Supreme Court decision nullifying the results of the syndicate’s elections. A year later, the Cabinet itself intervened by dissolving the syndicate’s board and appointing a new body in its place. There were no more elections for the syndicate until after the 1967 June War, when, in the general climate of liberalization, an influential professional journalist, Ahmad Bahaa al-Din, was chosen for the presidency. Even though he was followed in this position in 1969 with a pro-government president, Kamil Zuheiry, the syndicate was allowed to adopt laws raising its professional standards by demanding that the membership be bona fide journalists and holders of professional degrees. More importantly, by 1970, the government went along with the syndicate’s demands banning the arrest of its members as punishment for their journalistic work. The syndicate also demanded and

10_303_Ch7.qxd

280

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 280

Chapter 7

received approval for prohibiting police interrogation of journalists without the presence of syndicate officials. The syndicate, thus, proved itself capable of safeguarding the integrity of the profession during the years of its subservience to the ASU. In addition, the syndicate never managed to live up to the ASU’s expectations of mobilizing members in support of the regime, remaining visibly passive during the transition from the Nasserite to the Sadatist regime.15 Thus, relations between the press and the officers’ government went through two phases. The first phase lasted from 1952 until 1954, covering the years of uncertainty before Nasser succeeded in eliminating non-socialist officers from his regime. The second phase continued from 1954 until the 1967 military defeat when laws pertaining to the press experienced some relaxation. During the first phase, the press came under various forms of censorship and the regime relied on its personal contacts with friendly elements among the press in order to communicate its policies and views. Ownership of papers became a mixed pattern, with the government beginning its direct ownership of some journals. At the same time, closing of papers and withdrawing their licenses became increasingly common. But the most important innovation of that phase turned out to be the establishment of the Ministry of National Guidance, with specific duties of press regulation and control. During the second phase, the press was encouraged to identify with the objectives of the officers’ regime and help shape the contours of its future government. The press, however, as well as other professions, were more concerned with preserving their own autonomy and the preservation of the independence of their syndicate. Military regulations and official censorship were restored during the Suez War of 1956, but these laws were relaxed after the war with the exception of restrictions on the communications of foreign reporters and press agencies. The application of censorship laws was more amicable following the war, especially after the establishment of an office of censorship in the Ministry of National Guidance. Rather than applying laws arbitrarily or assigning specific censors to each paper, this office was instructed to call chief editors for consultation and the friendly exchange of views. By 1960, all papers were nationalized and attached to the National Congress. Journalists were expected to belong to the body that appointed administrative boards for each publication and charged them with the execution of all legal matters in the name of the National Congress. In its memorandum leading to this development, the government explained that the 1960 Law of Publications viewed public ownership of all means of social and political direction as inevitably something that belonged to the people. Only the people, the memorandum emphasized, could be entrusted with these duties since Egypt was now a socialist, cooperative, and democratic society. Since capitalism must be banished

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 281

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

281

from its controlling position over the politics of the country, then it followed logically that private capital should not be allowed to dominate all means of public education and direction. To allow such domination would simply create a huge contradiction with the objectives of society and the revolutionary means of its rebuilding. This policy was finally confirmed by the creation of an office for the regulation of the press within the ASU in 1963. The thaw came after the June War, when, on the eve of the transition to the Sadat period, the press managed to insist on protecting its membership from the harsh methods of the police.16

CENSORSHIP: THE SADAT PERIOD No sooner did Sadat take the reins of office in 1970 than a public discussion concerning general freedoms, especially those of the press, took place. The first governmental thrust into the affairs of the press was to propose to the annual general assembly of the syndicate in 1971 the adoption of a Journalist’s Honor Code. This would be made up of twenty-two articles, which was intended as a way of imposing self-censorship on the organization. The language of the 1971 Constitution guaranteed freedom of the press and all means of information and indicated clearly that censorship was outlawed, as well as the suspension of journals through administrative means. The only restriction imposed on this new freedom was the imposition of a limited form of censorship relating to public safety and national security in times of war or national emergency. Displaying some impatience, the Press Syndicate demanded in 1972 the immediate lifting of censorship except in matters relating to military affairs. The syndicate expressed the view that censorship laws have exceeded the area of safeguarding national security. The syndicate was taking advantage of the atmosphere of general liberalization that developed after Sadat took over the presidency, leading to a general discussion of the laws of censorship before the People’s Assembly, the new name of the National Assembly. By 1972, the Assembly approved a new law granting freedom of the press and restricting censorship without its approval. One of the immediate results of this was the lifting of restrictions on the foreign travel of Egyptian journalists, as well as expediting visits by the foreign press. Yet despite these measures, Sadat permitted the suspension of the membership of a number of journalists from the ranks of the ASU in February 1973, effectively barring them from practicing their profession. The syndicate protested this measure by insisting on the need to follow proper regulations in such matters by first presenting motions of accusation, investigation, defense, and then indictment before officially suspending a journalist’s professional license. The president then permitted the return

10_303_Ch7.qxd

282

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 282

Chapter 7

of the suspended journalists by September of the same year and lifted censorship laws by February of 1974. A subtle change was introduced as a result of this. Instead of government censorship, each chief editor was expected to exercise supervisory powers over his own paper and staff and made accountable to the authorities for each and every harmful opinion or information appearing in his paper. By May 1975 the president proposed the idea of organizing a higher press council, which was followed a year later with a general reshuffling of editorial boards of major papers and the final adoption of a press code of honor. With the final repeal of Nasserite laws that outlawed political parties the press began to enjoy some freedom in 1976. The return of the party press, however, did not result in a period of permanent harmony as this coincided with the Camp David negotiations, resulting in a new contentious press-government relationship.17 The 1975 Higher Press Council eventually was placed under the supervision of the Shura, or Consultative Council, in 1980 following the elimination of the ASU.18 The Shura Council was something akin to the upper house of the People’s Assembly and was mostly appointed by the president. Its powers were advisory, rather than legislative, in nature and it played a consultative role as opposed to the more powerful People’s Assembly.19 The press was declared a Fourth Estate following the national referendum of April 19, 1979, which preceded the Constitution of 1980. Article 207 of that constitution stipulated that the press will be able to realize its mission in total independence and freedom and was expected to give expression to all currents of public opinion. Its main role was to form and guide that opinion, hence the idea of placing it under the supervision of the Shura Council. Article 208 guaranteed freedom of the press and outlawed censorship. Article 209, on the other hand, detailed the new law pertaining to the ownership of the press, stating that ownership by political parties and individuals was subject to the people’s supervision. Article 210 protected the journalists’ right to obtain news and information without government interference. All in all, the Constitution of 1980 represented the highest sage of a visible development, whereby constitutions began to infringe on freedom of the press through extensive legislation as early as 1952.20 The draft pertaining to the law regarding organizing the Fourth Estate or the press authority in Egypt received wide discussion by various bodies such as the Political Bureau of the National Democratic Party, the Cabinet, the Parliamentary Committee of the ruling party and finally the People’s Assembly. The law was finally approved on July 10, 1980, following the amendment of two of its clauses relating to the definition of the national press and the admissibility of transferring ownership of paper. Additionally, Article 15 of the same law prohibited certain groups that deny major religions from publishing papers. There was some dispute over the appropriate age of retirement for members of the press.

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 283

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

283

Finally, Law No. 148, issued in 1980, came out with sixty-five articles regulating the authority of the press under five divisions: 1. The authority and powers of the press in general and the rights and privileges of members of the press. 2. Ownership of the press. 3. The national press. 4. The Higher Press Council. 5. Provisional laws. No sooner did the law appear than the recently formed constitutional and legislative committee of the Shura Council rushed to convene a meeting expressly for discussing the law even before the finalization and constituting of the Higher Press Council. This aroused the ire of the Press Syndicate, which complained formally against what it considered to be a very unconstitutional move. The syndicate raised objections specifically to the committee’s decisions regarding the following issues: 1. Designating the retirement age for members of the syndicate. 2. Granting permission to those wishing to work for non-Egyptian papers or information agencies. 3. Granting permission for job transfer within and outside of papers. 4. Burdening journalists with unnecessary duties that were best left to the constitution. By January of 1981, the Shura Council announced its intention to introduce new modifications on the law following a general discussion of a draft law concerning the protection of values and morals. The syndicate was known to be thoroughly opposed to this law.21 The most significant feature of the law, which stirred wide discussion, was the new plan regarding ownership of the press. The memorandum accompanying the draft law on publications in 1980 stated that the reason for legislating the ownership and administrative organization of the press was because the reconstitution of this authority required the restructuring of its administrative system. Thus, practicing journalists should be allowed the ownership of 49 percent of the assets, while new channels should be opened between the representatives of those working in the press and those representatives of the people’s ownership of the press. Article 24 of the same law stated that the institution of the national press was owned by the public, represented by the Shura Council’s ownership of 51 percent of the assets. Half of the net profits of each paper was to be assessed to the workers (journalists), while the other half was to be spent on expansion and renovation of the press establishment. The Higher Council of the

10_303_Ch7.qxd

284

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 284

Chapter 7

Press was entrusted with the task of supervision, preparing the annual budget and the distribution of the profits of each paper.22 The Council began as a select group chosen by the president in his capacity as the head of the ASU, headed by the general Secretary of the ASU’s Central Committee, and with the membership of the vice president of the People’s Assembly, the president of the Press Syndicate, one of the judges of the Court of Appeals, three presidents and editors of press organizations, three responsible public officials, the dean of Cairo University’s College of Information, two members of the executive board of the Press Syndicate, three newly inducted members of the Press Syndicate, and the president of the printing union.23 The Press Council was, thus, a far cry from the vision of Egyptian writer and social critic, Khaled Muhammad Khaled, who first proposed the idea of such a council in 1964, as a way of legislating press activities by electing members of the profession to its ranks. The idea behind the proposal was definitely to allow for the professional self-supervision of this group, but with very little direct intervention by the government.24 The Higher Press Council also dictated the composition of the Press Syndicate calling for the creation of a forty-two-member general assembly divided in the following manner: Ten members chosen by the Shura Council and enjoying a total of thirty votes; seven members appointed by the syndicate, each enjoying three votes; twenty-four members chosen from the general ranks of the membership, and from syndicate administrators and workers, each enjoying two votes; one representative of the union of workers within the syndicate, enjoying one vote. The total number of votes added up to one hundred, but it also shared power with another body, namely the executive board. This was envisioned as a group of thirteen, seven of whom were to be nominated by the Shura Council of whom four must be chosen from the ranks of the syndicate. These were nominated for a five-year term and were to be appointed by presidential decree. Six members were to be elected by the general assembly, each two of these representing journalists, administrators, and workers. In addition to this elaborate organization of the syndicate’s general assembly and the executive board, the Higher Press Council was entrusted with vast economic and administrative powers over the press institution. It was left to this council to set up pay scales for employees of papers and to determine the price and space allotted to advertisements. The Council was expected to establish the price of magazines and newspapers, as well as to settle disputes between capital investors of some of the papers.25 One of its seemingly contradictory features, however, concerned its powers as defined under Article 28 of the 1980 Law, which read: The institution of the national press is considered a private company of the private sector, except in the matter of regulating its own affairs and the re-

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 285

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

285

sponsibilities of its administrators which are governed by the penal law, especially concerning exports and imports and commercial agencies. These fall under the rule of law.26

Among the other ambiguities of the law was its failure to define fully the manner of ownership of papers by their own workers. This segment of the law did not specify whether workers shared equally the assets of each paper or whether they would be given shares according to years of service. Neither was the destiny of these shares after the demise of the worker-owners of papers carefully stated. The fate of workers who were assigned shares in their papers according to the 1960 Law No. 156 also escaped specification. Thus, a dualism arose whereby the ownership of the press establishment was vested in the Shura Council, while the operative outlines of this institution and its rules and regulations such as setting up a price scale for papers and allotting print paper to each publication or press establishment were let to the Higher Press Council. A few powers were left to executive boards since the Council, which did not own the papers in the first place and did not represent them in fact or in law, was given overall responsibility over them. An example of this ambiguity surfaced when the Minister of Justice declared before a meeting of the People’s Assembly that the Shura Council was, in his view, a legislative committee, while the president of the Assembly insisted on rejecting this definition. Thus, the ownership of the national press remained uncertain in a manner similar to the pattern set by the ASU of the Nasserite period. When the ASU was eliminated in 1978 and multi-party activity was restored, the Shura Council became the one body exercising ownership rights over the press, except it did so in the name of the state. It should be noted here that when the press was nationalized in 1960, the owners of these papers were compensated accordingly. In the case of the 1980 law, no reference was made to the manner in which ownership of the press was transferred to the state, never indicating whether this was to be a form of nationalization, ownership transfer, or outright confiscation. This ambiguity, according to some experts, was due to the state’s perception of the rights of workers, considering them communal owners, rather than individual owners of the assets of each paper. The state, apparently, did not feel that this transfer of ownership from the defunct ASU to the Shura Council harmed the interest of workers in any shape or form. The new law, in addition, restricted the ownership of papers to political parties, and public and private entities, thus confining ownership to natural entities. In confirmation of this, the law allowed existing papers that were licensed to natural entities to continue until the death of their owners. Then, the law distinguished between the ownership of public and private entities by legislating that in the case of the latter

10_303_Ch7.qxd

286

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 286

Chapter 7

group, the press establishment should take the form of cooperatives or shareholding companies, except in the case of political parties, unions, and syndicates. But the law also placed restrictions on shareholding companies by confining ownership to Egyptians only, as long as the shareholdings of an individual and his family in such a company did not exceed 500 Egyptian pounds. The sum of investment in each company was kept high, demanding a capital investment of a daily paper to be at least 200,000 Egyptian pounds and 100,000 pounds in the case of a weekly publication. In both of these cases, the capital investment sum was required to be deposited in full in an Egyptian bank prior to the date of publication. The intent of the law was discouraging the frivolous or radical press from abusing the new law.27 The law defined the national press as those papers owned by the ASU, after adding to this list the Middle East Press Agency, the National Distribution Company, and the new magazine, October. The law also established specific regulations for the administration and operation of the national press. Each paper in this category was expected to have a fourteen-member administrative board in addition to the director who would be chosen by the Shura Council, along with eight members, four of whom selected from the same paper. The remaining six members were to be elected by the workers in each paper as long as each two represented one of the following categories of workers: journalists, administrators, or workers. The administrative board was expected to serve for four-year, renewable terms of office, as long as members were confined to one board each. For the first time in the history of Egyptian journalism, additionally, editorial boards were required by law, although papers in the past have followed this system. The new law, thus, stipulated that each of the papers owned by the national authority should have an editorial board of five members or more, four of whom to be chosen by the administrative board. One of these four was to assume the duties of deputy editor, but the chief editor was to be chosen by the Shura Council and would also serve as the president of the editorial board. This body was expected to serve for three renewable terms of three years each. The general editorial policy was to be set by this board and each editorial board served a single paper if a publishing company issued more than one paper. Each publishing establishment was endowed with a general assembly made up of thirty-five members elected for a five-year period by the workers, administrators, and journalists of each such organization. Twenty members of these assemblies were to be selected by the Shura Council from among the nation’s “writers or those concerned with intellectual, educational, journalistic, and informational matters.” This assembly, clearly, was not expected to set editorial policy.28 Papers were denied the freedom of having editorial policy set by the editorial board. Instead, it was legislated under Article 34 of the Law of

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 287

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

287

Publications that the editorial board would establish such policy in conjunction with the general outline adopted by the administrative board of the paper. The editor-in-chief and his assistants were expected to execute the administrative board’s plans. Thus, for the first time, editorial decision making was no longer separate from administrative decision making, which strengthened control by a body selected by a legislative group, namely the Shura Council. It should be noted that for the last twenty years preceding the 1980 law, heads of administrative boards came from the editorial side of the paper, with the exception of al-Ahram, which was exempted from this arrangement due to the editor’s special relationship to Sadat. Another issue that acquired new importance as a result of this law was the retirement age of journalists and workers. In the past, retirement limits were left to journalistic establishments themselves, with some requiring their employees to retire at age sixty-five, while others conformed to the age limit set by the social security law, which was sixty. Rarely were retirement laws applied to journalists, but were merely used as a punitive method of getting rid of fractious writers. The 1980 law elaborated on the retirement limit under Article 28 by dictating that the retirement age for those employed in the press establishment be set at sixty, which applied to administrative personnel, journalists, and workers alike. However, it was made possible to extend that age limit for some employees to sixty-five, one year at a time, by a special order of the Higher Press Council. Only the administrative board can make such a recommendation, which, by law, excluded the head and members of the administrative board, editors-in-chief, or members of editorial boards. There were serious objections to the sweep of this exclusionary clause, particularly where it applied to qualified and seasoned editors-in-chief.29 The strongest body to emerge from these regulations was the Higher Press Council, which became the dominant committee overseeing all sections of Egyptian journalism: the party press, the independent press, and the administrative and journalistic aspects of the national press. The law bestowed large powers on the Council, granting it authority over printing, advertising, and distributing of papers. Such powers over the national press were granted in the past to the ASU and its various auxiliary bodies, as well as to the Minister of Information. These two regulated not only the operation of the Press Syndicate but also the allocation of print paper, setting down the price of journals and allocating advertising space in such a manner so as not to infringe on editorial space according to international custom. The ASU was also charged with setting minimum wage standards for both journalists and workers alike. The Higher Press Council expanded these powers at a time when Egypt was pursuing a policy of economic liberalization and when the press industry had mushroomed into a huge economic endeavor. It was also apparent that government control of the national press turned

10_303_Ch7.qxd

288

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 288

Chapter 7

these papers into party publications since government was not an independent and neutral agent but represented the party interests of the ruling party, namely the National Democratic party. Since the Shura Council was charged with the supervision of the press, this body had always drawn 99 percent of its members from the ruling party. Moreover, despite its pretensions to autonomy, the Higher Press Council has proven itself to be an instrument of government control in a long line of such attempts dating back to 1960. As proof of the quasi-official nature of the national press, one has only to examine the bloated bureaucracy of these papers with hundreds of surfeit employees in such publications as Akhbar al-Youm and al-Ahram, mirroring the bloated bureaucracy of other government agencies. To the general public, these latest papers were no more than a transformation of the first government paper, al-Waqai al-Misriyyah, known by historians of that period as the first example of official journalism. As such, al-Waqai was never accused of being an example of opinion journalism, neither were its later descendents ever suspected of publishing independent opinions or acting as a beacon to the enlightened social consciousness of the Egyptians.30 It would be difficult, therefore, to describe Egyptian journalism as an independent Fourth Estate as long as the national press was captive to the ruling party and the party press limited to a handful of legitimate parties. Defenders of the national press defend these papers as independent publications capable of extending positive reviews to what they feel was positive achievement of the government while at the same time exercising the right of criticizing what they consider to be negative. As an example of the independence of the papers described as the national press, it was often pointed out that the government’s founding of a paper speaking in its voice, namely Mayo, clarified the position of the rest of the press. The national press was only accountable before the law. Yet, as long as the national press sided with the ruling party during national elections and as long as it maintained an adversarial relationship with the party press, its independence would continue to be in doubt. But the status of the national press will always remain uncertain as long as it provided room on its pages for the expression of very independent views. Some nationally recognized journalists who were allowed to express a diversity of views included Mustafa Amin and Ahmad Rajab in al-Akhbar and Akhbar alYoum, Fahmi Huweidi, Salah Hafiz, Salamah Ahmad Salamah, Muhammad Sid Ahmad and Ahmad Bahjat in al-Ahram, and Muhammad alHuyawan and Kamil Zuheiry in al-Jumhuriyah. The national press, thus, defied easy categorization. The party press, on the other hand, suffered great hardships by comparison but continued to practice free and independent journalism, support the readership’s right to access information, widen the area of debate concerning major domestic and foreign issues and maintain its investigative posture toward the government. It was this

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 289

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

289

press that always attacked the government in the past regarding matters pertaining to corruption, government reform, constitutional adjustment, the elimination of emergency regulations, tampering with election results, the abuse of human rights, the right to demonstrate and hold sit-ins, military expenditure, economic dependence, and normalization of relations with Israel. Critics of this segment of the press have complained against its politicization and dramatization of such technical issues as new turbines for the Aswan Dam and nuclear reactors in Israel and Egypt. The official authorities have always fought this press by withholding financial support, withholding of information, and issuing edicts of closure or suspension. The party press, additionally, suffered intrinsic pressures of its own, particularly in its relationship to its own political parties. For instance, the parties were known to maintain a tight grip on the papers, censoring and directing journalists so as not to veer from the party’s political line. These papers were closely tied to the head of the political party who would normally select the editor of the journal. Very little diversity of views was tolerated since all editorial duties were under the control of a tightly knit party leadership. In addition to all these limitations, several parties and ideological trends were unrecognized by the authorities and lacked legitimate means of expressing their views. The only available platforms for them were papers of parties allied with their cause such as the Muslim Brotherhood’s reliance on al-Shaab and the Communist Party on al-Ahali. The Egyptian press since Sadat’s period, thus, exhibited unusual characteristics, being at once an authoritarian institution in terms of government ownership of journals and its role of direction and guidance of the press, and at the same time being a liberal system that enjoyed the phenomenon of an independent party press.31

CENSORSHIP: THE MUBARAK YEARS The elaborate Law of Publications of 1980 came under further revision during Mubarak’s tenure in office. Just like his predecessor, he found the press to be difficult to control, especially the ideological party press. By 1996, the Mubarak regime sought to elaborate further on the law as it found itself embroiled in a variety of disputes over its handling of the Islamic opposition, as well as the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, Law No. 96, for 1996, severely restricted certain groups from publishing papers. These were defined under Article 50 as those who were deprived by law from the enjoyment of political rights. Law No. 148 of 1980, which explained the necessary steps for issuing a paper underwent some change according to Law No. 96 of 1996. The new law stipulated that before issuing a new paper, notification must be made to the Higher Press Council. This document must be signed

10_303_Ch7.qxd

290

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 290

Chapter 7

by the paper’s legal representative and must include the name, title, citizenship, and place of residence of the paper’s owner as well as its name. The document should also clarify the frequency of the paper’s publication, the language in which it would appear, the scope of its activities, its editorial and administrative structure, a statement regarding its finances, the name of its editor-in-chief and its printing house. The Higher Press Council was expected to make a decision on applications within a period of forty days, and in case of rejection, must provide a detailed explanation. If no decision was made within the forty-day period, this would be considered tantamount to approval. At the same time, applicants had the right to contest a denial of their application in a court of law. Additional conditions were placed on journals to ensure their serious intent, such as the withdrawal of approval of the publishing permit if a paper failed to appear within the following three months or appeared irregularly within the next six months. The Law of 1996 also considered the publishing permit an exclusive privilege incapable of being transferred to others.32 The same law provided, under Article 52, stringent rules for the publication of papers by private entities that built on the previous demands of the 1980 law. With the exception of papers issued by political parties, trade unions, and syndicates, papers issued privately should assume the form of cooperative or shareholding companies as long as ownership in both cases was vested in Egyptian citizens. The financial backing of new papers was increased to one million Egyptian pounds for a daily paper and 250,000 pounds for a weekly journal. A monthly publication was required to be backed with 100,000 pounds. Papers were required to deposit the specified sum prior to publication in an Egyptian bank. The 1996 law was also very restrictive toward the individual amount of ownership within the publishing companies by limiting it to his or her own immediate family and relatives up to the second degree in the amount of 10 percent of the capital. The law made it possible to create subsidiaries for the ownership of monthly and provincial journals. As to the national press, the 1996 law defined them as those publications issued by press associations, press agencies, and distribution companies that were governmentowned. Article 53 of the 1996 law specified that half of all the profits of a national press company was to be divided among the workers, with the second half going to expansion and renovation projects. More importantly, the law provided elaborate requirements governing membership in the Higher Press Council, which exceeded the stipulations of the 1980 law. Under Articles 67 to 79 of Law No. 96 of 1996, the Council was defined as an independent and freestanding body located at Cairo and enjoying all the privileges of a private entity under the law. Its composition included the following:

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 291

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

291

1. The president of the Shura Council who assumed the position of the president of the Council. 2. Presidents of the administrative councils of the national press. 3. Chief editors of the national press. 4. Chief editors of the party press, representing those parties that were constituted according to the law. 5. President of the Press Syndicate and four former presidents to be chosen by the Shura Council. 6. Two professors in Egyptian universities to be chosen by the Shura Council. 7. Two individuals from the legal profession to be chosen by the Shura Council. 8. An unspecified number of public personalities with interests in journalism and representative of various segments of public opinion to be chosen by the Shura Council. These should not exceed the total number of previously named members. The 1996 law elaborated on the responsibilities and duties of the Higher Press Council under Article 70, by stating the following: 1. Submitting opinions regarding all projects related to the laws of journalism. 2. Doing all that was feasible in support of the development and growth of Egyptian journalism. 3. Providing historical documentation of the development of Egyptian journalism. 4. Cooperating with similar press councils around the world, leading to the exchange of views and experiences. 5. Coordinating economic, technological, and administrative issues among the various journals and accelerating training opportunities for their employees. 6. Engaging effectively in the supervision of the economic performance of the national press by examining its fiscal and administrative reports. 7. Facilitating the work of all the press and removing obstacles that face them regularly. 8. Allocating print paper supplies to the various papers, determining the price of journals, and designating appropriate space in the various papers for the advertising space of government agencies, public concerns, the private sector, and the business sector. 9. Protecting the journalistic profession and the rights of journalists, while encouraging the latter to conduct themselves within the limits of the law.

10_303_Ch7.qxd

292

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 292

Chapter 7

10. Evaluating what appeared in the press and issuing annual reports regarding compliance with the journalists’ honor code. 11. Making certain of journalistic compliance with people’s right to seek redress and correction of false information. 12. Examining readers’ complaints regarding published information on their private lives. 13. Establishing minimum wage standards for journalists and workers in press establishments. 14. Designating a percentage of the advertising revenue for the benefit of the workers’ retirement fund. 15. Receiving the registration reports and election results of the Press Syndicate. 16. Granting permission for journalists wishing to work with a foreign paper or press agency within Egypt or abroad. 17. Establishing a fund for the support of journalists.33 Law 96 of 1996 also specified the rights of the professional journalists. These fell under Article 12 and included the following: 1. Guaranteed the total independence of journalists by forbidding subservience to any authority other than that of the law. 2. Journalists cannot be abused as a result of correct information or opinions that they publish. At the same time, journalists cannot be forced to reveal the source of information obtained within the limits of the law. 3. Journalists are entitled to seek information, statistics, and news that are legally publishable, either from government or public sources. All ministries and public or private agencies must create a special office for the transmission of information to members of the press. 4. Any person accused of insulting a journalist or attacking him or her because of events related to the journalist’s professional conduct will be tried in the courts. 5. The general assembly of the Press Syndicate has the right to sign agreements with Arab and foreign papers and press agencies in the interest of furthering the standards of the profession. 6. No journalist can be dismissed from work without the notification of the Press Syndicate. If the Syndicate fails to mediate conflicts between journalists and papers, then the concerned journalist would be dismissed according to current labor laws. There were remarkable features in the new law that promised to extend the rights of journalists beyond anything in the past. For the first time, the law emphasized citizens’ right to information and knowledge as long as

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 293

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

293

this did not disturb the higher interests of the nation or touched on national security. Yet this definition remained loose and non-specific, which left enough room to restrict the flow of information and its publication. The law also protected journalists’ right to gain information and secure governmental reports at the source. Journalists were now entitled to attend conferences and public meetings. Journalists were made immune from personal attacks on important officials or persons with parliamentary immunity when information was published without any malicious intent. The law, additionally, did not allow administrative detention for any journalist except for an actual crime punishable under the law. A journalist was immune from police arrest except by order of the judicial authorities. At the same time, journalists were expected to fulfill certain obligations, among which were the following: 1. A journalist must abide by the values and principles embodied in the constitution. He or she was also expected to abide by the law and the rules of the journalistic code of honor. 2. A journalist was forbidden from abusing rights of the public or attacking their freedoms. 3. A journalist was prevented from joining racial movements that attack religions or foment hatred and contempt toward any group in society. 4. A journalist was forbidden from accepting direct or indirect funding from foreign sources. 5. A journalist was forbidden from receiving any governmental assistance except in accordance with the laws of the Higher Press Council. 6. Journalists were expected to print retractions if requested to do so by a party of concern within a period of three days or at the time of the next issue, whichever came first. 7. Article 181 of the 1996 law adjusted the Egyptian Penal Code by allowing sentencing for a period of two years in prison for any journalist who insulted the president of the country. 8. A prison sentence of two years was also added for any journalist who publicly insulted a foreign head of state. 9. A prison sentence of one year and a fine from 20 to 500 Egyptian pounds would be imposed on journalists who insulted a representative of a foreign government in Egypt while in the course of conducting his or her official duties. Article 184 provided more of the same types of punishments: 1. A journalist could be sentenced to jail or fined between 50 and 200 Egyptian Pounds for insulting or publicly swearing at a member of

10_303_Ch7.qxd

294

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 294

Chapter 7

the People’s Assembly or any other official body such as the Armed Forces, the courts, or public authorities.34 Another crime punishable under the state’s Penal Code was the publication of information related to national security. This crime fell under Article 85 of the code and was defined in the following manner: 1. Military, political, diplomatic, economic, and industrial information related to national defense. 2. Correspondence, documents, drawings, maps, architectural plans, and photographs that might endanger national security. 3. Any news or information related to the armed forces. The Penal Code also specified crimes of incitement, calling for the imposition of a five-year prison sentence and a fine between 50 and 500 Egyptian pounds for journalists or papers guilty of the following: a. Calling for a violent takeover of government or encouraging expressions of contempt and hatred toward the authorities. b. Promoting ideologies that call for the radical amendment of the most basic constitutional principles and the destruction of the social order through terrorism or force.35 During the Mubarak period, therefore, the press became tightly controlled through a set of detailed regulations that protected journalists from arbitrary arrest but also criminalized several aspects of their professional activities. The law provided strict guidelines as to the financial aspects of journalism, making it more difficult to establish new papers or to use journalism as a means of enriching and empowering press czars as had often happened in the past. Yet the press remained a formidable institution capable of subjecting the ruling party to a lot of criticism and interrogation. Much of the tension between the pro-government and the party press in particular resulted from the legacy of Sadat’s foreign policy and fundamental changes in the Egyptian-Israeli-American relationship.

MUBARAK AND THE PRESS FACE A CHANGING LANDSCAPE In order to isolate critics of the Camp David Agreements, Sadat went out of his way to lay siege to the press and isolate those who continued to defy him through the printed word. He succeeded in getting Article 11 of the constitution of the People’s Assembly amended so as to make any criticism of the Camp David Agreements a criminal offense punishable by a prison term and a fine, in addition to deprivation from the exercise of political rights. The authorities also attempted to coerce members of the press to

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 295

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

295

write in favor of the agreements or preventing them from writing altogether. Such was the threat issued to Kamil al-Zuheiry who wrote in alJumhuriyah and Ahmad Bahaa al-Din who wrote for al-Ahram. Al-Zuheiri reacted to this pressure by continuing to write on the Arab-Israeli conflict in his daily column, “Through the Keyhole,” but from a purely historical perspective. Bahaa al-Din, on the other hand, declined to support the agreements and focused on cultural issues.36 At the time he was shuttling between Kuwait and Egypt and his weekly column, “Sunday’s Conversation,” appeared simultaneously in the Kuwaiti press and in al-Ahram. Rather than confront Sadat over the issue of Camp David, he devoted his column to criticism of the dismantling of the Ministry of Culture and absorbing it by the Ministry of Information. He used that opportunity to level a strong attack at Sadat’s coolness toward intellectuals and their activities. The article infuriated Sadat, but not enough to cause the cancellation of the column from the pages of al-Ahram. In defense of his silence on the Camp David peace, Bahaa al-Din wrote in his memoir that he was away in Kuwait at the time and that he did send one critical article to al-Ahram that never made it in print. Eventually, he was exiled from al-Ahram totally, but not for literary crimes against Sadat’s Arab-Israeli policy.37 In commenting on the authorities’ determination to insulate the Camp David Agreements against any criticism, veteran civil rights lawyer and activist, Nabil Hilali, saw a more sinister linkage between the Zionist enemy and the confiscation of general freedoms in Egypt. He wrote that the war with Israel became the “the umbrella stand” that allowed the country’s rulers to use as an excuse for the declaration of emergency laws and extending them repeatedly. Thus, as soon as Sadat announced the October War, followed by the signing of the Camp David Agreements, the “umbrella stand” of war was exchanged for the “umbrella stand” of peace. Hilali explained that the authorities simply wished to incubate the fledgling peace under such an umbrella in order to protect it from the opposition and expose all of its true dimensions. Hilali added that when political parties were legalized in 1977, the law warned against their involvement with any groups opposed to the People’s Assembly plan to seek public support for the peace treaty. This law was used by the parliamentary committee overseeing political parties in order to oppose the founding of the Nasserite Party on the pretext that it was opposed to the treaty with Israel. However, the Higher Constitutional Court ruled against the constitutionality of the law. The government tried again in 1979 to require all political parties and candidates for elected office to conform to the results of the general plebiscite, which approved the treaty. Those running for election that year were obliged to uphold the treaty and not to attack it in any manner by a specific decision of the Minister of the Interior. Hilali, who was well informed on matters of the law, explained

10_303_Ch7.qxd

296

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 296

Chapter 7

that any defiance of the 1979 law was punishable by a prison sentence ranging from three months to three years and a fine from 300 pounds to 3,000 pounds, in addition to the loss of political rights. Sadat used Law No. 125 in 1981 to disband the Lawyers’ Syndicate under the pretext that it was changing direction from its initial mission and was being used by the enemies of peace to attack the treaty. Hilali acknowledged that the Press Syndicate forced the government to retreat by resisting Sadat’s laws fiercely but that did not include preserving many of the journalists’ rights.38 The major problem for the press under Mubarak was limiting the party press to the few oppositional parties that were acceptable to the regime. A considerable number of ideological currents were denied the right of free expression, particularly on the informational level. The Mubarak period saw the final success of the old liberal party, al-Wafd, in challenging a judicial ban on its existence by 1983. The party began to issue its own paper by the same name in March of 1984. The socialist-Marxist-progressive Islamic current gained strength by forming al-Tagamuu party after several confrontations with the Sadatist government. Its paper, al-Ahali, continued to be in the forefront of the oppositional press. Socialist groups issued alShaab although they maintained friendly contacts with al-Ahali. The Nasserite party began to publish Sawt al-Arab in September of 1986, and appeared later under the name of al-Arabi al-Nasseri. The so-called national press, which in reality represented the Sadatist regime and the ruling National Democratic Party, now came out with Mayo. Three Islamic papers resumed appearance after years of dormancy during the Nasserite regime and continued to express strong Islamic views under the rule of Sadat and Mubarak. These were al-Dawaa, al-Iitissam, and al-Mukhtar al-Islami.39

CHANGES IN THE DEPICTION OF THE PLO Even though the oppositional press continued to attack the Mubarak regime’s upholding of its treaty obligations toward Israel, the PLO itself came under attack, which weakened the onslaught on the Camp David Agreements. The changed attitude toward the Palestinian organization was due to events during the Lebanese civil war and the PLO’s decision to engage in secret diplomacy with Israel at Oslo. Both major papers on the left and on the right of the political spectrum took the Palestinians to task, first because of serious splits within their ranks while still in Lebanon, and later because of the Oslo peace initiative. In al-Ahali’s first issue following its improved relations with Mubarak in May 19, 1982, coverage focused on the question of democracy and pressures on the Lawyers’ Syndicate. But there was also news on the Iraq-Iran

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 297

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

297

War and severe criticism of the return of Sinai to Egypt as a demilitarized territory with only foreign troops as border guards. Not long after that, reporting on the Palestinian situation resumed. Relations began very well when the paper reported the presence of PLO’s Central Committee member Nabil Shaath, a sister of Arafat, and Palestinian guerilla fighter Fatimah Birnawi at its inaugural reception. With the representation of the national or public press limited to al-Akhbar’s Musa Sabri, al-Ahali complained the next day that it should have been at least accorded the same treatment as Al-Hamishmar and Yediot Aharonot of the Hebrew press. The paper then designated some of its star reporters to each area touching on the Arab-Israeli conflict, with Sayyid Zahrah writing exclusively on Israeli politics and society, Ameena al-Naqqash on the Palestine question and events in the Arab Gulf and Muhammad Sid Ahmad on Arab and international developments. Al-Naqqash was able to report from Damascus on the implications of the Palestinian-Syrian dispute during the early 1980s and its relationship to the Lebanese civil war. Her reports, especially those touching on crises and splits within the PLO since its emergence had an explosive impact on the Egyptian readership. Readers became aware for the first time of the intensity of the struggle within Fateh itself as well as with other factions of the organization. Al-Naqqash described fully and perhaps for the first time in the history of Egyptian journalism the issues underlying the PLO’s latest factionalization. But al-Ahali persisted in its defense of the PLO whenever the Egyptian authorities targeted it for attack, albeit questioning the morality of devoting more space to foreign than to domestic news. Having defined itself as a leftist paper, apparently, did not solve this dilemma, since some elements in the Tagamuu party questioned the wisdom of, as they put it, covering issues such as imposing a Jordanian alternative on the Palestinian people rather than an Egyptian labor congress. Indeed, an old column titled “Our Party” had completely disappeared. More importantly, al-Naqqash’s series, titled “Issues and Crises Concerning the Palestinian Revolution After Eighteen Years,” earned Arafat’s anger. He regarded this investigative reporting as hostile toward his leadership and all the leadership cadres of Fateh. Some within the Tagamuu itself shared this view, arguing that the series were a departure from the official line of the party, which always stressed support for the PLO and any of its decisions. In reality, Al-Naqqash sought to meet with Arafat while he was in Damascus but he left without seeing her. This led to her claim that the Egyptian reader was entitled to know the truth and that al-Ahali’s friends (the PLO) must accept the fact that political alliances should never come at the expense of the Egyptian public’s right to know the truth. But the leadership of the party, represented by Khaled Muhyi al-Din, Lutfi al-Khouli and others, expressed the fear that this series would be seen as siding with the minority current within the

10_303_Ch7.qxd

298

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 298

Chapter 7

PLO, which did not represent the legal leadership of the organization. The entire issue was then referred to the Editorial Board of the paper, which agreed on the following: 1. Al-Ahali was an Egyptian paper addressing the Egyptian public and was attracted to Arab issues. 2. The paper was committed to pursuing a constructive and critical line where Arab regimes and issues were concerned, but without taking sides or joining different camps. 3. The PLO was a special case and should be treated with the following considerations in mind: a. Supporting the organization and its unity. b. Supporting the independence of the PLO. c. Supporting the leadership of the PLO. d. Allowing room for the expression of various viewpoints within the PLO, but without overstepping the aforementioned lines. e. Maintaining the party’s previous stand concerning support for all methods of resistance, including the armed struggle. f. Supporting a peaceful resolution of the conflict. g. Continued commitment toward the party’s stand on the Camp David peace.40 But this document failed to resolve this issue or to bring about some consensus regarding treatment of this subject. Yet, whenever the PLO faced a specific threat, al-Ahali rose to its defense, directing its wrath at the Camp David peace. Such was the paper’s reaction to news of the 1985 Israeli raid over Arafat’s Tunisian headquarters at Hamam al-Shat. The raid was said to have been an attempt on Arafat’s life, which led al-Ahali to headline this story “Anger,” writing that most parties and popular forces were demanding the freezing of all agreements with Israel. The paper reported that the raid was an attempt to lift the morale of Israeli troops after their defeat in Lebanon. It added that the Egyptian foreign Minister pleaded with the government’s critics during a closed meeting against embarrassing the authorities by forcing a showdown with the United States, the agreement’s sponsor. This story was followed by coverage of the Achille Lauri incident and huge criticism of the Egyptian government for allowing American planes to pursue the Egyptian plane that carried Palestinian hijackers outside of the country. The American ambassador, Nicholas Viliotis, came under heavy criticism for his role in the crisis. The issue here as the paper emphasized, was Egypt’s dependency on Washington and loss of sovereignty. Another incident involving Israel around the same time also emphasized the public’s impatience with the Camp David Agreements. This was the case of an Egyptian soldier in Sinai, Suleiman Khater,

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 299

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

299

who was accused of killing seven Israeli soldiers because of spitting on the Egyptian flag. Al-Ahali mobilized a huge campaign calling for his release, by listing names of prominent academic, intellectual, and political figures who sought to persuade the president that the soldier’s actions were perfectly justifiable. The story came to an abrupt end with news of the soldier’s “suicide” in his prison cell.41 The government’s response to al-Ahali’s campaign came soon after in the form of interviews with Mubarak published in al-Mussawar. These appeared under such sensational headlines as “I am Saddened by the Stand of an Opposition Which Has Lost Its Mind,” and “I Ask Myself: How Long Can Egypt Bear the Destructiveness of the Opposition Parties?” Other papers carried the interviews as though they were an official declaration to the nation. But al-Ahali was relentless in this campaign and expanded its investigation to include quotes from the Israeli press regarding efforts by the Egyptian ambassador, Muhammad Bassiouni, aimed at mollifying Israel’s feelings. Israel was reportedly interfering in the soldier’s trial and demanding to examine the results of his interrogation by prison authorities. Mubarak, however, gave more interviews accusing the opposition of falsely implicating Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, in the soldier’s trial. Al-Ahali responded that Mossad’s role was rumored by the general public, not the opposition. It added that the president was simply angered by the opposition’s exercise of its democratic rights. But the case of Suleiman Khater was not the only issue highlighting Egypt’s dependency on the United States following the Camp David peace. AlAhali published stories in December 1986 and February 1987 describing a government deal allowing the United States to update the turbines of the Aswan Dam. The articles challenged a recent memorandum of understanding issued by the Egyptian ambassador in Washington, Abd alHalim Abu-Ghazaleh, which granted the United States wide military and strategic privileges in Egypt. Al-Ahali continued to attack the EgyptianAmerican alliance at every turn, emphasizing its ramifications for the entire region and for the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular.42 The right wing of the Egyptian opposition, represented by the Muslim Brotherhood, also used its papers to articulate and transmit its reaction to the transformation of the Palestine question during the 1980s. Enjoying some kind of legitimacy under Mubarak, the Brotherhood’s papers did not wage a direct confrontational campaign against the president. The Brotherhood also continued with its traditionally supportive stance toward the PLO, at least until the Oslo peace initiative. Relations with the PLO began to cool on the eve of the Madrid peace conference. Arafat visited the Brotherhood’s Cairo headquarters, meeting with the Supreme Guide and some of the leadership. By that time, the Brotherhood was allowed to function as a social welfare organization. The visit, however, did

10_303_Ch7.qxd

300

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 300

Chapter 7

not receive much attention in the Brotherhood’s papers, except for a small photo on the inside page of al-Liwaa al-Islami. The paper commented that Arafat discussed some Palestinian issues within an Islamic framework as a way of resisting the forces of imperialism and Israeli occupation. But when the Madrid conference convened, the Brotherhood issued a statement claiming that the Palestine question was the main concern of Islam and all Muslims and that it was not merely an Arab or Palestinian issue, although the Palestinian people were entitled to play a major role in its resolution. The statement, which was earlier amplified in an article in alDawaa titled “Palestine Is an Islamic Issue,” also expressed the Brotherhood’s total support for the first intifada, which was entering its final stage. The Brotherhood continued to regard the Madrid conference with great suspicion because of its international sponsorship and in order to maintain a hard line in the face of challenges from its rightist flank. Indeed, the brotherhood was feeling pressure from Jihadist groups such as al-Tahrir al-Islami party with which it was locked in a struggle over the allegiance of the Islamic movement within Egyptian universities. The Brotherhood had already come under such criticism for its soft rejection of the Camp David Agreements and for its seemingly cordial relations with the Sadat regime. The Brotherhood was also mauled in the Jihadists’ publications for meeting with a group of Israeli academics and journalists in 1980 at the headquarters of al-Daawa. Therefore, the Brotherhood’s harsh attacks on Arafat’s leadership and the performance of the PLO representative to the United Nations, Zuhdi Tarazi, which appeared in al-Liwaa al-Islami must be seen in this light. Talmassani, the Supreme Guide, wrote in al-Liwaa on May 4, 1987, condemning the idea that pacifying the Palestine question might lead to the surrender of one foot of occupied Palestinian land. He castigated the PLO for roaming the corridors of international conference halls looking for the crumbs of international concessions. He concluded that although the Islamic perspective on this issue did not exclude the possibility of peace, it also accepted the military solution as a possible choice. The Brotherhood, thus, found itself facing a dilemma. On the one hand, it needed to retain the government’s good graces and not depart drastically from the official position on Palestine since the Brotherhood had already gained some legitimacy by its political alliances, which gained a voice for it within the People’s Assembly. On the other hand, as an Islamic group, the Brotherhood was expected to maintain an Islamic perspective on this issue and to continue supporting the Islamic direction of the intifada. Toward the late 1980s, a group of Brotherhood academics from the University of Asiout were able to meet with Dr. Mustafa al-Faqqi, the president’s secretary for information, and demand greater support for the intifada. Eventually, this dialogue appeared in a leaflet distributed within Egyptian universities.43

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 301

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

301

INDIRECT PRESSURES AND MUBARAK’S STYLE The press suffered during the Mubarak period from the weakening of the opposition parties as much as from direct government action. Some parties underwent changes during the 1980s and 1990s due to inner struggles between members of their elitist leadership. The personalist leadership of some led to succession quarrels following the death of recognized founding figures. The Liberal party, al-Ahrar, for instance, almost disintegrated completely as a result of serious competition over the leadership position left vacant by the death of Mustafa Kamil Murad in 1998. The Labor party, Hizb al-Aamal, on the other hand, was ordered closed by the People’s Assembly’s Committee on Political Parties in May of 2000, and its paper, alShaab, was shut down. During the referendum on continuing Mubarak’s presidency in September of 1999, the Nasserite party was punished for publicly declining to vote in the affirmative. As a result, its official organ, al-Arabi, was required to pay al-Ahram Publishing House a substantial sum of money previously owed to this government-owned enterprise. This forced the paper to cease its appearance as a daily paper and become a weekly publication.44 Mubarak’s response to press attacks on his government differed from his two predecessors in other notable ways. He seemed to prefer responding through the pro-government press or through his public statements. This was his way of issuing veiled threats and expressing impatience with the extent to which the press was willing to go in targeting government policy. His greatest exasperation was often expressed toward the opposition press and its handling of domestic issues. He addressed this press once by accusing it of being out of touch with the priorities of the Egyptian street. He also criticized the national, pro-government press publicly for confining itself to limited issues and for repeatedly covering the same topics. He wished, he stated, that the press would cover the problems of youths and the phenomenon of extremism in Egyptian society.45 Mubarak, surprisingly, never nurtured special relations with any one member of the press establishment. There was a marked difference between his treatment of journalists and that of Sadat who operated through a number of favored and loyal journalists. Neither did any member of this institution rise to a position similar to that of Heikal during Nasser’s period. Sadat, for instance, used to hold long talks with his close journalistic allies, often inviting them to his private home. This was his approach to Heikal, Sabri, and Bahaa al-Din. Later Anees Mansour was allowed to visit Sadat once a week at his home, especially after publishing the government paper, October. Ibrahim Saadeh enjoyed similar easy access to the president, especially after the publication of Mayo, another government paper. Mubarak, on the other hand, maintained normal and

10_303_Ch7.qxd

302

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 302

Chapter 7

cordial relations with all the chief editors of major papers while keeping a distance between himself and the men of the press. Their meetings with him were only during working hours. He communicated with them by telephone only regarding official matters. But according to Musa Sabri, he never invited a single journalist to his house for tea, lunch, or dinner. He also gathered a lot of information on the major editors, getting to know their economic situation, their personal contacts and their main ideological direction. It was noted that he appreciated the talents of the younger generation of journalists. Thus, he appointed Samir Rajab as the head of Dar al-Tahrir organization, Mahfouth al-Ansari as the editor-in-chief of alJumhuriya, Mufid Fawzi to a similar position in Sabah al-Kheir and Mahmoud al-Tuhami to head Rose al-Youssef. Sabri added, that based on his own personal experience, Mubarak never asked a journalist to express a specific view, but if he objected to something he was in the habit of complaining directly to the author. Mubarak shared Sadat’s disdain for any negative information on Nasser, which some of the press seemed delighted to print. He also expressed displeasure regarding portraying Sadat in negative terms, specifically after Mustafa Amin returned to his old habit of maligning the former president in print.46

MUBARAK’S PALESTINE PERSPECTIVE Not only did Mubarak stick to the broad foreign policy lines of Sadat, he also made Egypt’s relationship with the United States the cornerstone of his foreign policy. This dependency, as the opposition press realized, held great ramifications for Egypt’s stance toward the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. Egypt began to represent the United States as the most effective mediator and moved quickly to adjust its own relations with Israel according to the wishes of the great power. There was nothing new in this, as Britain had also attempted to dictate or at least greatly influence Egypt’s policy toward the Zionist movement in the past. In essence, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Egypt’s Palestinian policy had always been the defining elements in Egypt’s permanent quest for genuine sovereignty and independence. The Egyptian opposition press during the 1980s and 1990s, therefore, felt perfectly justified in latching on to these manifestations of the transformed Egyptian-American-Israeli relationship in order to mobilize Egyptian public opinion along its own ideological lines. There were three issues that emerged from these new perspectives in the post–Camp David years, namely Egypt’s involvement in the Madrid peace conference of 1991, the nuclear imbalance between Egypt and Israel, and U.S. pressure in favor of normalizing relations with Israel and closing the cultural gap between the West and Egypt’s predominantly Arab-Islamic culture. The deterioration

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 303

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

303

of the Palestinian-Israeli relationship during the 1990s, furthermore, not only demonstrated the failure of the Oslo Accords to bring peace to the region but also the difficulty of achieving any degree of normalization of relations with the former enemy. Mubarak was not without any ammunition, however, and he and his national and governmental press mounted a battle of their own for the hearts and minds of all Egyptians. The views articulated in this battle focused on the struggle to stem the tide of terrorism as the centerpiece of Mubarak’s foreign policy doctrine. But in order to impress the Egyptian public with the special urgency of this emphasis without appearing to tolerate Israeli abuse of Palestinian human rights, he granted the press ample opportunity to focus on Palestinian suffering and Israeli acts of violence. Egypt’s involvement in the Madrid peace conference, and later in the Oslo secret peace talks, became known to the Egyptian public fairly early. The emerging role of Egypt as an important interlocutor in any Palestinian-Israeli talks was becoming apparent as a result of reports by alAhram’s Center for Political and Strategic Studies and press coverage in most Egyptian papers. The significance of al-Ahram’s reports, however, was that they defended Egypt’s thrust in the new climate of Middle East international diplomacy while succinctly summarizing causes of the failure of that diplomacy. Titled “The Arab-Strategic Reports,” these began appearing in 1993 and were successful in presenting the views of a select group of Egyptian and other Arab thinkers, albeit with a clear slant toward exonerating Egypt’s role. In the 1993 report, the feeling of the participants in al-Ahram’s workshop was that Egypt was being unfairly attacked by Israel as an impediment to reaching a peace settlement. The report also enunciated the U.S. effort to marginalize Egypt’s role in response to Israel’s demands. The Egyptian role was evaluated positively, since Egypt considered a total peace settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict along the lines desired by the Palestinians a priority of its Arab and international policies. The same report emphasized that this was clear from Egypt’s consultations with the Palestinian leadership and its willingness to share its peace negotiating experience with Arab and Palestinian negotiators. Egypt was said to be determined to reach a total, rather than a partial settlement. Egypt was described as never having abandoned the Arab economic boycott policy toward Israel. Despite the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Agreements, Egypt was determined not to rush toward normalization, that is at least until the end of Israel’s occupation of Arab lands. The report acknowledged that a cold war existed between Israel and Egypt during the decade of the 1990s, but the threat of a real war never materialized and economic relations between them continued. At the same time, never did the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty prevent Egypt from performing its leadership role in the Arab world. Neither did Egyptian participation in

10_303_Ch7.qxd

304

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 304

Chapter 7

the peace negotiation stand in the way of criticizing Israel’s aggressive conduct toward its Arab neighbors. After nine years of the Madrid and Oslo attempts at reaching a settlement, another report was issued by the same center in 1999. This time the participants lacked the consensus of the 1993 report by splitting into two groups, one which came with a totally negative assessment of Egypt’s record at peacemaking and one which arrived at a mixed assessment of negative and positive results. The first group dwelt on the national, political, and economic negative impact of the peace efforts. All that was positive, they emphasized, helped the side that opposed Arab interests. The Arabs had a recognizable cause before the negotiations, namely the Palestine question, but today the Arab cause has been limited to Jerusalem and tomorrow it may even shrink to that of the Noble Sanctuary and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Israel, however, was able to achieve great political, legal, and international victories as a result of these negotiations. Some Arab states extended recognition to it and accepted its right to exist on Palestinian lands. In exchange, the Arabs received recognition of a limited Palestinian national authority living under Israeli sovereignty which resisted the establishment of a Palestinian state and the return of a single Palestinian refugee to his land. The group, which stressed the negative outcome of the talks, recommended putting an end to the peace efforts. On the other hand, the group that saw some positive results to Egypt’s long years at the negotiating table stressed the fact that the peace process galvanized the entire Arab public throughout the region into resisting all forms or normalization. Another positive outcome was gaining international recognition of the PLO by Israel and the United states. In addition, wars have come to an end and with it Israel’s expansionist efforts.47 Thus, as early as the Camp David Agreements, efforts of the Egyptian opposition focused on resistance to normalizing of relations with Israel as the only remaining option in the face of the regime’s overwhelming determination to institutionalize the peace. But an even clearer view of Egypt’s involvement in the peace talks leading to Oslo was gleaned from the memoirs of former Egyptian ambassador Taher Shash. First published in 1995, the memoirs described clearly the impact of Egyptian policymakers on the Palestinian negotiating team during the Madrid peace conference. A veteran diplomat and an expert in comparative legal studies, Shash also served on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He also enjoyed a long career in the Egyptian Foreign Office, serving at one time as the head of the Legal Division and the undersecretary and special adviser to the foreign minister. A long-time observer of the Palestinian scene, he was delegated by his government in November of 1991, to advise the Palestinian team when the negotiations moved to Washington,

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 305

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

305

D.C. The Egyptian press had already published reports that the Palestinian team was seeking to benefit from the experiences of the Egyptian experts who had negotiated over Palestinian self-rule in the past. The first move was made by the PLO representative at Cairo, Said Kamal, who along with Arafat’s political adviser, Nabil Shaath, sought a meeting with Shash and fellow Egyptian ambassador, Izzat Abd al-Latif. The two Egyptians were told of the invitation by the Ministry, but there is no indication who in reality suggested the idea. Both Shash and Abd al-Latif, who were already retired, took up the assignment eagerly, claiming all along that it was not of an official nature and did not represent an official participation in the Israeli-Palestinian talks by the Egpytian government. Shash was later summoned to serve as an adviser to the Palestinian team at the secret Oslo talks. The invitation came from Kamal, but Shash learned that the Egyptian Foreign Office was aware of the invitation. The invitation raised all kinds of questions in his mind, although he was told that his legal training was badly needed at that point. Shash curiously enough, was well-aware of the presence of at least two competent Palestinian legal experts at the Washington phase of the negotiation. These were Dr. Anees Qassem who was educated at Washington and Florida, and Raja Shihadeh, the founder of al-Haq organization and the author of a book on the law of occupation. Throughout these jaunts, Shash deliberately eschewed any contacts with the press, save for few articles in al-Ahram and limited interviews by the Egyptian Broadcasting Service. He claimed that it was the Israeli press that leaked the news about Oslo first and that Heikal was the first Egyptian journalist to mention that an Egyptian legal expert was loaned to the Palestinian negotiating team because they lacked such experts. Shash was puzzled that Heikal was unaware of the diplomat’s service with the Palestinian team since the beginning. But the situation must have attracted the veteran journalist’s attention since, indeed, there were no Palestinian legal experts during the secret Oslo talks. Shash then proceeded to reveal detailed information regarding the Palestinians’ Washington contacts with various Israeli experts and eventually with Terje R. Larsen, the Norwegian mastermind of the Oslo talks. Shash reported following these contacts which he knew of since the beginning, the Egyptian government was informed of the Oslo track by the PLO. The Murbarak government did not object to the notion of taking a first step limited to granting the Palestinians self-rule in Gaza and Jericho. All of this denies Shah’s claim that he was merely a legal adviser to the Palestinians and instead points to a much larger role for Egypt during the talks. But a more telling bit of evidence was provided by Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), who was anxious to explain to the Egyptian public the PLO’s reasons for taking the Oslo road and Egypt’s involvement in the peace process. In an

10_303_Ch7.qxd

306

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 306

Chapter 7

interview in al-Mussawar magazine, a national publication and not part of the opposition press, Abbas revealed on October 29, 1993, the decision of the PNC in 1977, to hold a dialogue with Israelis. He then retold the story of the dialogue initiated with the United States in November of 1988, which eventually led to the Madrid Peace conference. He claimed that the PLO awaited the election of a moderate Israeli government like that of Yitzhak Rabin before approaching the new leader with a reminder of his election campaign pledge to reach an agreement with the Palestinians within nine months. This was the prelude to the Madrid talks and eventually to the Oslo secret track. Abbas then alluded to the presence of Shash at Oslo and his role as an evaluator of the preliminary peace agreement before the Palestinians accepted it, which suggests that the text was provided by the other side. Abbas indicated that Egypt was the first to learn of the secret Israeli-Palestinian talks, then explained that since the Israeli elections of March, 1992, both the Palestinians and Egyptians prepared a “political kitchen” which followed events in Israel on a daily basis. He added that when these sought a secret channel to Rabin, they found this in the person of Amr Musa, Egypt’s foreign minister and later the secretary-general of the Arab League of States. Arafat eventually praised the help received from Mubarak and his aides during the entire diplomatic process, claiming that the inspiration was always purely Palestinian and that Egypt did not interfere until its help was sought by the PLO.48 In a later recounting of the Palestinian peace diplomacy published in 1999, Shash elaborated further on Egypt’s role in the peace talks. After emphasizing constant Egyptian calls for adopting a realistic stand toward the Israelis, he emphasized that even Nasser repeatedly cautioned other Arabs against underestimating Israel’s military capability. Shash also provided a running account of events leading up to the Oslo talks, including the long trail of official Palestinian secret contacts with figures of the Israeli left stretching back to the October War of 1973. The manner in which Shash went to great lengths to provide names and dates of meetings suggests a desire on his part to absolve official Egypt from the charge of manipulating the Palestinians into the peace talks.49 Judging from other publications by political allies of Sadat and Mubarak, however, the Egyptian political establishment was getting increasingly impatient with the PLO following the Camp David Agreements. This attitude was displayed clearly on the pages of such publications as the government-owned October magazine. The best illustration of this campaign to discredit the PLO because of its perceived intransigence on the peace issue appeared in the late 1980s. Abd al-Atheem Ramadhan, historian and persistent critic of Nasser’s domestic and foreign policies, spearheaded this campaign. Writing under the title of “The Palestine Question and the Revolutionary Sagging” on April 26, 1987, he

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 307

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

307

blamed the Palestinians for dragging the Arab world to its present tragic situation of divisions, civil wars, and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. He wrote that the Egyptian public earned the right to seek special relief in uncontrollable laughter at the news of yet another Palestinian national meeting (the PNC), which debated whether or not to sever diplomatic relations with Egypt. He referred to the PLO as the most bankrupt of the world’s national liberation movements that never achieved a single victory. The PLO was behaving as though it had won against Israel and established its own state and was justifiably arguing over the question of what state was worthy of diplomatic contacts. The PLO was so blinded by ideology that it expressed preference for relying on Syria’s support rather than seeking that of the greatest and largest Arab country, namely Egypt. The PLO seemed to have forgotten that it was Syria that expelled Arafat from Lebanon after having failed in physically eliminating him. Ramadhan then asked if the PLO and the advocates of severing relations with Egypt seriously believed that this would result in weakening Egypt’s international position or cause a public uprising against the Egyptian regime. The PLO had simply sagged and lost its revolutionary vigor, he claimed, its struggle being now reduced to factional strife over positions and false seats of leadership. He then extolled Egypt’s historic leadership role of the Arab world, which continued to defend the Palestinians even after the latter’s attacks on the Camp David agreements. He concluded that the Palestine question has become merely a legal question and a bibliographic issue to be read about in books.50 When the PLO finally recognized Israel and denounced terrorism at the special U.N. General Assembly meeting at Geneva, Switzerland, in 1989, Ramadhan could not help but gloat. Writing in October on August, 1989, under the heading of “The PLO and Sadat’s Way,” he reminded his readers of the time when Sadat was accused of treason after his historic speech before the Knesset some eleven years ago. He pointed to the irony of seeing Arafat deliver his speech at Geneva and accept all America’s conditions in order to gain its recognition prior to extending the same thing to Israel itself. Arafat, Ramadhan wrote, had committed all the treasonous acts that allowed those who traffic in words and wage verbal revolutions to push Egypt out of the Arab League of States. He then attributed the change in the PLO’s position to the urgent need to rein in the intifada of 1987. The problem of the PLO was that it seriously believed that it would have enough leverage to pressure the United States and Israel based on few successful guerrilla operations. Thus, when the intifada finally provided the Palestinian leadership with the necessary leverage, the PLO quickly moved to utilize these new assets in attempting to force Israel and the United States to recognize Palestinian rights.51

10_303_Ch7.qxd

308

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 308

Chapter 7

MUBARAK’S ANTI-TERRORISM DOCTRINE Mubarak not only prodded the Palestinians toward the negotiating table, he also developed his own foreign policy contours that perfectly suited changes in the general international picture during the late 1980s and 1990s. These were centered on an anti-terrorism stance that did not cover Palestinian activities under the same ordinary rubric of terrorism. This doctrine was articulated by Mubarak in his public statements and interviews, but also by the works of his supporters in major papers. In an admiring study designed to project the moderation and peaceful ways of Mubarak, a well-known journalist, Anwar Muhammad, dwelt on the brutality of the Israelis rather than the deeds of the Palestinians. What was unusual here was that his account recalled a number of massacres committed by the Israelis against disarmed Egyptian soldiers after their surrender in various wars. Some of this information was publicized in the print media before, but Muhammad used it in order to enunciate Mubarak’s commitment to peace against great odds. Muhammad also stressed Mubarak’s role in pushing Arafat to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist and to abandon terrorism and raise the olive branch. He narrated revelations in the Israeli press regarding allegations raised by former IDF members concerning massacres of Egyptian soldiers after they surrendered during the 1956 Suez War and the 1967 June War. Some of these accusations were leveled by an Israeli journalist named Gaby Brown on the pages of Yedoit Aharonot on August 17, 1995. The story of executing hundreds of Egyptian prisoners of war after forcing them to dig their own graves in the 1967 War caused a retired General accused of committing these crimes, Arpeh Piro, to threaten to reveal the names of others who joined him in massacring forty-nine prisoners in the 1956 War. Another Israeli paper, Ha’aretz, reported the number of massacred Egyptians in 1967 to be close to one thousand. Uri Avneri, well-known Israeli dove and Knesset member, submitted an official complaint asking for the trial of General Rafael Eitan, who at the time headed the Somet block in the Knesset, but who was also the head of the military company that committed the 1956 atrocities. In justification of these events, Israeli historian and Ben Gurion biographer, Michael Bar Zohar, added that similar events took place along the Egyptian front during the 1948 and 1973 wars. In response to these stories, Mubarak asked his foreign minister, Amr Musa, to demand a report regarding these revelations in the Hebrew press form his counterpart, Shimon Peres. Muhammad Bassiouni, Egypt’s Ambassador to Israel, confirmed reports that he was seeking the payment of damages and raised the possibility of seeking redress before the International Court of Justice at the Hague or before Egyptian courts according to the Third Genera Convention. The fact that Israel never

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 309

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

309

yielded to any of these demands did not seem to perturb any of Mubarak’s enthusiastic defenders. True to form, however, Anwar Muhammad defended Mubarak’s willingness to deal with the Israelis openly by mentioning that Nasser held secret talks with the enemy as well. This time the contact person was said to be Tharwat Ukashah, Egypt’s Military Attache at Paris, who met with the head of the World Zionist Organization, Nahum Goldman, on several occasions in order to arrange for a meeting with the Egyptian leader.52 Mubarak’s anti-terrorism doctrine was made clear in a work edited by Usama Ghazali Harb, the editor of Al-Siyasah al-Duwaliyah, which is a publication of al-Ahram’s Center for Political and Strategic Studies. Harb used this work to elucidate on his won expert definition of terrorism, and by extension that of the Egyptian president, by reducing it to the technical definition of a specific form of violence. He added that it was a tool that was used only by those afflicted with a pathological condition and desired to achieve through it criminal and political objectives. He traced the evolution of the practice in the Arab region back to the Jewish Zealots and the Assassins, stating that in modern times the phenomenon of terrorism has been largely associated with Palestinian guerilla factions who committed acts of airplane hijackings in the late 1960s and 1970s. He based his information on a 1994 report by the Shura Council’s Committee on Foreign and External Affairs and National Security. The report was titled “Ways of Combating Terrorism,” which described various methods such as the religious approach of dismantling the terrorists’ resort to the Islamic justification for their actions. Mubarak was quoted as having said in his 27 of Ramadhan talk in 1993 (March 19), that the history of Prophet Muhammad and his Caliphs never revealed any information regarding justification of the killing of non-combatants who were mere members of a different faith. Neither did the Prophet or his caliphs force anyone to choose between embracing Islam or being killed. Nor did these ever kill anyone because of a difference of views. Harb added that the Islamic Sharia was the first to legislate against terrorist crimes fourteen centuries ago. Islam was thus the first religion to define the “crime” of rebellion as that of an armed uprising and acts of disobedience against political authority. He called for greater control of mosques while providing them with modern libraries in order to become centers of enlightenment to the general public. He also called for strengthening the Islamic institution in order to enable it to conduct open and effective dialogues with youths, especially the religious youths. Harb detailed guarantees for individual citizens against such violence as provided in the 1973 Constitution. What the authorities needed to do, he stressed, was to provide special legislation dealing specifically with crimes of terrorism, which were eventually added as constitutional amendments in 1992.53

10_303_Ch7.qxd

310

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 310

Chapter 7

Having provided the previous introduction as a background, the same publication then offered a focused study of Mubarak’s own views on this topic. Mubarak was said to have become overly conscious of the crime of terrorism following the assassination of Sadat. Mubarak’s views did not only display a clear grasp of this question, but also enabled him to predict with great accuracy since the mid-1980s the potential impact of terrorism on the security of nations. Finally, his worst expectations were realized as a result of the events of September 11, 2001, in New York and Washington, D.C. Indeed, Mubarak began to express his views on this matter publicly since the mid-1980s, stating that terrorism and extremism were worldwide developments dating back to the end of World War II. He felt that these were caused by the general instability of the international system and the resultant clash of ideas and interests. Mubarak added that these extremist doctrines found their way to Egypt under a variety of disguises following that war, and that they were alien to Egypt in terms of the country’s heritage and social and moral values. The people who adopted these doctrines were always a minority seeking to impose its views on the majority by force. In a public address in 1993, Mubarak referred to terrorists as a group of criminals and outlaws, the majority of whom were trained in Afghanistan. It was in that country that they used to earn a large sum of money and when the war ended, sought other means of employment and sources of income, which they found in some of the region’s states. Mubarak finally was able to define terrorism in his famous Ramadhan address in 1993, when terrorist thought expressed itself in criminal acts. He condemned their activities, which succeeded in the taking of innocent lives, destroying national unity as well as national institutions, and injuring officers and soldiers who were dedicated to protecting the nation. In his address before the International Crime Prevention Conference at Cairo in April of 1995, Mubarak was relentless in his attacks. He stated that terrorism aimed at causing instability and slowing down development, both on the national and international levels. Terrorism threatened the individual and the group and general security and peace. Terrorism, he added, aimed at reducing society to a jungle that knew no laws or security. Mubarak claimed that terrorism was one of the most dangerous forms of organized crime, which threatened all societies and the international system indiscriminately. In an article in Le Figaro on January 10, 1998, Mubarak again hammered at the dangers of terrorism. He told the French magazine that the barbaric acts committed by professional extremists aimed at no less than the seizure of power by force, spreading terror in peaceful societies, and trampling on cherished human and ethical values. Mubarak also was in the habit of distinguishing between the concepts of terrorism and war, as well as between terrorism and Islam. He stressed differences between terrorism and national liberation struggles.54

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 311

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

311

Mubarak repeatedly explained that terrorism was by far more dangerous and horrendous than war since terrorism could not be contained, knew no boundaries and could grow anywhere. Terrorism cannot be confined to the front lines of war and has devastated the interests of all people, not only military personnel. The theater of terroristic operations was also a large one, enveloping the entire world, keeping us unable to predict from where it would come and what targets it would choose. Terrorism did not use traditional weapons of war such as submarines and tanks and no single nation was capable of protecting all of its vulnerable assets against its attacks. War, by contrast, according to Mubarak, was much easier since targets were known and limited in number. In war, both sides were known to the world and their objectives, such as liberating an occupied land or seizing a specific area were acceptable. The weapons used were also recognized by all. Mubarak was very keen on distinguishing between terrorism and Islam and refuting the arguments of those who attributed this violence to the nation’s majority religion. Here, he was addressing his own public, especially the youths, lending fatherly advice. Islam was a religion of “love, knowledge, and cooperation.” Since terrorism was criminal in nature, he reminded the public that Islam never condoned crime of any kind. In his Ramadhan speech of 1998, Mubarak referred to terrorism as “the black danger” which threatened to weaken the entire Islamic nation by dissipating its resources and sapping its strength, while at the same time opening the door to foreign intervention and intrigue. The disassociation of terrorism from Islam was reiterated strongly by him following the September 11 events in the United States, when he asserted that violence was also present in the Oklahoma explosions and other incidents on U.S. soil.55 When it came to the question of distinguishing between terrorism and national struggle, Mubarak appeared to be anxious to qualify his remarks in a manner befitting the political realities of the Arab region. He always stated that the armed national struggle was approved by international conventions. He articulated this idea as early as January of 1987, when he addressed the fifth meeting of the Islamic Conference at Kuwait. There, he defended the struggle of national liberation movements, which desired to get rid of foreign occupation or colonial control. He made that same distinction again after the events of September 11. All along, he cautioned that terrorism was an international phenomenon that knew no boundaries. Thus, he was the first to ask the United Nations to convene an international meeting devoted to the reexamination of all international agreements on terrorism in order to produce a single, comprehensive treaty on the subject. This invitation was issued a long time ago, on January 28, 1986, when Mubarak was addressing the Parliamentary Committee of the European Union at Strasbourg. Indeed, he never tired of referring to this position on all occasions, particularly when

10_303_Ch7.qxd

312

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 312

Chapter 7

speaking before international gatherings or the Western media. One example of these efforts was an interview with Euronews Information Network on May 27, 1995, in which he explained that what made terrorism such a pervasive international phenomenon was the general and worldwide feeling of injustice. This led to psychological problems that caused some groups to become destructive since they were unable to move with the times. Mubarak was persistent in reminding his audiences that terrorism did not only crop up in Egyptian, Arab, or Islamic lands but was also apparent in Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world. Terrorism, he would repeat, was bound to spread all over the Middle East unless the peace process moved forward. He repeatedly called for state cooperation in dealing with this problem and rejected the notion of bilateral agreements as an effective solution. Mubarak also publicly castigated European countries for hosting elements that threatened Egypt’s security. He objected to justifications such as democracy, human rights, and the right of political asylum, which allowed terrorists a wide range of freedoms to plot and plan their attacks from European countries. He continued to deliver his warnings to European states whenever he visited countries such as Germany, France, and Portugal, often singling out Britain for providing safe haven to a large number of terrorists. The president attacked particularly the right of asylum, claiming that it had nothing to do with democratic ideals. He turned the tables on his French interviewers when he asked Le Figaro on January 20, 1996, whether or not France would appreciate granting political asylum to someone who killed a French citizen in Egypt.56 Mubarak’s views on the legitimacy of the national struggle and its applicability to the Palestine question received wide coverage in Harb’s publication. The study emphasized Egypt’s historical support for Palestinian rights over a period of half a century and through several Arab-Israeli wars. Egypt was also continuously willing to support any peaceful and legitimate effort on behalf of the Palestinians. Egypt continued to be committed to the liberation of occupied Arab lands in Syria, Lebanon, and in Palestine, and to the notion of establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. This was due to the fact that continued Israeli occupation of Arab lands, continued Israeli practices such as blockading population centers and starving the Palestinian population were always used as a justification for the use of violence and resorting to terrorism. Mubarak always felt that Israel itself was responsible at least for 80 percent of the terrorism in Palestine due to its irresponsible actions, which arouse the anger of the Arab and Muslim worlds. He also accused the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks of attempting to hide behind the Palestine question, although it was clear that there was no connection between Bin Laden and that issue. But Mubarak did stress that a feeling of injustice due to Israel’s actions was what often drove people to commit

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 313

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

313

terrorist acts. The president would always stress that Palestinian activities for the sake of establishing their state and restoring their rights were not terrorist acts but a form of national struggle. Palestinian resistance was a legal right, he often repeated, and suicidal operations would continue as long as there were Israeli military sieges and oppression.57 Mubarak was given high marks for personal courage and self-control in dealing with the issue of terrorism. The publication enumerated terrorist attacks on official Egyptian figures and prominent writers such as the Minister of Interior Nabawi Ismail, Premier Atef Sudqi, president of the People’s Assembly, Dr. Rifaat al-Mahjoub, and prominent writer Farag Foudeh. In addition, there were numerous attacks on foreign tourists, as well as an attempt on Mubarak’s life in June of 1995, at Addis Ababa. The president, however, refrained from hitting the terrorists’ hideouts in the Sudan in order to maintain brotherly relations with that state. An informational campaign designed to educate the public and make them accept collective responsibility for combating terrorism ensued. On the anniversary of the 1952 Revolution in 1993, for example, Mubarak stressed that the battle against terrorism cannot be waged only by the security apparatus but the entire society. Additionally, the twenty-sixth annual meeting of the Council of Arab Ministers of Information, meeting at Cairo in July of 1993, joined Egypt in adopting a general plan for confronting terrorism and the best means of achieving this end. The plan called for a strategy to educate public opinion within the Arab world and internationally regarding the dangers of terrorism, which aimed at isolating the Arab region from the rest of the world. During its twentyseventh session in 1994, the Council recommended that a speedy plan of Arab cooperation be put in place. By September of that year, the first conference of Arab Security Information was held at Tunis and approved a plan for a common informational strategy targeting security personnel. Another Arab-wide effort in the judicial area was launched on April 9, 1994, when the Council of Arab Ministers of Justice called for the drafting of an Arab agreement aimed at preventing extremism and fighting terrorism. Egypt played a leading role in these efforts, going to the extent of calling for the addition of a special clause to the charter of the Arab League of States on its fiftieth anniversary, designed to promote a joint anti-terrorism effort. The same appeal was issued by Mubarak to the emergency meeting of Arab Parliamentarians, at Luxor, in January of 1998. The president’s intent was to call for a joint Arab effort against sheltering terrorists or granting them financial support. Mubarak’s overall strategy, however, transcended these Arab efforts, for his main thrust was to seek the involvement of the international system. Thus, he repeated his call for the convening of an international conference on terrorism in 1992, 1993, and 1996. What frustrated his efforts was the U.S. call for the creation of an anti-terrorism pact under the auspices of the United Nations following the events of September 11. Egypt favored the idea of an

10_303_Ch7.qxd

314

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 314

Chapter 7

international conference over that of a pact, arguing that the latter was bound to cause serious global divisions and may lead to military confrontations. Mubarak actually complained in an interview with the NBC American television network, later printed in al-Ahram, that he called for the convening of an anti-terrorism conference under the auspices of the United Nations before the events of September 11 and almost received general international approval for it, except that the United States and other nations vetoed the idea, citing differences in defining violent acts by the Palestinians and Israelis as a reason to abandon this suggestion.58

RAMIFICATIONS OF MUBARAK’S ANTI-TERRORISM STANCE Mubarak’s insistence on the primacy of the terrorism issue was not always shared by figures of the Egyptian political establishment. Amr Musa, for instance, disagreed in his capacity as the secretary-general of the Arab League of States. He acknowledged the significance of adopting an agenda that would include the issue of international terrorism, insisting that it was not the only issue facing him and his organization. As far as he was concerned, the Palestinian question and the issue of peace were the most important concerns of the Arabs. He also referred to the question of the “clash of civilizations,” which constantly occupied him, as a reminder of the enormous challenges of economic and social development facing the underdeveloped Arab world.59 But the views of the former foreign minister of Egypt were not shared by the public and pro-government press, which attempted regularly to amplify and defend Mubarak’s position. Indeed, the image of Mubarak in the pro-government press was deliberately endowed with qualities designed to offset what might be called weakness toward the Palestinian issue. Mubarak was always portrayed as the great sponsor of the Palestinians, and sometimes even the great defender of an Arab Iraq. Writing on September 14, 2003, in October, Rajab al-Banna, expounded on the significance of the president’s upcoming trip to Italy and France. He explained that Mubarak carried with him three important files. The first concerned the tragedy of the Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation. The second file represented the tragedy of the Iraqi people living under an American occupation. The third file related to relations between the Arab world and the European Union, but especially between the latter and Egypt itself, hoping to strengthen economic and technological relations between the two. Egypt should explain to the European Union and its members, added al-Banna, that they must push forward in order to bring about a peaceful solution to the Palestinian issue by supporting the creation of a Palestinian state. Egypt must explain to the Europeans that it was Israel that has done its utmost to de-

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 315

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

315

stroy any prospects for peace. He concluded by emphasizing that Egypt was not the intermediary for the Palestinian and Iraqi issue but merely their partner. Egypt was always with the Arab states, as Arafat used to repeat, regardless of who accepted it and who rejected it.60 Another editorial by Muhammad Abd al-Moneim in Rose al-Yousef defended Egypt’s and Mubarak’s refusal to slide into a state of war with Israel by presenting the president as a man of calm disposition and nerves of steel. The editorial was written in the middle of al-Aqsa intifada, which has already generated great pressures on Egypt to go to war against Israel. Abd alMoneim reveled in comparing Mubarak’s calm attitude to Sharon’s wild statements and provocative remarks such as when the latter predicted publicly that Egypt and Syria would war on Israel just as in 1973. Mubarak’s response was merely to exclaim, “Sharon, have fear of God.” The editorial reminded its readers that Sharon was acting out of desperation and that only Mubarak was anxious to preserve the peace. This was also another occasion to remind the Egyptian public of Egypt’s treaty ties with Israel. Only Egypt was the strong fortress that protected and preserved the peace, the editorial ran.61 In order to cast the Egyptian president in good light, some sections of the press attacked both Arafat and Sharon for jeopardizing opportunities for peace. In a story in Rose al-Yousef in December of 2003, Karam Jaber blamed both Arafat and Sharon for scuttling the recent informal agreement known as the Geneva Accords and used the occasion to lecture the two about the merits of a peace settlement. Arafat was said to be a man with a psychological problem representing the duality of the freedom fighter and the peace negotiator. He was described as someone torn between flirting with armed Palestinian factions who wished to uphold the intifada, and shaking hands with Palestinian currents thirsting to end the fighting. He wanted to head both teams like a man who wore his military outfit over a suit of olive branches. The author warned Arafat that peace opportunities were dwindling and that assassinations and suicide bombings were incapable of achieving Palestinian national objectives. Sharon, as expectedly, also came in for some serious drubbing. The bulk of the lecturing, however, was reserved for Arafat who was reminded that only the United States. was capable of pressuring Israel and it was best to settle for a peace agreement under the auspices of this great power.62 Mubarak’s role in bridging the gap between Israelis and Palestinians in 2003 came in for straight praise in a set of interviews with prominent Egyptian opinion makers in Rose al-Yousef. The article declared that an Egypt that respected the international balance of power was the only safeguard against future disastrous events. Of all the interviewees, only Khaled Muhyi al-Din, at the time the honorary president of al-Tagamuu, gave a pessimistic prognosis of the future of Iraq, the Palestinian struggle

10_303_Ch7.qxd

316

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 316

Chapter 7

and the Arabs in general. Other interviewees were all praise for Egypt’s regional and international policies. Abd al-Atheem Ramadhan, perennial defender of Sadat’s and Mubarak’s policies and at the time member of the Shura Council, predicted a widening American hegemony over the Middle East region following the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. This will be followed by the retreat of several of Arab governments, like Libya, from their previous revolutionary state. The only way to confront this new situation was to proceed with the current Egyptian policy that called for respect for the regional balance of power and the abandonment of useless Arab policies, which would force a dangerous confrontation with the United States. Ramadhan lectured Syria on the consequences of defying the United States after losing all opportunities that Sadat provided for liberating the Golan Heights. The article concluded with a pessimistic assessment of the Arab region that had failed to create an Arab common market, reform the Arab League of States and promote Arab cooperative policies.63 By the end of 2003, Karam Jaber again weighed in with a glowing assessment of Mubarak’s sagacious policies in Rose al-Yousef on the occasion of the capture of Saddam Hussein. The Egyptian president was described as a leader who took the country through its most difficult crises with extreme wisdom and calm. The current regime succeeded, he wrote, because it favored the masses and refrained from stepping over their hopes and dreams. Mubarak never offered false heroic postures that were bound to clash with the bitter reality of things. The president achieved this because of his realism and refusal to display anger or emotionalism. This heralded an era free of slogans such as “death to America” since we all know that this was simply unachievable. Other slogans recently ignored were “the pilgrimage to the White House” and referring to Mubarak as “the American High Commissioner.” The Arabs lived too long with the slogan “from the thundering ocean to the revolutionary Gulf” as though there were a joint Arab defense pact, a united Arab army and an Arab common market. For too long Arab crowds chanted “with our souls and our blood we defend our leader.” When one such leader fell at the feet of an American soldier who was seen picking the leader’s hair on the television screen (reference to the capture of Saddam Hussein) the crowds simply vanished.64 The official posture in favor of a peaceful settlement, however, did not mean preventing other media outlets from condemning Israel’s daily act of violence against the Palestinians, especially during the second intifada.65 Mubarak’s dilemma became how to manage this popular outrage and promote his government’s role as a mediator and interlocutor in the peace talks. For the public at large, represented by national, official, and oppositional press, continued acts of Israeli aggression prevented it from

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 317

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

317

putting this issue aside. Daily coverage of events in Israel-Palestine became a way of expressing the opposition’s disapproval of Mubarak’s policies, while the friendly press engaged in this inflammatory coverage in order to maintain its legitimacy in the public’s eye. There were unwritten perimeters to the limits to which the press could go in portraying this violence, such as general official intolerance of direct glorification of suicide bombers. But even that prohibition was sometimes ignored, particularly in the Islamic press. Dr. Ali Jumaa, the Mufti of Egypt, for example, was very forthright in his defense of Palestinian suicide bombers on the pages of al-Tassawuf al-Islami in November of 2003. Published by the Higher Sufi Council, a mainstream government-approved organization, al-Tassawuf normally devoted its pages to theological issues. It is through this concern that the question of suicide bombers arose since Islamic groups in the past had often debated the martyrdom status of the Afghani fighters. The Mufti went around this question by stating that Palestinian youths were engaged in legitimate resistance against terrorism, a thing that received worldwide approval and not merely that of Muslims. Palestinian activities differed from terrorism in that they arose in defense of a people’s legitimate interests. God himself had condemned acts of aggression, but legitimized actions in defense of the truth and justice. Palestinian resistance was legitimate, he emphasized, and was condoned by the Sharia. Terrorism, however, was condemned by all faiths, including Islam. God, himself, he wrote, mandated the duty of the Jihad on all Muslims and this activity was a form of Jihad.66 When Palestinian women, such as Wafaa Idriss, became suicide bombers, even some of the national, pro-government press was unable to maintain its silence. Akhbar al-Youm carried a translated editorial (by one Donald Elis, reference unknown) on September 13, 2003, which mildly justified these bombers, titled “Weapons of the Weak in the World of the Mighty.” The author wrote that the suicide bombers were neither deranged, nor uneducated and poor but were indeed acting politically.67 Muhammad Said alAwwa, writing on Occtober 13, 2003, in the opposition paper, al-Usbuu, also editorialized sympathetically on the life of the female suicide bomber, Hanadi Jaradat. He called her a martyr who gave her life to a higher cause as the sixth female to sacrifice in this manner in the fourth year of the intifada. She and her female colleagues were proof of the utmost need for free women in the long battle of liberation against the Zionist occupation. They were performing the Jihad, he stated, since Muslims were taught that when their lands were occupied, a son was justified in going to meet the enemy without his parents’ permission and a woman without her male patron’s permission.68 But these were rare references and coverage of Palestinian events remained free of glorifying direct acts of violence.

10_303_Ch7.qxd

318

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 318

Chapter 7

Generally speaking, coverage of the intifada was an occasion for the opposition press to attack the inaction of the Egyptian authorities or that of the Arab League. Trying to juggle stories on the American occupation of Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, most of these papers felt justified in condemning the designs of both states on the region. A headline in al-Nabaa, claimed that the United States was planning to occupy the Palestinian territories after the failure of the Road Map. This was the result of the regression of the security situation in Israel-Palestine as a result of Sharon’s intransigent policies. The acceleration of violent acts by Israel had won the secret approval of the United States. The story also reported that the Israelis were reportedly trying to convince the Egyptian government to prepare a seaside villa for Arafat in Egypt in case of his expulsion.69 Al-Ahali, on the other hand, continuously supported Arafat and gloated over the failure of the Camp David Agreements to bring peace to the region. In an editorial on September 24, 2003, Nabil Zaki wrote praising Arafat’s steadfastness in resisting efforts to kill him or force him out of the country. Arafat owned no tanks, airplanes, or missiles, Zaki wrote, but the Palestinian leader possessed faith in the justice of his people’s cause. Both Bush and Sharon appeared much weaker as they attempted to isolate and marginalize Arafat. Then Zaki asked rhetorically whether or not the Camp David treaties have achieved any peace in the region twenty-five years after their signing. The Egyptian public was told on the morning of that signing on September 17, 1978, that Israel was going to withdraw from all occupied lands and that a total settlement of the ArabIsraeli conflict was around the corner. The authorities claimed that peace and prosperity were already at hand. The current reality of the region, concluded Zaki, needed no commentary.70 A more in depth analysis appeared in al-Ahali, on December 24, 2003, by Hassan Fath al-Bab. Headlined “When Will We Listen to These Cries for Help?” The story was preceded by references to the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani’s poem titled, “When Will They Announce the Death of the Arabs?” Al-Bab confessed that he did not approve of this poem at first for he felt that the role of poets and creative people was not to rub salt in the nation’s wounds but to encourage their readers to stay the course and maintain their resistance. But he changed his mind recently and felt that Qabbani was right on the mark, given the Arabs’ silence and state of rigor mortis. Did the Arab rulers hear the cries of female Palestinian prisoners, addressing children they were forced to abandon? He then moved to the topic of Israeli desire to tap the waters of the Nile, a story based on a recent report by a researcher in a magazine called Nisf al-Dunia. In this publication, produced by al-Ahram Publishing House, Ayman al-Sisi warned the Egyptians and a world increasingly suffering from a shortage of drinking water that the next war in the region was bound to be fought over water resources. The

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 319

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

319

report claimed that not only was the Nile vulnerable, but so was the Aswan Dam, which protected Egypt from the general aridness afflicting several African states. Among the reported threats to the Aswan Dam were Ethiopia’s plans to build a rival dam designed to dry up the Nile. But the most disturbing item in the report was an affirmation of Israel’s attempted bombing of the dam in 1967 and in 1973. Al-Bab also quoted the report as confirming news of an American-British-Israeli team of experts that was permitted by Sadat to collect samples of the soil in Lake Nasser in 1978 against the advice of the Egyptian Foreign Office. The report repeated what the press suspected years ago, namely that this scientific data concerning the natural surroundings of the dam and Lake Nasser were later relayed to the American CIA. and the Israeli Mossad. Al-Bab continued in his insistence that the Arabs are dead by stating that Israeli missile bases at Beersheba and the Negev were poised to attack the Aswan Dam and Nasser’s Lake, which would drown all of Egypt. This was not a fantasy, he wrote, since Avigdor Lieberman, Sharon’s ally and head of a small party had threatened twice to blow up the dam.71 Another opposition paper, al-Arabi, provided a scathing criticism of Mubarak’s policy toward the Palestinians after Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmad Maher, was attacked by a mob at al-Aqsa Mosque in December of 2003. The paper published an analysis of Egyptian-Palestinian relations by a former ambassador who advised that Egypt should retreat from its Camp David–inspired policies that had destroyed its prestige among Arab, Islamic, and African nations. Instead of condemning the PLO and other Palestinian factions as a result of this attack, he asked the president and Ahmad Maher to study this incident with extreme objectivity and examine the country’s Palestinian policies thoroughly. It was very inappropriate for Egypt to maintain the role of bystander while the Egyptian press carried stories of Israel’s violence and massacres daily. Neither was it enough to confine Egypt’s role to prodding the Palestinians and the Israelis to return to the negotiating table . . . a statement that became a silly cliché. The official Egyptian notion that having the warring parties sit around the negotiating table would be adequate to achieving a solution to this problem was simply a gross simplification. It should be recognized that the attack on Maher was a fluke, yet it should be also viewed seriously as an expression of the anger of ordinary Palestinians. Egypt could not extricate itself from this issue by denying its Arabism and assuming its ancient Pharaonic character.72 Reporting the news of Israel’s threats to expel Arafat outside of Palestine, al-Wafd confined itself to moderate coverage of Palestinian developments. Its highlighting of some of these news, however, kept the deteriorating Palestinian situation before the public’s eyes. There was a story on September 13, 2003, regarding Maher’s appeal to the United States to translate its disapproval of Arafat’s expulsion into

10_303_Ch7.qxd

320

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 320

Chapter 7

action. He also made a similar appeal to the European Union.73 Some of the paper’s editorials, however, were more inflammatory. In an editorial devoted to a discussion of the Nazi roots of Zionist ideology, the author claimed that the Jewish concept of chosenness was no different than the Nazi claim to Germanic racial purity. Just as the German Nazis demanded Libensraum, or breathing space for their people, Zionists demanded control over Palestine as the “promised land” even before arriving there. After achieving their state, they acquired nuclear weapons as a result of the Arabs’ lack of vigilance. Now, they dream of dominating the entire Middle East as was evident in Shimon Peres’s latest book (reference to The New Middle East, 1993).74 Another editorial in Al-Usbuu, also in the wake of Israeli threats to expel Arafat lamented the lack of action on the part of Arab states and the Arab League. Titled, “Why the Silence?” Mustafa Bakri wrote on September 15, 2003, complaining that Egyptians were concerned over their government’s lack of action. There were rising prices, declining currency, corruption, and unemployment, as well as loss of Arab dignity, threats to expel Arafat and attacks on leaders of the Palestinian movement. Long lines of Palestinian martyrs and no one extends a hand, not even the Arab League, which defied Arab opinion by seating a representative of the American-sponsored government of Iraq. The Egyptians need their own intifada in order to confront the enemies of history.75 The Islamic press was also vociferous in its condemnation of Egypt’s reaction to the violence in Palestine. Writing in al-Mukhtar al-Islami in response to Israel’s latest air raid on Syria as reprisal for escalation of activities in Palestine, Muhammad Moro castigated Sharon for assuming that this will put an end to Palestinian action. Women fighters were practicing the Jihad in Palestine and have now entered the equation of martyrdom. The fact that the latest suicide bombing incident by Hanadi Jaradat was planned by the Jihad Islamic party, he wrote, was living proof of the fecundity of Islamic thought and the meaning of women’s freedom to seek the Jihad.76 Al-Liwaa al-Islami, on the other hand, editorialized on November 6, 2003, that Palestinian suffering as a result of the violence was immense, but so was Israeli suffering and deteriorating psychological condition, resulting in an increasing wave of outer-immigration.77 The Coptic paper, al-Wattani, remained subdued in its coverage but always accorded news of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict front-page status. But other opposition papers often published the Coptic Pope’s strongly worded declaration regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Pope Shinoudah, for instance, condemned the threat to expel Arafat in 2003 and asserted that the intifada was a legitimate form of national struggle and that a timetable for transitioning to a form of Palestinian constitutional rule should be set.78 By contrast, the national press and government papers had nothing but praise for Egypt’s Arab policies although coverage of the Palestinian situ-

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 321

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

321

ation was continuous. The unusual twist appearing here was that blame for the increased bloodletting in Israel/Palestine was laid at someone else’s door. Ibrahim Saddeh, chief editor of Akhbar al-Youm, for instance, wrote a bitter and sarcastic editorial on the revival of the comatose Arab League of States after holding its landmark meeting in 2003 to admit Iraq’s new government to its ranks. There were no new news or a new policy toward Palestine, he complained. The meeting, which was held at the foreign ministers’ level, produced the usual condemnation of Israel’s barbaric acts, the same call for ending the occupation of Palestine, and the same demand that Europe and the United States should pressure Israel to stop its assassinations and demolition of Palestinian homes. More of the same, he wrote, the kind of empty threats that the Palestinians and the Arabs have heard over the years. He then proceeded to criticize the League’s empty resolutions regarding other issues such as the United Arab Emirates’s dispute with Iran over three islands and the call for Arab economic unity. On the front page of the same issue, however, a report on Mubarak’s recent visit to Italy where he spoke with ranking officials on the Palestine question and Iraq, painted a glowing picture of the Egyptian president. An official of the Italian Foreign Ministry, it was reported, was so pleased with Mubarak’s concern for bringing peace to the Middle East that he claimed the president deserved the Noble prize for peace.79 Striking a note of moderation, Ibrahim Nafii, editor in chief of al-Ahram, wrote on October 25, 2003, praising the Geneva Accord and analyzing reasons for its rejection by the Israeli right and the Israeli left. Despite the fact that the unofficial agreement came closer to expressing the position of the Israeli left, at least it proved once and for all that a Palestinian partner for peace did in fact exist.80 The same paper had already reported on September 13, 2003, that the Palestinians of the town of Rafah declared Mubarak to be the first Arab leader to defend Arafat and the Palestinians. But in an opinion column in the same issue, al-Ahram condemned the Israeli decision to expel Arafat and announced that international intervention became a necessity in order to punish Sharon and force Israel to return to the negotiating table.81 On December 24, 2003, al-Ahram wrote another opinion column stating that the attack on Ahmad Maher will not prevent Egypt from playing a role in the Palestinian-Israel peace talks. It then added that it was enough to report that Mubarak spent 70 percent of his time on the Palestine question. Whatever happened to the foreign minister, it concluded, did not reflect the attitude of the majority of Palestinians who were known to favor a peace settlement.82 In another opinion in the same issue by Salamah Ahmad Salamah, the author claimed that the attack on Maher was accidental and trivial and must not deter Egypt from sticking to its responsibility as a peace mediator. It should be remembered, he added, that when Egypt expends a great deal of effort in

10_303_Ch7.qxd

322

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 322

Chapter 7

pursuit of a just solution for the Palestine question, it does so in defense of its own interests and the security of its own boundaries.83 The pro-government press, however, not only reported the increased violence overtaking the Palestinians and Israelis, but also used these occasions to lecture younger readers. When Abd al-Atheem Ramadhan wrote an editorial by the title of “How Did We Arrive at This Crisis” on October 19, 2003, he blamed the crimes of all Arab states that had brought the Palestinians to this level. He assured Arab youths that the current power enjoyed by Israel was not acquired through the Israeli genius but due to massive Arab mistakes committed by Arab military regimes. There were two such military regimes, which gave Israel the chance to climb to its current position in the world, one was that of Nasser and the other was that of Saddam Hussein. Nasser, he added, imagined that he was capable of achieving what his predecessors were unable to achieve. That was because Nasser was inexperienced and megalomaniacal who loved to make decisions, which earned him popularity even though the results for Egypt were generally disastrous. The July Revolution of 1952, he wrote, allowed the military mentality to overtake that of the politicians and the concept of absolute rule won over constitutional rule. For the first time, Arab states today found themselves facing a crisis: They had powerful and wellarmed armies but they were unable to use them against Israel. Thus it was not Arafat alone who felt caged and under siege but also all the rest of the Arabs.84

THE BATTLE OVER NORMALIZATION OF RELATIONS The press battled the regime over another important issue relating to Egypt’s relations with Israel, namely normalization. This battle, it should be noted, began to take shape around the time of the signing of the Camp David Agreements, but it acquired immense significance as the situation in Israel/Palestine deteriorated. The second intifada opened up a wide door from which critics of the Camp David Agreements were able to enter and mount an organized campaign not only in defense of the Palestinians, but also as means of hammering at the treaties. The concept of normalization quickly expanded to include all forms of cultural domination and Westernization. The dual targets of this campaign were Israel and the United States. When the Egyptian-Israeli Treaty was signed on March 26, 1979, an annex was added specifying a protocol for establishing acceptable relations between the two countries. The annex called for the normalization of relations in the areas of diplomacy, and economic, commercial and cultural relations. A higher committee was also named and charged with oversee-

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 323

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

323

ing this normalization. The official endorsement of normalization of political contacts was generally echoed by the national press. Reflecting the position of the regime faithfully, the national press never criticized the government’s poor response to such incidents as the Israeli attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor, Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights in 1982, or the strategic understanding between Israel and the United States. in 1983. Indeed, coverage of these issues remained superficial and disinterested. In the case of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, increased building of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands and the dispute over Taba, the national press mirrored the official position. After 1981, the Mubarak government itself was growing very impatient with Israel’s behavior, especially after the Sabra and Shatilla massacres in Labanon. This attitude trickled down to the national press, which began to accuse Israel of practicing Nazism and racism. Papers such as al-Jumhuriyah and alAkhbar would often refer to extremist statements by Israeli rabbis as “senile” and “trivial.” Statements by the Israeli military were described as “outrageous” and “rude.” Additionally, the national press consistently promoted political normalization but rarely economic and cultural normalization, concentrating mostly on maintaining diplomatic representation with Israel. Papers such as al-Jumhuriyah, for instance, increasingly condemned Israeli terrorist activities but not normalization of relations. Only on rare occasions such as in an editorial in al-Ahram by al-Sayyid Yasin on August 21, 1982, did the national press attack the ramifications of normalizations of relations. Writing under the title “Israel’s Civilizational Challenge,” Yasin cautioned Egyptians against accepting the idea that Arab and Israeli interests were generally compatible. He added that to do so would be to succumb to Israel’s attempts to train Arabs to accept the legitimacy of the Israeli state, as well as erase the Arabs’ cultural identity through efforts aimed at creating a common cultural matrix between Arabs and Jews. The national press, such as al-Ahram and Rose al-Yousef would often publish workshop papers on this topic, allowing for a general debate to be aired on their pages. Of the three national papers, alAhram, al-Jumhuriyah, and al-Akhbar, only al-Ahram showed great interest in this issue. Every year on the anniversary of the signing of the EgyptianIsraeli Peace Treaty, al-Ahram would provide an editorial arguing that Egypt was obligated to live up to this treaty but Israeli practices were an obstacle to the peace. The opposition press, on the other hand, always covered all aspects of political normalization such as diplomatic contacts, Israeli official visits to Egypt, as well as parliamentary, party, and military meetings between the two countries. The opposition press also covered issues of economic normalization, including tourism, and constantly opposed cultural contacts such as exchange visits between journalists, academics and artists. Among the opposition press, al-Ahali led the way in its

10_303_Ch7.qxd

324

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 324

Chapter 7

rejection of normalization, and was followed by al-Shaab, al-Wafd, and alAhrar. Al-Shaab, however, led the way in condemning cultural contacts with Israel and exposing Israeli ploys to entrap Egyptian academics into cooperating with its institutions, while al-Ahali led the way in its investigation of all aspects of economic contacts.85 The Islamic press was among the earliest to reject normalization. Al-Dawaa cautioned as early as 1977 against American-Israeli plans to make the idea of a peace settlement acceptable in order to gain the Arabs’ final realization that Israel was now a reality in the region. At that time, al-Daawa objected to the spread of “Zionist” clubs in Egypt, such as the Rotary variety. By 1980, al-Daawa offered the idea that the peace treaty with Israel was part of Israel’s efforts to promote normalization in order to expand its influence in the region and infiltrate the Egyptian mind with Zionist and pagan values.86 Stories in the opposition press about Israeli penetration of Egyptian cultural institutions kept the issue of normalization uppermost in the public’s mind. Thus, on December 1, 1980, al-Taqqadum, the temporary publication of alTagamuu after al-Ahali was closed, published a list released by the Arab League’s Tunis headquarters detailing the names of companies and personalities accused of collaborating with Israel. The list included tourist companies such as Amico and Intratours, the Osiris bookstore and a steel company owned by Anwar Ismail, and individuals such as Yahya al-Shinnawi, head of Egyptian civil aviation, Dr. Hussein Fawzi, an editor of alAhram and actors Omar Sherif, Omar Khorshid and Lebanese songstress Sabah.87 A very provocative story appeared on page 1 of al-Usbuu on September 15, 2003, describing the participation of former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, Shimon Shamir, in a workshop at Ibn Khaldoun Center of the American University at Cairo. The workshop was chaired by Professor Saad al-Din Ibrahim, well-known champion of normalization, and was attended by a number of Israelis such as the Information Councilor at the Israeli Embassy and the head of the Israeli Academic Center at Cairo. In attendance were also representatives of the Cairo Peace Society. As if this was not bad enough, the paper wrote, Shamir defended normalization as the only avenue to peace and attacked Egyptian officials who fear normalization as something leading to Israeli hegemony over the region. The Israeli Information Councilor, David Kushner, also used the occasion to blast the Palestinian leadership, accusing it of hampering the peace process and causing Palestinian and Israeli bloodshed.88 Al-Ahram maintained its calm demeanor regarding this question but was unable to refrain from discussing future consequences of the Palestinian-Israeli peace. But whenever it held such a discussion, the same refrain calling for rejecting normalization until a peace settlement was reached and Golan Heights and Southern Lebanon were liberated emerged swiftly. Such a meeting held on September 17, 1999, included the PLO’s representative at

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 325

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

325

Cairo, Muhammad Sbeih, Muhammad Sid Ahmad who was writing for al-Ahram, Mohammad Zakariya Ismail, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, and Hassan Nafiaa, professor of political science at Cairo University and was not expected to make such unreasonable demands. Nevertheless, the meeting called not for an Arab-Israeli dialogue among thinkers and academics, but for an Arab-Arab dialogue.89 The most in-depth analysis of cultural normalization appeared on the pages of al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi, a publication of the Beirut-based Center for Arab Unity Studies in January of 1997. The publication reported that a workshop took place at the Press Syndicate at Cairo and was initiated by a call to action from the Egyptian Committee to Combat Normalization and Confront Zionism. This was a group made up of representatives from various political parties, cultural associations and public figures. Papers delivered at this meeting attacked the concept of New Middle East Project, which was elaborated upon in the book by Shimon Peres, The New Middle East. The book described a new world order designed to strengthen Israel’s position by linking it to world imperialism. Ahmad Sudqi Dajani, a Palestinian progressive thinker asked that Israel be viewed as an economic power with the capacity to overtake or ignore the spiritual and intellectual realities of the region. Talaat Salem, a retired major general, discussed the results of freezing the Arab Defense Pact and replacing it with a regional security plan instead. The plan was based on granting Israel a monopoly over nuclear weapons while the Palestinian Authority was being disarmed. The discussion then shifted to the cultural factor and how the new concept of the “New Middle East” was based on accepting something known as “the culture of peace.” If accepted, this was bound to erase and disfigure the collective national memory. The “New Middle East” concept, a la Shimon Peres’ latest book by the same name, was merely a return to the days of the Baghdad Pact. The most penetrating analysis of this topic was provided by Sayyid Bahrawi, Professor of Arabic Literature at Cairo University. He discussed the role of intellectuals in resisting the “New Middle East” plan by identifying what he called the current Arab intellectuals’ “mental dependency” on the Western capitalist model of civilization. Instead of the slogan, “know your enemy,” the architects of normalization provided a system for the exchange of visits and cooperation with Israeli academics. The concept of “the world has become one village” was allowed to replace the notion of “the independent homeland.” What was proposed, Bahrawi concluded, was not merely a cultural invasion but the elimination of the Arab identity in the interest of the stronger powers. Hassan Nafiaa analyzed Israel’s objectives in adopting the concept of the “New Middle East” by accusing Israel of creating a political-strategic-cultural project that would replace the current Arab system by sectarian states and would defeat the Arab

10_303_Ch7.qxd

326

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 326

Chapter 7

identity altogether. Salah Hafiz of al-Ahram argued that the effort to promote Peres’ project was a domestic, not a foreign, scheme that could only be defeated by recasting and reviving the concept of a joint Arab front. Hussein Abd al-Raziq, then the editor of al-Yasar magazine, concentrated on the urgency of confronting the economic policies of this project known at the moment as “structural adjustment.” In addition, he called for the initiation of democratic reforms in order to create civil society structures capable of confronting what was planned for the Arab world. Abd al-Aal al-Baqouri, then the editor of al-Ahali, condemned the Camp David Agreements, which criminalized those opposed to it as “the enemies of peace.” He called for the revival of a Cairo-Damascus axis in order to create a popular alliance capable of challenging the new imperialist plans.90 Rose al-Yousef, a pro-government magazine, also opened its pages to the normalization debate triggered by Shimon Peres’ book. Wael Abd alFatah wrote in 1996, a special series of articles on this topic, describing efforts by the Israeli Academic Center at Cairo to ensnare major Egyptian academic figures into cooperating with its program. The efforts embarrassed Abd al-Atheem Ramadhan but were welcomed by others such as Ali Abd al-Rahman Attiyah, a professor of Hebrew at Ein Shams University who solicited the financing of a book of his on normalization from the same center. Shamir actually read the professor’s request for a grant of $3,500 to several Israeli universities. Abd al-Fattah also listed the names of close to seventy public figures said to be on the mailing list of the Center, including Ramadhan, Anees Mansour, Said Ishmawi and others. The writer then proceeded to deconstruct the term “normalization” by insisting that it was a nonsensical term since it implied restoring things to their previous state. Were there ever normal relations between Egypt and Israel that needed restoring, he asked? He also disputed the allegation by Dr. Hussein Fawzi in a lecture at Tel Aviv University that Taha Hussein was very impressed by Jewish Kibbutzes when he visited Palestine in the past. But the greatest attack was reserved for the U.S. Congress, which allocated the sum of 5 million dollars in 1980 for the advancement of Egyptian-Israeli cultural cooperation. After listing all the Egyptians who embraced normalization willingly and who presented Israel as a very civilized state, he quoted Saad al-Din Wahbah who warned against “a one-sided normalization.”91 Sayyid Bahrawi also contributed a piece to this issue in which he warned again against the Arabs’ “mental dependency” on Israel and the West, by stating that this led only to a feeling of inferiority toward the stronger and more developed power. It was important to maintain the Egyptian cultural identity, he wrote, since that was the only thing preventing loss and despair in the past. If Egypt was indeed threatened with the loss of identity, what about weaker Palestine and its people?92 Rose alYousef also published a piece by Presidential Adviser Mustafa al-Faqqi, in

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 327

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

327

which he attempted to distinguish between normal relations and enforced normalization. It was important to realize that it was possible to have normal relations in the legal and political sense between two countries, he argued, without enjoying well-developed friendly and cooperative relations. Thus, the term “normalization” he complained, was not precise since warm and friendly relations between two people could not be legislated.93 The struggle against normalization that was triggered by the Camp David Accords and by Shimon Peres’ book in which he blithely called for rearranging historical relations of the Middle East, seemed to have peaked in the late 1990s. Apparently, feeling the heat from critics of cultural ties with Israel from the right and the left, both the Mubarak regime and the Israelis recoiled from forcing themselves on the public consciousness of the Egyptians. As always, the greatest challenge to promoting cultural ties with Israel and the West came first from Islamic groups. For these, the currents of the post-Camp David years were echoes of earlier warnings against the loss of the Arab-Islamic identity dating back to the French Expedition of 1798. Not surprisingly, al-Daawa harped on Israel’s pretense that it was the only technologically and scientifically advanced country in the region, which made it impossible to reach her level of advancement. Thus, al-Daawa added, the myth of Jewish genius would become a reality acceptable to all Egyptians.94 The Islamic press was so intent on fighting this battle that it found itself applauding loudly when a leftist writer, Sunallah Ibrahim, refused to accept the Ministry of Culture’s Novelist of the Year award in October of 2003. By doing so, wrote al-Mukhtar al-Islami, he has placed most intellectuals in a difficult dilemma and made it impossible for them to remain within the authorities’ stable. The article scoffed at the government’s charge that he leaned toward Islam or the Salafi movement and quoted him as saying in his rejection speech that Egypt was marching toward the greatest catastrophe in its history. Ibrahim denied the legitimacy of the Egyptian regime to grant any awards while the Israeli ambassador sat along the Nile and the American embassy occupied an entire street in Cairo. Ibrahim’s rejection of the award, the paper wrote, was a slap in the face to all the “domesticated” intellectuals who received money grants from the Egyptian regime.95 The announcement of Ibrahim’s rejection, which received wide coverage in the press, pro and con, emboldened the Press Syndicate to call for the expulsion of the American Ambassador. The syndicate complained through its president, Jalal Aaref, that Ambassador David Welch has attempted to promote the Zionist project in the region at the expense of the suffering Palestinian people. He should be removed since he exceeded his authority by making hostile statements against the Egyptian press and

10_303_Ch7.qxd

328

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 328

Chapter 7

accused it of aggression, falsification, and ignoring the traditions of the profession.96 The verbal war between the syndicate and the ambassador did not move the authorities to take any action, although by the time of the second intifada, the regime’s enthusiasm for cultural exchange with Israel had waned. The Egyptian government, for instance, denied a travel permit to Ali Salem, who was honored with an honorary doctorate from Ben Gurion University. Salem had been expelled from the Writers’ Syndicate before because of past travels to Israel and his enthusiastic promotion of cultural normalization.97

DEBATING THE OCTOBER WAR The opposition press opened a new front in its assault on the legitimacy of the regime during the thirty-year commemoration of the 1973 October War. The entire month of October in 2003 was devoted to military celebrations, discussions, television programs, and cultural activities about the war. But the official effort to portray that particular confrontation as a great victory that resulted from Sadat’s brilliant political strategizing and the heroic performance of the Egyptian military did not go unchallenged. The opposition press led the way in re-evaluating the conduct of the war and emphasizing the causes of its military reversals. The celebrations became one more occasion to criticize the Camp David Agreements, and by extension, the Mubarak regime and its foreign policy. Analysis of the war ranged from scholarly accounts that educated the public about the Egyptian military achievement to sensational pieces that exploited failures to sustain the early successes of the war. There were also several attacks on the role of the United States in coming to Israel’s rescue, which tarnished the image of that power badly. Even sober treatments in al-Siyaseh alDuwaliyah did not exclude descriptions of American double-dealing. In an article by academic Bahgat Korany, for instance, new information regarding the planning of the war was brought out, emphasizing that the improved technical education and training of Egyptian military officers was begun by Nasser following the 1967 June War.98 But in the same issue, a reviewer of Henry Kissinger’s Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises shed a new light on the U.S. commitment to Israel. Here, the Secretary of State recalled his telephone conversations with Middle East leaders during the first week of the war, with the exceptions of Golda Meir. Her remarks were apparently deleted at the request of Condoleezza Rice, then head of the National Security Agency. Kissinger revealed that the United States was being asked to send military arms to Israel just as during the 1967 War which, until that conversation, was only a matter of rumor. Meir was so anxious to secure new infusions of American aid that

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 329

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

329

she offered to fly to Washington. Clearly, the Israelis applied some kind of political blackmail, which finally produced the desired results.99 In reporting on the same conversations, al-Ahali added that according to Kissinger, Sadat devoted but ten minutes to discussing Palestine, displaying none of the enthusiasm of other Arab leaders for this topic. The same article opened up the question of Israel’s and Sadat’s eagerness to seek a ceasefire even before informing his Syrian partners at the Golan front. The paper also repeated Heikal’s severe attack on this aspect of the war, which gave Israel a badly needed respite before resuming the fight.100 In another story in al-Usbuu, a translation of the highlights of a new Israeli book by the Commander of the Southern Front, Shmuel G. Gorodish, directed another blow at the regime. Sharon was reported as saying that he sensed all along Egypt’s reluctance to proceed to the heart of Sinai and appeared to be interested only in occupying a ten-kilometer zone.101 The public press and official papers, however, directed their own missives at the critics of the war. Mayo emphasized Mubarak’s role in the war, when, as the head of the Egyptian air force he demonstrated to the Israelis Egypt’s ability to mount a successful attack even without the participation of Soviet pilots.102 Akhbar al-Youm, on the other hand, indulged in name calling as illsounding as that of the critics. These were called shameless, no more than yellow pens that were always drawn against Sadat, the hero of the October War. These writers should blush in shame over what their favorite regime endured on the Fifth of June (reference to Nasser and the 1967 War), the worst defeat in the history of Egypt and the Arabs. Egypt and others were still burdened with the results of 1967 War, such as occupied Jerusalem, the Golan, and the West Bank. Egypt was poised to win the October War, continued the paper, were it not for America’s intervention. The Egyptian president was then forced to end the fighting in order to save what was gained during the first days of the war.103

EGYPT’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM Surprisingly, this area of Egypt’s public posture receives scant attention on the pages of the popular press. This does not imply that Egypt had achieved a level of nuclear development comparable to regional standards, or that it was devoid of nuclear anxieties and insecurities. Neither does Egypt exist in a nuclear-free zone. Here, we see very little criticism on the pages of the popular press, except to revel in detailing Israel’s nuclear capabilities without any references to how Egypt was responding to this threat. Emphasizing Israel’s growing nuclear arsenal as compared to the dismal achievement of the Arabs in this area, however, hardly qualifies as public criticism of the Mubarak regime. The nuclear issue, when

10_303_Ch7.qxd

330

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 330

Chapter 7

brought up at all, was never allowed to trespass on the domain of the country’s strategic security. Concern over losing the armaments race, however, remained the privy of elite writers, some scholars and some technological experts who were involved in Egypt’s earlier thrust in this area. Israel’s attempt to build a nuclear reactor and produce a stockpile of nuclear weapons began in the 1950s. The brainchild of Shimon Peres, then the deputy minister of defense, Israel’s nuclear reactor began with French assistance in 1957 and the blessing of Ben Gurion.104 It also began as a research institute that, in time, he hoped would serve as a potent deterrent against their enemies. The idea was, in the words of one Israeli expert, “the only device that could correct the imbalance between a few million Jews and about 320 million Arabs nowadays (not including sixty and more million Iranians).”105 It was also suggested that France’s motivation was to grant Israel its wish in order to secure its participation in the Suez War of 1956 and in future plans to remove Nasser from power. When France was forced to evacuate Egypt following the war, the Socialist cabinet of Guy Mollet made the decision to provide Israel with the first structure of a nuclear production plant in view of Soviet threats toward both countries. De Gaulle’s government, however, refused to grant Israel the next step for the development of nuclear power, namely a plutonium separation process. Shimon Peres’ wide circle of contacts within France enabled Israel to acquire this from a French company called Saint Gobain Nucleair. Israel’s missile system, denied by De Gaulle, was presumably secured from the Marcel Dessault company without the French Government’s knowledge. Israel itself was able to assist the French in their plans to make an atomic bomb by passing on American computer discoveries necessary for sizing up the dimensions of a nuclear bomb. The American technology was shared with the Weizmann Institute but denied to the French.106 One has to assume that some, if not all of this information was known to the Egyptian government and its intelligence services. Clearly, Israel turned to a nuclear option largely because of Egypt’s nationalist and militant posture. Egypt’s public and secret response to this developing menace in the hands of its bitterest enemy did not receive its fair share of attention in the press. Even the Kennedy administration’s successful attempt to force the freezing of Israel’s nuclear option in exchange for ending Egypt’s missile research project remained unpublicized. According to one writer, this standoff between the United States and Israel resulted in Ben Gurion’s decision to retire from politics. What was the Egyptian response to the inevitable realization that Israel was proceeding on its nuclear path, especially after Kennedy’s death and the succession of Lyndon B. Johnson to the presidency? There were apparently some

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 331

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

331

threats delivered via the government-owned press. One example was the statement in al-Jumhuriyah on March 12, 1966, which raised the scepter of a preemptive attack as the only way of ending Israel’s nuclear project. Echoes of this same threat appeared in Heikal’s columns in al-Ahram, also in 1966. Recent revelations indicate that the Israelis were nervously anticipating that the Dimona reactor would be the first target should circumstances allow Egypt to make the first strike in 1967. A secret State Department document dating to December 12, 1964, indicated that lower-level Israeli government officials never felt restrained when discussing Israel’s possible reprisals against Egypt. This would always imply bombing the Aswan Dam, but also admitting that only a nuclear warhead would succeed in carrying out this mission. Moreover, news of Israel’s nuclear program and its stockpile of nuclear weapons were frequently reported on the pages of the American press.107 Egypt’s restrained response to Israel’s nuclearization remained an untouched topic for the Egyptian media, even when it became clear in later years that Israel’s nuclear posture enabled it to extract major concessions from the United States. According to some authors, including Seymour Hersh, the United States felt it necessary after the 1967 June War to beef up Israel’s conventional weapons so as to prevent resorting to the use of its nuclear arsenal. It is assumed that this camouflaged blackmail was exercised against the Nixon administration following Israel’s early losses in the 1973 War in order to secure the replacement of Israel’s military armor.108 Neither did Israel alter its nuclear policy as a result of signing the Camp David Agreements. Indeed, Israel’s position continues to be opposed to nuclear disarmament except if all twenty-two Arab states and Iran are willing to reach such agreements. Neither does Israel place any faith in the IAEA regime of inspections, nor in the NPT.109 Very little, if any, of this strategic information percolated down to the level of the daily Egyptian press. Nuclear issues remained largely the domain of the intellectual scholarly and scientific elite. When al-Siyaseh al-Duwaliyah, the scholarly journal of al-Ahram’s Center for Political and Strategic Studies, published a special issue on nuclear weapons in 1995, it was devoted entirely to Egypt’s compliance with the NPT and Israel’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.110 Egypt’s history of nuclear research and the derailment of its early quest for a nuclear reactor, however, make for fascinating reading. In an edited study published by the same center, Egypt’s major scientific figures and scholarly analysts participated in a 2000 workshop, including Nasser’s daughter, Professor Huda Nasser. This by itself would have been grist for the mill of the opposition press, but did not appear to have achieved this result. The study described Egypt’s early Nuclear Commission, which was founded in 1957 and was devoted primarily to research. After some discussion in 1979 and in 1980 in the People’s Assembly, it was

10_303_Ch7.qxd

332

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 332

Chapter 7

agreed that he nuclear program should be utilized to produce hydroelectric power. During the following year, parliament approved joining the NPT on February 26, 1981.111 But in 1976 the Commission began to suffer when several aspects of its work were taken away, beginning with the nuclear reactor project. The Nuclear Commission was then attached to the Ministry of Hydroelectricity in 1977. Eventually, the Commission’s work stumbled further by being made responsible to diverse offices, such as the president’s, the prime minister’s, the minister of scientific research, the president of the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology, and the minister of hydroelectric power and energy. The director of the commission also changed every few years. Egypt’s nuclear research program, in addition, benefited through the years from cooperative bilateral agreements with various countries. The latest reactor was supplied by Argentina in 1997 and was devoted to scientific research, medicine and the production of laser beams.112 The nuclear program was practically restrained and stopped dead in its track by 1965, when Egypt’s missile research program was also ended. The missiles were not finished by that time, but the Soviets persuaded Egypt to store all the missile models and seek another line of weapons.113 The Soviets were behind the decision to suspend nuclear research since they were against nuclear proliferation. Thus, while France ended up cooperating with the Israeli nuclear program, the Soviets obstructed that of the Egyptians.114 Egyptian leaders, it appears, were never intent on acquiring a nuclear capability. Only on two occasions did Nasser and Sadat indicate that Egypt would follow Israel’s example: in 1960 and in 1974. Mubarak never mentioned such a possibility, having always been committed to a diplomatic solution favoring total nuclear disarmament. Egypt was among the first states in the Middle East to sign the NPT, but ratification of this treaty did not take place until February of 1981.115 The ratification of the NPT happened in a hurry without attempting to secure concessions from Israel or seeking commitment for future nuclear cooperation from the Great Powers.116 The Sadat regime introduced the subject of ratification to the People’s Assembly at a session presided over by Dr. Sophie Abu Taleb. A committee of educators and industrial and economic commissions was charged with studying this issue and recommended instead that Egypt must speedily build its own nuclear solutions. The assembled legislators questioned the delay in seeking ratification and the government’s failure to obtain guarantees from the other signatories of the treaty against a possible Israeli nuclear attack. The government explained the delay as intended to persuade Israel to do the same, and when it failed to do so, Egypt sought a formal commitment to the treaty by its own parliament. Egypt hoped that now Israel will be persuaded to follow Egypt’s example, especially in the wake of the Camp David Agreements. The government also argued that its need for securing foreign investment

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 333

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

333

for its nuclear-powered electrical stations demanded strict observance of the treaty. More importantly, Kamal Hussein Ali, Egypt’s foreign minister, claimed that unless Israel explodes atomic weapons on its own soil, there would be no formal evidence of its possession of these weapons. Neither did Israel use its atomic arsenal during the 1973 October War since resorting to this type of weapons was not an easy choice. Sadat finally ratified the treaty through a presidential order after six days of parliamentary debate. He defended his decision by stating that Egypt needed the friendship and cooperation of the United States, which would not tolerate any nuclear proliferation to the region. The question of Israel’s possession or lack of nuclear weapons was finally resolved in October of 1986, when the London Sunday Times published the confessions of Israeli nuclear defector, Mordechai Vannunu. Despite these revelations the Mubarak government had never made any official statement regarding its own nuclear capabilities.117 Instead, Mubarak became one of the most avid advocates of nuclear disarmament in the Middle East. One of the most curious results of the debate is the disappearance of serious discussion of Egypt’s nuclear policy from the pages of the press. Even Heikal had moved away from mentioning Egypt’s nuclear options, either because of his distance from the centers of power, or due to his unwillingness to take the blame for opportunities missed during his influential years as Nasser’s adviser. In an article in the liberal Wujhat Nathar, Heikal made an ironclad case for Israel’s determination to attack Egypt in 1967, including its faith in the invincibility of its nuclear weapons. What he did not discuss was Egypt’s nuclear development at that juncture in history.118 The same magazine published a long article on the Iranian-Israeli nuclear stand-off, but without discussing implications for Egypt’s defense.119 Sawt al-Ummah, published a long article regarding Libya’s voluntary surrender of its weapons of mass destruction in 2003, without referring to Egypt’s similar renouncement of nuclear intentions. The Libyan leader was actually criticized for his failure to seek Israeli concessions in return.120 The subject of Egypt’s nuclear posture remains to this day an undeclared political taboo. The only explanation for the absence of commentary on nuclear affairs would be the press law of 1996, which forbade papers to discuss security matters. It was, thus, easier to discuss Israel’s nuclear developments than to investigate Egypt’s position on nuclear research and development.

CONCLUSION By the time Mubarak took over the reins of office, the Egyptian press had become an institution with a long history and extensive political experience. It

10_303_Ch7.qxd

334

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 334

Chapter 7

also enjoyed an illustrious past as a defender of people’s rights and a party to the country’s major ideological battles. The press had accumulated great familiarity with government censorship and controls, beginning with the earliest publications of the nineteenth century. By the Mubarak period, major papers have experienced closures, fines, and imprisonment for a variety of reasons, but mostly as a result of a war or a state of national emergency or due to dictatorial impatience. The repressive laws of Muhammad Mahmoud and Ismail Sidqi during the monarchic period were also experienced after the 1952 Revolution. But nothing compares to the solid assault on the independence of the press when Nasser annexed it to the ASU and Sadat and Mubarak placed it under the direct control of the Higher Press Council. An innovation of the Sadat regime, this council seized control of the Press Syndicate and placed it under the tent of the Shura Council. Mubarak’s press law of 1996 placed additional controls over freedom of the press through the imposition of economic requirements, which limited the field to the wealthiest publications. Additionally, the law created stiff penalties for defamatory statements against major executive and diplomatic figures, as well as for coverage of national security issues. The Mubarack regime, however, was unable or unwilling to ban coverage of the Lebanese civil war or the first and second Palestinian intifadas. Al-Ahali and al-Arabi led the way in championing the side of the PLO, although the former was unable to close its eyes to deep fissures within the Palestinian movement. When the Palestinians rose against Israel, the press found it opportune not only to publicize Israeli acts of violence toward Palestinian civilians, but also to hammer away at the legitimacy of the Camp David treaties. Mubarack reserved for himself the role of regional anti-terrorism advocate but made an exception for the Palestinians whom he always described as freedom fighters. Although the press was a fractured institution by the 1970s, with the opposition papers vying for readership against the national, or pro-government press as well as the two official publications of Mayo and October, the press continued to play the role of primary opinion maker. But a new cause developed slowly following the Camp David treaties that eventually mobilized disparate groups as widely dissimilar as the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Tagamuu. This was the issue of normalization of relations with Israel, which generated the first opposition among Islamic ranks. Soon thereafter, however, many people joined this informal campaign, including academics and artists. The anti-normalization struggle succeeded in educating the public about the ramifications of allowing the emissaries of Israel’s research and academic communities to obtain access to Egyptian institutions. The myth of the Jewish genius that would help Egypt out of its developmental crisis was persistently attacked. Egyptians who co-

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 335

Mubarak, the Press, and the Consequences of Camp David

335

operated with Israel were vilified, but also the Camp David treaties were greatly delegitimized. The Mubarak years, additionally witnessed grave developments in the area of regional nuclear developments. While the Egyptians were still chaffing under the impact of Sadat’s ratification of the NPT, the Israeli nuclear defector Vannunu revealed Israel’s best-kept nuclear secrets. A potentially sensational topic for the opposition press, Egypt’s nuclear policy remained hidden from view. Only Mubarak’s persistent efforts to push for total nuclear disarmament of the Middle East region was made public. All other related issues, such as the security of the Aswan Dam, the future of Egypt’s hydroelectric production and the strategic and striking capability of the Egyptian military forces remained outside of the radar due to the press law of 1996. Coverage of national defense issues became fraught with danger if not totally forbidden. Yet this did not grant the progovernment press license to ignore the events of the two intifadas. There were also, as always, major journalistic stars anxious to prove their skills to a wide, adoring public.

10_303_Ch7.qxd

4/29/10

12:32 PM

Page 336

10_303_Ch8.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 337

8 E

Heikal: A Journalist for Most Seasons

E

gypt’s most influential journalist today is a man who exerted an enormous political influence on the direction of the country’s foreign policy during two presidencies. In the period after the 1952 Revolution and until his break with Sadat in 1974, Heikal was regarded more as a statesman than as a journalist. Under Mubarak’s rule, however, his proximity to the center of political power was diminished but his ability to communicate with the general Egyptian and Arab public never faltered. There was never any question regarding his unique status both in Egypt and the Arab world. Yet, several questions pertaining to his political career remain unanswered, particularly the nature and extent of his relationship with Nasser. The sources of his information are never verified. Crucial information that is revealed in his conversations with world leaders must be taken on faith. Whichever way one chooses to examine his life and career, Heilkal’s significance to understanding Egypt’s history remains unassailable. Heikal’s life not only affords a wide and clear view of Egypt’s recent history, it also presents a full picture of the struggles of the Egyptian press. His life story epitomizes the heights to which an Egyptian journalist can rise, as well as, the vulnerabilities of the profession to political pressures. Heikal had an unusual intimacy with news and information. He learned the standards of his profession on the job rather than through higher education. This is not to diminish his professional training since he trained with some of the best practitioners of journalism. Yet, his role as a witness to history from the earliest stages of his career endowed him with a distinct view of events that was never available to the average journalist. His devotees and critics would always admit that he was more than a journalist. He would be described by some as a statesman, largely due 337

10_303_Ch8.qxd

338

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 338

Chapter 8

to his influential years as Nasser’s adviser and confidant. Yet, the nature and full extent of that relationship remains a mystery, which adds to his enduring enigma and charismatic appeal. To this day, his impact on Nasser is not clearly understood. But even after he abandoned direct involvement with politics, his star continued to shine. Heikal’s stature in Egypt and the Arab world is also related to his ideological tenacity and his political ideals. Indeed, he is regarded as the standard bearer for the pan-Arab camp in Egypt and the guardian of Nasser’s legacy in the Arab world. But in a real sense, he remains a true Egyptian who carried the burden of his country’s travails and recent military disasters patiently on his shoulders. If his writings reveal anything about his innermost feelings, it is his devotion to this corner of the Arab world, this Egypt. To disentangle the diverse political strands of his ideological make-up would be a difficult task since his loyalties seem to be hopelessly entangled. Heikal was born in Cairo in 1923 to a father who belonged to the merchant class. The father hoped to enlist him in the grain trade, particularly since the son escaped a religious education and graduated from the Middle School of Commerce upon his secular mother’s insistence. When he realized that his diploma did not qualify him to enter the College of Commerce, he began to think seriously of pursuing a literary career. His induction into the world of journalism was purely accidental. A lecturer he heard when he was a second-year student at the American University of Cairo touched him deeply with stories about the Spanish Civil War and such great literary figures as Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, and Andre Malraux. The lecturer, Scott Watson, who worked for the Egyptian Gazette ended up asking Heikal in 1942 to work for his paper, which catered to Egypt’s British population during the war years. The editor of that paper was Harold Earl, who doubled as the correspondent for the Manchester Guardian. Lawrence Durell, author of The Alexandria Quartet was one of its editorialists. The Daily Mail’s reporter, Alexander Clifford, was also on the staff. Eve Curie, the daughter of famed chemists Marie and Pierre Curie, joined the paper for a while to cover news of the war. Heikal, all of nineteen years of age, was thus surrounded by a glamorous set of writers, joined together in a very demanding journalistic environment. Heikal proceeded to earn his stripes, assisted by his knowledge of foreign languages, which also included German and French. His interest in literature was channeled into journalism and he developed a passion for getting at the news by reading the major dailies of the world.1 Heikal’s first position with that paper was as an assistant investigative reporter charged with covering violent crimes, which earned him some notoriety among a public starved for sensational reporting. During the war, he was also dispatched to cover the battle of Alamein in northwestern Egypt,

10_303_Ch8.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 339

Heikal: A Journalist for Most Seasons

339

where he developed an early interest in military affairs.2 His military coverage attracted a great deal of attention, for he interwove his stories with a great deal of social commentary. More importantly, he learned how to take risks in the service of his profession. He reminisced later that he was the only Egyptian reporter in a group of twelve foreign correspondents dispatched to the front under the direction of Stephen Barber, later the Daily Telegraph’s correspondent in Washington. In preparation for the dangerous mission, Heikal and others were given self-defense training at a British military base near Alexandria and were familiarized with the Geneva Treaty relating to the rights of military correspondents. Twentyfive years after the battle, Lord Montgomery visited El-Alamein and Cairo, with Heikal in tow, and was feted jointly by al-Ahram and the London Sunday Times, then under the direction of Dennis Hamilton. Accompanied by some of his famed surviving military officers, Montgomery would tour the important sites of battle, then return to his hotel in the afternoon to preside over an open discussion about the war. Both Hamilton and Heikal followed these exchanges eagerly and Heikal would add later that the experience taught him how not to fear death, or even ignore it. He also said that the war opened Egypt’s eyes to the possibility of choice. Before the war, Egypt could only ally itself with Britain and France, but after the war, Egypt had a choice.3 His introduction to the world of Egyptian journalism came through Muhammad al-Tabii who invited him to cover meetings of the Egyptian parliament for Aakher Saaha. When that journal faltered as a result of the success of a new paper known as Akhbar al-Youm, al-Tabii closed his office and joined the competition. Heikal, who was asked to be the editor-inchief of al-Ithnein, decided instead to work as a foreign correspondent for Akhbar al-Youm. This assignment allowed him to cover the Greek Civil War, three Syrian coups d’etat, the Palestinian War of 1948, and the 1949 Rhodes meeting for the signing of Arab-Israeli armistice agreements. Rhodes was his first opportunity to meet the assembled Arab kings and state leaders.4 Covering the Palestine war proved to be Heikal’s fateful induction into the world of Arab politics. He was not the first Egyptian to recognize the magnitude of the developments overtaking Palestine, for he was preceded there by al-Tabii, Ihsan Abd al-Quddous, Mahmoud Abu al-Futuh, and Emile Zeidan. His first journey to that country was after the U.N. Partition Resolution of 1947. Palestine, however, became Heikal’s major obsession. He began by writing a series of reports titled “Fire Over the Holy Land,” even before Egypt entered the war in 1948. Fifty years later, he was still writing about Palestine, this time in book form. His coverage of the war was not devoid of sensationalism, but he knew what the public wanted. Satirizing the Palestinian theater and exposing the scandals perpetrated by corrupt and ill-informed military leaders became his

10_303_Ch8.qxd

340

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 340

Chapter 8

passion. He witnessed the fall of Haifa and the siege of Jaffa and departed the Qatamon Quarter in West Jerusalem in the last vehicle departing to Amman. When the Palestinian War became official, he stayed with Arab troops in Bethlehem, Hebron and the northern Negev region. Thus, the Palestinian War was the big story of his early journalistic career before the 1952 Revolution, which catapulted him to the highest position ever enjoyed by an Egyptian journalist.5 In his brief semi-autobiography, Permission to Depart (Istiithan fi al-Insiraf, 2003), there is no mention of his first meeting with Nasser. Curiously enough, the book begins with a description of Nasser’s death and deals more with the author’s relationship with Sadat than with Nasser. There have been many accounts of Heikal’s and Nasser’s first meeting, usually implying that the journalist wormed his way into the leader’s inner circle. Heikal met Nasser when the latter was fighting in the Palestine War. Their subsequent meetings were accidental after Nasser’s return to Cairo. Nasser then visited him at Akhbar al-Youm to seek clarification about some of his writings. Indeed, Heikal knew Naguib better than he did Nasser in the days leading up to the revolution. His only contribution to the planning of the coup was that he stated to some of the future RCC officers that in his estimation the British were not ready to act if the army seized power soon. He also advised Naguib al-Hilali, the last prime minister of the royalist period, of the wisdom of nominating Naguib to the position of minister of war in order to calm the restive army. The King rejected Hilali’s recommendation and the coup was carried out as planned. Heikal became the first to know since he was a coveted source of information. In later years, he was to say that Nasser’s leadership qualities emerged clearly during the early days of the revolution.6 Nasser’s reliance on Heikal as an adviser deepened during the Bandung Conference, as the journalist became the eyes and ears of the Egyptian leader. He also advised Nasser about relations with the press institution and how to bring it in line with the revolution’s ideals. Under his direction, al-Ahram became the premier journal in the Arab world although government control of the rest of the press undermined their significance in Arab markets. All of this is well known and has been published in several places. What remains unsettled, however, is the extent of Heikal’s influence on the leader. This is an ongoing debate that Heikal refuses to join. For instance, he always described his relationship to Nasser as pure friendship, adding that it was distinct, joining a leader with a talking, thinking man at his side. The reason why the relationship endured was because Nasser trusted him, although there was a great deal of arguments and debate between them. Heikal admitted that at times Nasser used to feel impatient with him, such as when the journalist criticized the Egyptian bureaucracy or the ASU, which Nasser feared would annoy his

10_303_Ch8.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 341

Heikal: A Journalist for Most Seasons

341

political associates. Heikal prided himself on calling for difficult changes and reforms, such as attaching the intellectuals to the revolution, rather than those enjoying the president’s trust. He called for curbing the powers of the secret police and suggested that the technocrats should be in charge of development. Heikal would also be asked whether he consulted Nasser before writing in order to prepare the public for the president’s next move, but Heikal would only acknowledge engaging Nasser in long discussions that they agreed to keep out of the reach of journalists. Heikal was emphatic about this, claiming that he never broke this agreement and that the one incident that threatened their friendship came as a result of his appointment as minister of guidance in 1970, and the brief imprisonment of Lufti al-Khuli and Heikal’s secretary, Nawal al-Mahillawi. Heikal often discounted exaggerated accounts of echoing Nasser’s views in his articles, saying only that Nasser shared with him hundreds of reports, including those of Egyptian heads of missions overseas. Heikal found these to be bureaucratic and useless, claiming that much of his information came from being in the middle of events. He was found at Nasser’s side every time the Egyptian president went on an official visit. Heikal himself admitted preparing the program of Nasser’s first cabinet in 1953. The journalist was also frequently accused of having authored Nasser’s single tome, The Philosophy of the Revolution, the National Charter, and practically all of Nasser’s public speeches.7 He would defend himself against this in his book, For Egypt, Not For Abd al-Nasser (1987). But he stood accused of selling socialism to an ignorant military leader. As one of his detractors, Mustafa Mahmoud wrote, Nasser never understood all this talk about socialism, which was Heikal’s creation. Nasser simply never had the time to read and never knew Marxism or any Marxists, since all these ideas came from Heikal, Egypt’s real ruler.8 Heikal, however, chose to present Nasser not as a myth, larger than life, but as a man with definite ideals. Barely one week after Nasser’s death on September 28, 1970, Heikal dedicated his weekly al-Ahram column, “Candidly Speaking,” to Nasser’s memory: First: None of us has the right to think, in one way or another, of changing Gamal Abd al-Nasser into a legend. A legend implies that he was inspired from beyond . . . but there is no trace of this in Gamal Abd al-Nasser who lived a full life on this earth, among its people, and under the bright sun of Egypt. The most abhorrent thing for him was worshipping the individual, therefore no one has the right after the departure to make him a worshipped god in another pyramid on Egyptian land.9

Nasser’s death came as a shock to many people, but especially to his trusted adviser, Heikal. Mahmoud al-Jayyar, Nasser’s long-time secretary, was asked years later why Heikal was the only journalist who was allowed to be so close to the president. Al-Jayyar said that at the beginning

10_303_Ch8.qxd

342

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 342

Chapter 8

Nasser spoke with all the editors and great writers, but only Heikal was able to express his thoughts.10 In Heikal’s recollection of that terrible day of Nasser’s burial, he stressed how he smoothed the way for Sadat’s accession to the presidency. It was Heikal who suggested the urgent need to push Sadat forward at maximum speed as was specified in the constitution. Heikal also prepared the statement announcing Nasser’s death and insisted that Sadat himself go on the air to read it lest there be any doubt that he, the first vice president of Egypt, was now assuming control. There were many who doubted Sadat’s eligibility to run the country, viewing him as a transitional president, if not an accidental one. But Heikal, implying that he could have seized the reins of office himself, chose at that moment to tender his resignation from al-Ahram. This was not accepted by Sadat, but it was the beginning of a period of doubts and loss of confidence and trust, leading eventually to a break with Nasser’s successor.11 Thus, at the age of forty-seven, Heikal lost his political mentor and began to entertain ideas about retirement. But Sadat approved his resignation from the Ministry of Guidance (later the Information Ministry) but not from al-Ahram. Heikal continued to write his incisive column about the war front, and appeared to be instigating a return to war. When Sadat made plans to launch the October War, Heikal was with him, placing his talents at the service of the president. The journalist was asked to draft Sadat’s letter of instructions to the commander of the Egyptian forces, Ahmad Ismail Ali, notifying him and his military staff to begin achieving their strategic goal with the use of arms on Saturday, October 6, 1973. The letter, explained Heikal later, began by analyzing conditions on the front, which was a situation of no peace and no war while Arab lands were occupied. It also called for mobilizing humans and other resources, then launched into a survey of regional and international conditions, indicating what would be possible and what would be difficult to achieve at that moment in time. He then launched into a definition of what the armed forces were expected to accomplish, basing his argument on the need to “destroy the Israelis’ security theory.” Heikal took enormous pride in playing an important role during this momentous season in Egypt’s modern history.12 But Sadat was not Nasser, living by Heikal’s counsel. Heikal’s pivotal role in preparing the troops psychologically for war did not translate into further influence over the conduct of war. He had already quarreled with Sadat over the manner in which Soviet advisers were dismissed, over the president’s secret channel to the United States, over the removal of prominent journalists from al-Ahram to the Ministry of Information, and finally over Sadat’s declaration of a ceasefire in the middle of the war.13 When Hafiz Ismail, Sadat’s National Security Advisor, sent a letter to Kissinger through the Shah of Iran, pledging not to pro-

10_303_Ch8.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 343

Heikal: A Journalist for Most Seasons

343

ceed with the fighting any further, Heikal finally reached the breaking point. He argued that this would practically end the war since Israeli military pressure against Syria would increase dramatically.14 Sadat allowed him to see many letters seeking to convince the president to end the war. These included letters form the Shah of Iran who wrote that the United States will not permit a victory achieved with Soviet arms, King Hassan II of Morocco who assured Sadat that the Israelis have already learned their lesson, and even from King Faisal of Saudi Arabia who quoted a verse from the Qur’an to make his point.15 Heikal then began a series of articles in al-Ahram from October 5, 1973, until February 1, 1974, in which he elucidated on his differences with the regime. This campaign culminated in his great objections to the ongoing American-Egyptian relations, to Sadat’s handling of the sectarian crisis, and Sadat’s coolness to offers of Libyan unification. Sadat then accused him of creating great confusion in the minds of Arab readers, adding that Heikal has turned himself into a politician.16 He was then removed from al-Ahram but continued to write scathing articles abroad about Sadat’s conduct of the war and the peace negotiations. Heikal emerged as one of the strongest foes of Egypt’s unilateral peace with Israel. By 1978 he faced a period of interrogation by the attorney general, which lasted three months. His defense became material for another book in which he presented his arguments against several of Sadat’s policies. But he defended Sadat against the charge of treason. Sadat, Heikal wrote, was simply willing to deal with uncertainties, relying mostly on his own perceptions at a time when reality did not bear out his guesses. Sadat created a reality that clashed with the legitimacy of the July 1952 Revolution and Heikal feared that Israel will emerge as the main power in the Arab east. Egypt, he predicted, would turn into an isolated corner in Northeast Africa. He felt that Sadat was a very attractive personality on the human level and displayed a great courage when he made the decision to start the war.17 Heikal went on to become the informal leader of the secular opposition, but his enemies at times seemed more numerous than his followers. October published a series of articles by Rajab al-Banna about Heikal’s controversial career, particularly his alleged role in the conviction and imprisonment of Mustafa Amin. Heikal was said to have acted out of jealousy and contributed to ending the career of Egypt’s greatest journalist on espionage charges.18 Other accounts have accused him of amassing a trove of state documents, domestic and foreign, which he refuses to share with the public.19 He acknowledged in the year 2000 that he had discovered the theft of a large number of his papers and books upon his return from a medical excursion abroad.20 One of his followers wrote in 2003, when Heikal indicated his imminent retirement, beseeching him to write his memoirs “in order to pull back the fog curtain from the people’s

10_303_Ch8.qxd

344

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 344

Chapter 8

memory.”21 A Syrian devotee reminded Heikal of what he had written a while back when he reportedly said to Nasser at a private meeting “When we retire, we shall write our memoirs about our careers.” Nasser was said to have replied, “Anyone who has my kind of job will not reach retirement. You will write by yourself.” This was a charge from Nasser, and Heikal must oblige. He should at least write Nasser’s biography and an authoritative account of the 1952 Revolution.22 Another writer complained that a lacuna exists where the history of Coptic state relations are concerned and that Heikal is the one who should correct this. Heikal had already treated the topic of sectarian relations in his book Autumn of Fury (1985) but he did not touch upon Nasser’s relations with Pope Kyrolos VI. This remains a controversial topic, mired in rumors and incomplete references.23 A more puzzling blind-spot in Heikal’s productive career is coverage of Sudanese-Egyptian relations. He was openly reproached over this by a visiting group of Sudanese opposition leaders in 1996. He was told that as a great national symbol, he owed it to the people of the two halves of the Nile Valley to write on their issues. Why would Egypt search for its role northward and eastward, he was asked, but ignore its responsibility toward the Arab Sudan? He was reminded that Egypt’s role in Africa was stressed in Nasser’s book, Philosophy of the Revolution, since the two entities shared a common strategic reality. Heikal was also asked to keep before his eyes the close coordination between al-Mahdi and Uraabi, and that the first martyr of the Mahdist Revolt was an Egyptian-born adviser to the Mahdi by the name of Ahmad al-Awwam. Heikal never responded directly, perhaps due to his reluctance to discuss Nasser’s deliberate snub of the Sudanese when they opted for independence rather than for union with Eygpt in 1956.24 Heika’s lukewarm attitude toward the Sudan can easily be contrasted with his Palestinian passion. But even that cannot be understood as total commitment to the Palestinian leadership of the 1950s and beyond. Heikal always expressed the position common to Egyptian nationalists of his generation that the Palestinians could not be allowed to take the Arab cause over the dangerous terrain of Palestinian nationalism. He understood the travails of the Palestinians to be the result of their strategic vulnerability, which could have been Egypt’s vulnerability. But he never wavered in his commitment to Egypt’s natural leadership of the Arab world or the urgency of changing the power relationships of the Middle East. Egyptians generally credit him with being a great journalist and a steadfast statesman. Millions of readers admit that they learned politics through his writings, largely because of his fealty and fidelity to Nasser and his philosophy.25 But his contribution to Egyptian public life was also due to his journalistic stature, for as one writer put it:

10_303_Ch8.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 345

Heikal: A Journalist for Most Seasons

345

His forte was that he never forgot the essence of his profession, which was interaction with news, realities, and facts. . . . Journalism in his hands became an art of political education which he enriched with discussion, dialogue, travel accounts, extensive reading . . . and knowledge of human needs. Journalism reserved for him a unique spot in the world of politics. . . . The reality is that Heikal rose with the art of journalistic performance to the level of intellectual activity.26

Since his departure from the political arena, he became also a worthy expert on Israeli and American politics. No one understood the Zionist project better than him, especially after he explained Ben Gurion’s long-range plan for Egypt. He delved into American documents for the past eight years, and was one of the first to analyze America’s policy in the region as imperial and on a collision course with Arab nationalism.27 The man who presented the 1952 Revolution to Arab readers and placed Palestinian events on the Arab radar, rose to the highest political position a journalist can attain, but surprisingly considered himself just a journalist. He repeated on several occasions that he preferred to be called “a journalist” (gournalgi), shunning such titles as “The Great Teacher” and the “The Great Journalist.”28 “The Journalist,” however, continues to move people. At a first-time meeting between Heikal and Jamal Hamdan, Egypt’s great geographer and philosopher, Heikal was asked bluntly why he never led a revolution. Hamdan expressed the feelings of many Nasserites who felt that Heikal was the most suited to defeat the hated Camp David Treaty, even if that meant rising up against Sadat. Hamdan reminded Heikal that people regarded him as a statesman, not merely a journalist.29 Finally, what he may not escape is a deeply hidden connection to Palestine. The last Arab mayor of Jaffa, Dr. Yousef Heikal, had discovered while researching the origin of his family that the Heikals migrated during the seventeenth century from the Arabian Peninsula to Syria, and from there to Egypt. A branch of the family settled in Palestine and a branch in alDaqhaliyah, which produced Muhammad Hussein Heikal, president of the Egyptian Senate during the royalist period and the founder of alSiyaseh. But another branch from which the famous journalist issued, settled in Dayrout. Three Heikals, thus faced different destinies.30

10_303_Ch8.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 346

10_303_Ch9.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 347

9 E

Conclusion: Palestine, Policy, and the Printed Word

I

t is no exaggeration to say that the press institution in Egypt was always a witness to history. One might even claim that not only did it reflect and analyze major historical events, the institution itself made history. The impact of the press on Egyptian domestic and foreign policies, as well as on the literary life of the nation, cannot be ignored. It was often portrayed in heroic terms, ascribing to its ranks strong nationalistic traits that protected Egyptians from the havoc of political and cultural colonization. The record, however, indicates a mixed picture of pro-government press, a feminist press, a fanatic religious media, ideological papers, and some that pioneered significant changes in the art of news reporting. The press allowed itself to be obsessed with the Palestine question in response to popular agitation and desire for news. This was true ever since the threat of Zionist colonization and settlement loomed along Egypt’s borders. The media domesticated the Palestine issue, particularly during the Nasser years. It was then that Palestine became acknowledged as the dangerous frontier and when occupied, the entrenched obstacle to Egypt’s ambitions in the Arab world. The influence, popularity, and longevity of the Egyptian press institution may very well be the outcome of the developing battle for democratic freedoms. The battle over the control of information was always symptomatic of the ongoing contest between official and non-official groups. Egyptians fought with words what they could not resolve by any other means. A third world country, Egypt can claim long familiarity with pressgovernment conflicts. Every Egyptian and foreign ruler attempted to harness the engine of the press to his policy, beginning with Khedive Ismail 347

10_303_Ch9.qxd

348

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 348

Chapter 9

and Cromer and all the way down to Mubarak. Even when Egyptian freedoms theoretically flourished during the Liberal phase, the press became the favorite vehicle of rising bourgeois politicians, the palace, the British, as well as radical forces on the left and on the right. The significant role played by the press when Palestine impinged on the Egyptian political terrain, therefore, signaled the extreme polarization of positions among the country’s diverse political groups. And although Nasser came very close to nurturing a friendly press that gave expression to his policies, Israeli wars and his military defeats forced him to loosen his grip on this influential institution. But more than anyone else, Sadat learned the limits of his ability to control the press when he embarked on a unilateral quest for an Egyptian-Israeli treaty. Jailing of journalists and confiscating their papers did not silence the opposition, it merely heightened differences between the proponents of pan-Arabism and the advocates of a narrower brand of Egyptian nationalism. The most serious attempts to exercise government control over the press, nevertheless, must be credited to Mubarak. Having refined the press laws of his regime extensively, he found himself compelled not only to tighten controls by the Press Council but also to create red lines for coverage of permissible and non-permissible aspects of the Palestinian issue. Yet, his anti-terrorism doctrine, his quest for normalization of relations with Israel, his push for regional nuclear disarmament which would extend to Israel, and his ban on discussions of national security matters did not stop the press from attacking his regime when violence swept over Palestine during the latest intifada. For a study of this nature, it is important to discover the roots of the press institution even before Zionism made its appearance in Palestine. Without surveying and describing the various stages of development that the press underwent, the inner strength of Egyptian journalism would have remained concealed. It is also important to assess the achievements of the early press especially in the literary field, in order to understand the general Egyptian trust in the printed word. Few remember that Egyptian journalism salvaged written Arabic from the pressure of foreign languages that swept over Egypt, and the formalism of traditional Arabic, which was challenged by advocates of Latinizing the language. What emerged during the early part of the twentieth century was an eloquent and expressive literary style of Arabic, which gained great adherents and attracted Egypt’s best literary luminaries to journalism. Despite its legal, financial, and administrative restrictions, Egyptian journalism can be credited with significant achievements. It was the press that exposed royalist corruption and indifference during the 1948 Palestine War. The press also clamored for corrective action after the defeat of the 1967 War. Members of the opposition press mobilized large segments

10_303_Ch9.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 349

Conclusion: Palestine, Policy, and the Printed Word

349

of the population against the Camp David peace treaties and the government’s push to enforce normalization of relations with Israel. The press, has succeeded in monopolizing news and analyses of the continued violence in Palestine to the chagrin of a government anxious to stick by its treaty obligations toward Israel. The press, finally, is currently strongly contesting Egypt’s growing dependence on the United States in all fields such as politics, the economy and cultural matters. With a syndicate that dates back to the 1940s and which is considered the most politicized after the Lawyers’ Syndicate, members of the press today have recourse to many weapons in their struggle to disseminate information. Most of all, the press has a legacy of struggle, nationalist credentials and a literary legacy to uphold.

10_303_Ch9.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 350

10_303_z1_End.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 351

Endnotes

CHAPTER ONE 1. Albert C. Gunther, “The Persuasive Press Inference; Effects of Mass Media on Perceived Public Opinion,” Communication Research, V. 25, No. 5 (October 1998): 486, 494. 2. Muhammad Saad Ibrahim, Hurriyat al-sahafah: dirasah fi al-siyasah al-tashriiyah wa ulaqatuha bi-al-tatawur al-dimocrati (Freedom of the Press: A Study in Legislative Policy and Its Relationship to Democratic Development) 2d. ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah lil-Nashr wa al-Tawzee, 1999), 71–73. 3. Suleiman Saleh, Azamat hurriyat al-sahafah fi Misr, 1945–1985 (The Crisis of Freedom of the Press in Egypt, 1945–1985) (Cairo: Dar al-Nashr lil-Jamiaat al-Misriyyah, 1995), 166, 227. 4. Rasem Muhammad al-Jammal, Al-Ilam al-Arabi al-mushtarak: diraseh fi alIlam al-Duwali (Unified Arab Information: A Study in International Arab Information) (Beirut: Markaz Dirasaat al-Wihdah al-Arabiyyah, 1985), 17–28. 5. Muhammad al-Jammal, Al-Ilam al-Arabi, 45–49. 6. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat fi al-sahafah al-Misriyyah al-muasirah (Studies in Modern Egyptian Journalism) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al Arabi, 1985), 221. 7. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah al-Arabiyyah fi muwajahat al-ikhtiraq alSahyouni (The Arab Press Confronts Zionist Penetration) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr alArabi, 1996), 148–57. 8. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Humum al-sahafah wa al-sahafiyeen fi Misr (The Concerns of the Press and Journalists in Egypt) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1995), 5–6. 9. Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah, 68–70. 10. Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah, 99–100. 11. Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah, 100–105. 12. Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah, 134–37. 351

10_303_z1_End.qxd

352

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 352

Endnotes

13. Adel Abd al-Ghaffar Khalil, Al-Ilam wa al-raai al-aam (Information and Public Opinion) (Beirut: Markaz Dirasaat al-Wihdah al-Arabiyyah, 2003), 11, 18–20. 14. Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, The Spiral Theory: Public Opinion-Our Social Skin, 2d. ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 80–84. 15. Noelle-Neumann, Spiral Theory, 84. 16. Noelle-Neumann, Spiral Theory, 84–85. 17. Noelle-Neumann, Spiral Theory, 88–92. 18. Noelle-Neumann, Spiral Theory, 136–37, 167, 199, 201. 19. Noelle-Neumann, Spiral Theory, 5. 20. Khalil, Al-Ilam wa al-raai, 66–67, 108. 21. Khalil, Al-Ilam wa al-raai, 109. 22. Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah, 54–56. 23. Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah, 56–57. 24. Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah, 57–58. 25. Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah, 61. 26. Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah, 62–66. 27. Ami Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 11, 18–21, 28–58, 69, 76–82, 115–36, 229–39. 28. Munir K. Nasser, “The Middle East Press: Tool of Politics,” in Press Control Around the World, eds. June Leftwich Curry and Joan R. Dassin (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1982), 187–208. 29. L. John Martin and Anju Grover Chaudhary, Comparative Mass Media Systems (New York: Longman Inc., 1983), 9. 30. E. Lloyd Sommerfield, The Press in Developing Countries (Sydney, Australia: Sydney University Press, 1966), 65, 140–41. 31. Aaron Mannes, “Arab Media Primer,” Middle East Insight, Vol XVII, No. 2 (March–April 2002): 81–84. 32. William A. Rough, The Arab Press: News Media and Political Process in the Arab World, 2d. ed. (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 5–48. 33. Jack Crabbs Jr., “Politics, History and Culture in Nasser’s Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4 (October 1975): 391–417. 34. Ibrahim Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafa al-Misriyyah, 1798–1981 (The Growth of Egyptian Journalism, 1798–1981) 4th ed. (Cairo: Mouassaset Sajil al-Arab 1982), 4, 6–10. 35. Abduh, Tatawur, 191–200, 207–8. 36. Abduh, Tatawur, 271–80. 37. Abduh, Tatawur, 207, 280–88.

CHAPTER TWO 1. Jack Crabbs Jr., “Politics, History and Culture in Nasser’s Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4 (October 1975): 388, 391–92. 2. Fouad Mursi, Nathrah thaniyah ila al-quawmiyah al-Arabiyyah (A Second Look at Arab Nationalism) Kitab al-Ahali No. 20 (Cairo: Al-Ahali, 1989): 35–58. For a detailed description of the national effort to create a national university, see: Hussein Fawzi al-Najjar, Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid (Cairo: Al-Hayaah al-Aameh Lil-Kitab, 1975), 296–324.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 353

Endnotes

353

3. Mursi, Nathrah thaniyah, 58–60. 4. Mursi, Nathrah thaniyah, 61–63. 5. Muna Makram Ubayd, Makram Ubayd: Kalimaat wa mawaqef (Mukram Ubayd: His Words and His Stands) (Cairo: Al Hayaah al-Aammah lil-Kitab, 1990), 9. 6. Ubayd, Makram Ubayd, 29. 7. Ubayd, Makram Ubayd, 209–16. 8. Mursi, Nathrah thaniyah, 62. 9. Ami Ayalon, The Press in the Arab Middle East: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 53–54. 10. Ubayd, Makram Ubayd, 263–66. 11. Abd al-Tawab Yousef, Hawadeet Fikri Abaza (The Tales of Fikri Abaza) (Cairo: Al-Hayaah al-Aammah lil-Kitab, 2003), 12–13. 12. Rifaat al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah fi Misr (Political Trends in Egypt) (Cairo: Al-Amal lil-Tibaa wa al-Nashr, 2001), 14–18. 13. Ibrahim Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah al-Misriyyah, 1798–1981, (The Growth of Egyptian Journalism, 1798–1981), 4th ed. (Cairo: Mouassaset Sajil al-Arab, 1982), 55–69. On the development of consultative assemblies in Egypt from the days of Khedive Ismail, see: Tareq al-Bishri, Dirasaat fi al-dimocratiyah al-Misriyyah (Studies in Egyptian Democracy) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1987), 108–12. 14. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 72–77. 15. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 79–89. 16. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 94–102. 17. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 103–17. 18. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 119–26. 19. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 126–31. 20. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 134–38, 144–46. 21. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 150–55. 22. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 156–65. 23. Helen A Kitchen, “Al-Ahram—The Times of the Arab World,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2 (April 1950): 156, 156n1, 157. 24. Ayalon, Press in the Arab, 42–44. 25. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 67–69, 73–74. 26. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 122–4, 130–49. 27. Kitchen, “Al-Ahram,”158–59. 28. Arthur Goldschmidt Jr., Modern Egypt: The Formation of a Nation-State (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988), 46–47. 29. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 167–72. 30. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 173–74. 31. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 175–78. 32. Goldschmidt, Modern Egypt, 49–50. 33. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 178–79. 34. Goldschmidt, Modern Egypt, 50–51. 35. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 179–81. 36. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 183–92. 37. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 192–95. 38. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 195–99. 39. Ghada Hashem Talhami, Palestine and the Egyptian National Identity (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992), 3.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

354

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 354

Endnotes

40. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 200. 41. Muhammad Saad Ibrahim, Hurriyat al-sahafah: diraseh fi al-siyaseh al-tashreeiyah wa ulaqatuha bi al-tatawur al-ijtimali (Freedom of the Press: A Study in Legislative Policy and its Relationship to Social Development), 2nd ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah, 1999), 38. See also: Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism (New York: MJF Books, 1972), 121–22. 42. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 203–7.

CHAPTER THREE 1. Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr. Modern Egypt: The Formation of a Nation-State (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988), 55–65. 2. Shuaib Abd al-Monem al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh al-Sahafah al-Islamiyah (An Introduction to the History of Islamic Journalism) (Cairo: Aalem al-Kutub, 1998), 99–101. 3. Rifaat al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah fi Misr (Political Trends in Egypt) (Cairo: Al-Amal, 2001), 32–33. 4. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 33–37. 5. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 38–43. 6. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 43–46. 7. Al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh, 126. 8. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 47–48. 9. Al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh, 126. 10. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 49–57. 11. Al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh, 126–28. 12. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 57–64. 13. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 70–74. 14. Al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh, 127. 15. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 65–79. 16. Aida Saleemah, Misr wa al-qhadhiyah al-Filastiniyah (Egypt and the Palestine Question) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr lil-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, 1986), 105. 17. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 64–65. 18. Abd al-Atheem Ramadhan, Siraa al-tabaqat fi-Misr, 1837–1952 (The Class Struggle in Egypt) (Beirut: Al-Muassaseh al-Arabiyyah lil-Dirasat wa al-Nashr, 1978), 189–90. 19. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 65–78. 20. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, “Baadh al-ihtimamat al-Misriyyah bi al-qhadhiyah al-Filastiniyah qabl thawrat 1952,” (Some Egyptian Interests in the Palestinian Question before 1952 Revolution), Qhadhaya Arabiyyah, Vol. 6, No. 7 (November, 1979), 157. 21. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 78–80. 22. Arafeh Abduh Ali, Malaff al-Yahud fi Masr al-hadithah (The Jewish File in Modern Egypt) (Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1991), 10–18. 23. Ali, Malaff al-Yahud, 19–22. 24. Siham Nassar, Al-Yahud al-Misriyoun bayn al-Misriyah wa al-Sahyouniyah (Egyptian Jews between Egyptian Nationalism and Zionism) (Beirut: Dar al-Wihdah, 1980), 29–30.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 355

Endnotes

355

25. Ali, Malaff al-Yahud, 23, 73. 26. Nassar, Al-Yahud al-Misriyoun, 20–27, 40–47. 27. Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism (New York: MJF Books, 1972), 161. 28. Ali, Malaff al-Yahud, 28, 230, 89, 111. 29. Ali, Malaff al-Yahud, 151–53. 30. Ali, Malaff al-Yahud, 154–55. 31. Laqueur, History of Zionism, 341; Ali, Malaff al-Yahud, 155. 32. Ali, Malaff al-Yahud, 155–56. 33. Saleemah, Misr wa al-qhadhiyah, 21–23. 34. Saleemah, Misr wa al-qhadhiyah, 21–24. 35. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah al-Arabiyyah fi muwajahat al-ikhtiraq alSahyouni (The Arab Press Confronts Zionist Penetration) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr alArabi, 1996), 152, 155; Nassar, 43, 76. 36. Salah Abd al-Latif, Al-Sahafah al-mutakhasisah (The Specialized Press) (Cairo: Dar al-Tibaah al-Qawmiyah, 1997), 96–97. 37. Mustafa al-Faqi, Al-Aqbat fi al-siyaseh al-Misriyyah (The Copts in Egyptian Politics) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1988), 36–38. 38. Ahlam al-Saadi Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami wa al-siyaseh al-Misriyyah tijah al-sulh maa Israil (The Islamic Current and Egyptian Policy Toward Peace with Israel) (Cairo: al-Zahraa lil-Ilaam al-Arabi, 1991), 26, 27n1. 39. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 27–28. 40. Al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh, 33. 41. Faroud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 28–30. 42. Faroud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 30–31. 43. Al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh, 38–41, 41n2. 44. Faroud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 31–35. 45. Faroud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 35–40. 46. Saleh al-Wardani, Al-Harakah al-Islamiyah wa al-qhadhiyah al-Filastinyah (The Islamic Movement and the Palestine Question) (Cairo: Al-Dar al-Sharqiyah, 1990), 7. 47. Faroud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 41, 208. 48. Abd al-Latif, Al-Sahafah al-mutakhasisah, 98. 49. Faroud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 41, 41n3, 42–43, 43n4. 50. Al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh, 176–77. 51. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 178–79. 52. Faroud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 41, 208, 208n1, 209. 53. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 212–13. 54. Al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh, 136. 55. Saleemah, Misr wa al-qhadhiyah, 24–26. 56. Abd al-Aati Muhammad Ahmad, Al-Harakaat al-Islamiyah fi Masr (Islamic Movements in Egypt) (Cairo: Markaz al-Ahram lil-Tarjamah wa al-Nashr, 1995), 84. 57. Ahmad, Al-Harakaat al-Islamiyah. 58. Majmouat rasail al-imam al-shahid Hassan al-Banna (A Collection of the Messages of the Martyred Imam Hassan al-Banna) (Cairo: Dar al-Daawa, 1990), 201, 245. 59. Majmouat, 291. 60. Majmouat, 152–53. 61. Majmouat, 163. 62. Majmouat, 71, 130, 196. 63. Al-Wardani, Al-Harakah al-Islamiyah, 7–8, 17–20.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

356

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 356

Endnotes

64. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 84–87. 65. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 87–88, 88n4, 89–92. 66. Al-Wardani, Al-Harakah al-Islamiyah, 20–21. 67. Kamil al-Sharif, Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun fi Harb Filastin (The Muslim Brotherhood in the Palestinian War) (Cairo: Al-Zahraa lil Iilam wa al-Nashr, 1987), 42–43. 68. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 216–17. 69. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 92. 70. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 217–22. 71. Al-Said, Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah, 223–28, 234–35, 242–25. 72. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 93–94. 73. Ahmad, Al-Harakaat al-Islamiyah, 89. 74. Sayyid Qutb, Maarakatuna maa al-Yahoud (Our Battle Against the Jews) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1992) 5–14, 20–38, 47–50, 56–65. 75. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 63. 76. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 64–74. 77. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 74. 78. Tareq al-Bishri, Dirasaat fi al-dimoqratiyah al-Misriyyah (Studies in Egyptian Democracy) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1987), 256–57. 79. Al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh, 121. 80. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat fi al-sahafah al-Misriyyah al-muasirah (Studies in Modern Egyptian Journalism) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1985), 27–28. 81. Al-Rahman, Dirasaat fi al-sahafah, 28–30. 82. Ibrahim Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah al-Misriyah, 1798–1981 (The Growth of Egyptian Journalism, 1798–1981) 4th ed. (Cairo: Mouassaset Sajil al-Arab 1982), 209–19. 83. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 219. 84. Abdal-Rahman, Dirasaat, 44. 85. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 219–20. 86. Abdal-Rahman, Dirasaat, 49. 87. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 221, 232. 88. Al-Faqi, Al-Aqbat fi al-siyaseh, 131. 89. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 49. 90. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 224–25, 231–33. 91. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 48, 54. 92. Al-Ghubashi, Madkhal li-Tarikh, 121–27. 93. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 214, 222. 94. Al-Bishri, Dirasaat, 130–35, 249–50. 95. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 235. 96. Saleemah, Misr wa al-qhadhiyah, 101–2, 116–17.

CHAPTER FOUR 1. Mahmoud Salah, Asrar wa hikayat fi balat sahibat al-jalaleh (Secrets and Tales Concerning Her Majesty’s Court) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1968), 21, 81.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 357

Endnotes

357

2. Suleiman Saleh, Azamat hurriyat al-sahafah fi Misr, 1945–1985, (The Crises of Freedom of the Press in Egypt, 1945–1985) (Cairo: dar al-Nashr lil-Jamiaat al-Misriyyah, 1995), 166–67, 177, 179. 3. Saleh, Azamat hurriyat, 170–83. 4. Saleh, Azamat hurriyat, 241. 5. Rifaat al-Said, Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah fi Misr, 1925–48, (Leftist Journalism in Egypt, 1925–1948) (Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1977), 135–37. 6. Al-Said, Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah, 135, 137–40, 166–67. 7. Al-Said, Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah, 167–72. 8. Al-Said, Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah, 210–11. 9. Al-Said, Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah, 211–12. 10. Al-Said, Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah, 169–70, 211–12. 11. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat fi al-sahafah al-Misriyyah al-muasirah (Studies in Modern Egyptian Journalism) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1985), 49–50. 12. Abd al-Fattah Abu al-Fadhl, Kuntu naiban li-raiis al-mukhabarat (I Was the Deputy Chief of Intelligence) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2001), 31–33, 41–42. 13. Suheir Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah min al-qhadhaya al-wattaniyah, 1946–1954 (Stands of the Press toward National Issues, 1946–1954), Volume II (Cairo: AlHayaah al-Aameh lil-Kitab, 1996), 9–13. 14. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 61, 116–18. 15. Helen A. Kitchen, “Al-Ahram—The Times of the Arab World,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2, (April 1950), 163–66. 16. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 120–21, 124. 17. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 126–28. 18. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 108–16. 19. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 76–78, 83–85. 20. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 85. 21. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 86. 22. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 86–87. 23. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 87. 24. Musa Sabri, Khamsoun aaman fi qitar al-sahafah (Fify Years on the Journalism Train) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1991), 47. 25. Abu al-Fadhl, Kuntu naiban, 46–47. 26. Muhammad Saad Ibrahim, Hurriyat al-Sahafah: Diraseh fi al-siyaseh al-tashriiyah wa ualaqatuha bi-al-tatawur al-dimocrati (Freedom of the Press: A Study in Legislative Policy and Its Relationship to Democratic Development), 2d edition (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah lil Nashr wa al-Tawzee, 1999), 176–77. 27. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 12–15, 29–30. 28. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 43–44, 47. 29. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 26, 29–32. 30. Ibrahim Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah al-Misriyah, 1798–1981 (The Growth of Egyptian Journalism, 1798–1981) 4th ed. (Cairo: Mouassaset Sajil al-Arab, 1982), 242; Sabri, Khamsoun, 150. 31. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 37–42. 32. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 43–50. 33. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 62–64, 68, 71. 34. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 13.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

358

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 358

Endnotes

35. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 243. 36. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 22–24, 32–35. 37. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 24. 38. Muhammad Abd al-Quddous, ed., Thakriyat Fouad Siraj al-Din (The Memoirs of Fouad Siraj al-Din) (Cairo: Al-Fursan lil-Nashr, 2000), 93. 39. Abu al-Fadhl, Kuntu naiban, 26–27. 40. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 26–27. 41. Nasser al-Din Nashashibi, Sanawat fi Misr (My Years in Egypt) (London: Dar al-Hikma, 2001), 19–23, 37–38. 42. Nashashibi, Sanawat, 38–40. 43. Al-Said, Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah, 264–65. 44. Al-Said, Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah, 265. 45. Al-Said, Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah, 266. 46. Hussein Muhammad Ahmad Hammoudah, Harakat al-dhubat al-ahrar wa alIkhwan al-Muslimoun (The Free Officers and the Muslim Brotherhood) (Cairo: AlZahraa lil-Ilam al-Arabi, 1987), 84. 47. Al-Said, Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah, 26. 48. Hammoudah, Harakat al-dhubat, 152–53. 49. Hammoudah, Harakat al-dhubat, 87, 102 149, 162–64. 50. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 167. 51. Hammoudah, Harakat al-dhubat, 157. 52. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 247–48. 53. Hammoudah, Harakat al-dhubat, 156–57. 54. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 241. 55. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 223–25. 56. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 241. 57. Hammoudah, Harakat al-dhuba, 49–50, 88–91. 58. Hammoudah, Harakat al-dhubat, 91. 59. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 175. 60. Abd al-Aati Muhammad Ahmad, Al-Harakaat al-Islamiyah fi Misr (Islamic Movements in Egypt) (Cairo: Markaz al-Ahram lil-Tarjamah wa al-Nashr, 1995), 90–92. 61. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 172–76. 62. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 247–48. 63. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 173. 64. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 248. 65. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 177–78. 66. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 178–80. 67. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 185–88. 68. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 189–91. 69. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 191–95. 70. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 195–96. 71. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 196–204. 72. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 204. 73. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 205–11. 74. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 211–16. 75. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 217.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 359

Endnotes

359

76. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 217–23. 77. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 250. 78. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 235. 79. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 233–37. 80. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 225–30. 81. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 231. 82. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 233–36. 83. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 236. 84. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 237–40. 85. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 245, 249. 86. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 242. 87. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 252–55, 258–59. 88. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 250–51. 89. Muhammad Naguib, Kuntu raisan li-Misr (I Was Egypt’s President) (Cairo: Al-Maktab al-Misri al-Hadith, 1984), 336. 90. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 251. 91. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 279. 92. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 169–70, 941–42. 93. Suleiman Saleh, Azamat hurriyat al-sahafah fi Misr, 1945–1985 (The Crisis of Freedom of the Press in Egypt, 1945–1985) (Cairo: Dar al-Nashr lil-Jamiaat al-Misriyyah, 1995), 241. 94. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Humum al-sahafah wa al-sahafiyeen fi Misr (The Concerns of the Press and the Journalists in Egypt) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1995), 43–46. 95. Saleh, Azamat hurriyat, 240–50. 96. Abd al-Rahman, Humum, 43–45, 45n2. 97. Saleh, Azamat hurriyat, 250. 98. Abdal-Rahman, Humum, 45. 99. Abdel-Rahman, Humum, 45. 100. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 169–73. 101. Abd al-Rahman, Humum, 46–53; Saleh, Azamat hurriyat, 251. 102. Abd al-Rahman, Humum, 53–55, 55n1. 103. Saleh, Azamat hurriyat, 253. 104. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 55, 60–63. 105. Abdullah Turkumani, Al-Ahzab al-shiyoiyah fi al-Mashreq al-Arabi (Communist Parties in the Arab East) (Beitut: Manshurat al-Aan, 2002), 627–28. 106. Saleh, Azamat hurriyat, 369. 107. Mirvat al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah wa al-siraa al-Arabi al-Israili (Egyptian Journalism and the Arab-Israeli Struggle) (Cairo:Dar al-Akhbar, 1994), 70–73. 108. Sabri, Khamsoun, 380, 942. 109. Nashashibi, Sanawat, 213. 110. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 63. 111. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 285–87, 349. 112. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 386. 113. Abd al-Quddous, Thakriyat Fouad, 119. 114. Iskander, Mawaqef al-sahafah, 59, 63.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

360

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 360

Endnotes

CHAPTER FIVE 1. Fouad Mursi, Nathrah thaniyah ila al-qawmiyah al-Arabiyyah (A Second Look at Arab Nationalism) Kitab al-Ahali No. 20 (Cairo: Al-Ahali, 1989), 62–69. 2. Walid Mahmoud Abd al-Nasser and Ahmad Kamal Abu al-Majd, Al-Tayarat al-Islamiyah fi Misr (Islamic Currents in Egypt) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2001), 46. 3. Muhammad Jamal Barout, Harakat al-qawmiyeen al-Arab (The Arab Nationalist Movement) (Damascus: Al-Markaz al-Arabi lil-Dirasaat al-Istratijiyah, 1997), 224–38. 4. Barout, Harakat al-qawmiyeen, 239. 5. Tareq al-Hashimi, “Al-Fikr al-Qawmi al-Arabi li-Jamal Abd al-Nasser,” (Jamal Abd al-Nasser’s Arab Socialist Thought), Al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi, Vol. 8, No. 84 (February, 1986), 127–29. 6. Al-Hashimi, “Al-Fikr al-Qawmi,” 130. 7. Al-Hashimi, “Al-Fikr al-Qawmi,” 131–37. 8. Khalaf Muhammad al-Jarad, “Rouayat Yasin al-Hafiz li-mawqef Abd alNasser min al-qadhiyah al-Filastiniyah,” (Yasin al-Hafiz’s View of Abd alNasser’s Stand on the Palestinian Issue), al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi, Vol. 19, No. 213 (November 1996): 30–34. 9. Mohamed H. Heikal, Al-Salam al-Mustaheel wa al-dimoqratiyah al-ghaibah (Impossible Peace and Absent Democracy) 4th ed. (Beirut: Sharikat al-Matbuaat lil-Tawzee wa al-Nashr, 1985), 48–50. 10. Heikal, Al-Salam al-Mustaheel, 50–52. 11. Heikal, Al-Salam al-Mustaheel, 64. 12. Heikal, Al-Salam al-Mustaheel, 71–72, 172–73, 265–66, 319–20. 13. Musa Sabri, Khamsoun aaman fi qitar al-sahafah (Fifty Years on the Journalism Train) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1991), 226–28. 14. Nasser al-Din Nashashibi, Sanawat fi Misr (My Years in Egypt) (London: Dar al-Hikma, 2001), 574. 15. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 49–50, 666, 942. 16. Mirvat al-Tarabashi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah wa al-siraa al-Arabi al-Israili (Egyptian Journalism and the Arab-Israeli Struggle) (Cairo: Dar al-Akhbar, 1994), 165. 17. Nashashibi, Sanawat, 52. 18. Aaron Mannes, “Arab Media Primer,” Middle East Insight, Vol. 17 (March–April, 2002), 85. 19. Nashashibi, Sanawat, 223–24. 20. Musa Sabri, Al-Sadat: Al haqiqah wa al-usturah (Al-Sadat: The Reality and the Legend) (Cairo: Al-Maktab al-Misri al-Hadith, 1985), 520–26. 21. Tareq Ismael and Rifaat al-Sa’id, The Communist Movement in Egypt, 1920–1988, (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 122–23. 22. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 786, 807–9. 23. Louis Awadh, Aqniaat al-Nasseriyah al-sabaah (The Seven Masques of Nasserism) (Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1987), 171, 180. 24. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 248–50. 25. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 808–9. 26. Sabri, Khamsoun aaman, 375–76, 380.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 361

Endnotes

361

27. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 152–54. 28. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 154–58. 29. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 158–60, 168–72. 30. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 196–98. 31. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat fi al-sahafah al-Missriyah al-muasirah (Studies in Modern Egyptian Journalism) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabai, 1985), 63. 32. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 198–99. 33. Abd al-Fattah Abu al-Fadhl, Kuntu naiban li-raiis al-mukhabarat (I was the Deputy Chief of Intelligence) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2001), 241. 34. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 63–64. 35. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 198–202. 36. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 182–84. 37. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 184–86. 38. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 186–90. 39. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 190–94. 40. Mohamed H. Heikal, Hadith al-mubadarah (Concerning the Peace Initiative) (Cairo: Sharikat al-Matbuaat lil-Tawzee wa al-Nashr, 1986), 66–67. 41. Ghada Hashem Talhami, Palestine and the Egyptian National Identity (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992), 97–100. 42. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 258–62. 43. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 262–66. 44. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 264–72. 45. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Humum al-sahafah wa al-sahafiyeen fi Misr (The Concerns of the Press and Journalists in Egypt) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al Arabi, 1995), 65–69. 46. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 202–6. 47. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 228–34. 48. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 272–80. 49. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 206–7. 50. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 403, 523. 51. Awadh, Aqniaat al-Nasseriyah, 174. 52. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 207–12. 53. Awadh, Aqniaat al-Nasseriyah 186. 54. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 208. 55. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 227–35. 56. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 280–82. 57. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 283. 58. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 283–84. 59. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 284. 60. Abd al-Nasser and Abu al-Majd, Al-Tayarat Al-Islamiyah 70.

CHAPTER SIX 1. Musa Sabri, Al-Sadat: Al-haqiqah wa al-usturah (Al-Sadat: The Reality and the Legend) (Cairo: Al-Maktab al-Misri al-Hadith, 1985), 215–18. 2. Muhammad Saad Ibrahim, Hurriyat al-sahafah: dirasah fi al-siyasah al-tashriiyah wa ulaqatuha bi-al-tatawur al-dimocrati (Freedom of the Press: A Study in Legislative

10_303_z1_End.qxd

362

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 362

Endnotes

Policy and Its Relationship to Democratic Development) 2d. ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah lil-Nashr wa al-Tawzee, 1999), 33. 3. Suleiman Saleh, Azamat hurriyat al-sahafah fi Misr, 1945–1985 (The Crisis of Freedom of the Press in Egypt, 1945–1985) (Cairo: Dar al-Nashr lil-Jamiaat al-Misriyyah, 1995), 452–54. 4. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Humum al-sahafah wa al-sahafiyeen fi Misr (The Concerns of the Press and Journalists in Egypt) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1995), 624. 5. Saleh, Azamat, 455–57. 6. Saleh, Azamat, 457–59. 7. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 526–27. 8. Mirvat al-Tarabashi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah wa al-siraa al-Arabi al-Israili (Egyptian Journalism and the Arab-Israeli Struggle) (Cairo: Dar al-Akhbar, 1994), 223, 269–70. 9. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 356, 405. 10. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 269–70, 373–74. 11. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 374–75. 12. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 375. 13. Mohamed H. Heikal, Waqai tahqiq siyasi amam al-mudaii al-ishtiraki (Proceedings of a Political Investigation by the Socialist Public Defender), 8th ed. (Beirut: Sharikat al-Matbouat lil-Tawzee wa al-Nashr, 1986), 120–23. 14. Heikal, Waqai, 124–26. 15. Heikal, Waqai, 126–27. 16. Heikal, Waqai, 127–29. 17. Heikal, Waqai, 129–30. 18. Heikal, Waqai, 7–8. 19. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 540–45. 20. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 548–56. 21. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 556–61. 22. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 561–65. 23. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 565–68. 24. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 568–71. 25. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 265–70. 26. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 261–65. 27. William B. Quandt, Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967 (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1993), 148–82. 28. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 332–34. 29. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 334–39. 30. Al-Tarabishi, Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah, 355–60. 31. Adel Abd al-Ghaffar Khalil, Al-Ilam wa al-raai al-aam (Information and Public Opinion) (Beirut: Markaz Dirasaat al-Wihdah al-Arabiyyah, 2003), 154–56. 32. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 298–300. 33. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 300–306. 34. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 306–13. 35. Ahlam al-Saadi Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami wa al-siyaseh al-Misriyyah tijah al-sulh maa Israil (The Islamic Current and Egyptian Policy Toward Peace with Israel) (Cairo: al-Zahraa lil-Ilaam al-Arabi, 1991), 109n1. 36. Hussein Abd al-Raziq, Al-Ahali: Sahifah taht al-hisar (Al-Ahali: A Paper Under Siege) (Cairo: Dar al-Aalem al-Thaleth, 2004), 9–10.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 363

Endnotes

363

37. Suleiman Saleh, Azamat hurriyat al-sahafah fi Misr, 1945–1985 (The Crisis of Freedom of the Press in Egypt, 1945–1985) (Cairo: Dar al-Nashr lil-Jamiaat al-Misriyyah, 1995), 472–77. 38. Abd al-Raziq, Al-Ahali, 22–23, 33n27, 33n28. 39. Saleh, Azamat, 477. 40. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 207, 208n1, 209. 41. Saleh, Azamat, 491–94. 42. Abd al-Rahman, Humum, 62–63. 43. Saleh, Azamat, 516–22. 44. Khalil, Al-Ilam wa al-raai, 156–58. 45. Abd al-Rahman, Humum, 72. 46. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 418–19. 47. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 419–20. 48. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 420. 49. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 421–22. 50. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 110–11. 51. Ismail Fahmi, Al-Tafawodh min ajl al-salam fi al-Sharq al-Awsat (Negotiating for Peace in the Middle East) (Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1985), 414–15. 52. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 111. 53. Khalil, Al-Ilam wa al-raai, 158–62. 54. Abd al-Rahman, Humum, 72–74. 55. Khalil, Al-Ilam wa al-raai, 160–61. 56. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 213. 57. Abdullah al-Shalabi, Al-Din wa al-siraa al-ijtimaii fi Misr, 1970–1985 (Religion And the Social Struggle in Egypt, 1970–1985) (Cairo: Sharikat al Amal lil-Tibaa wa al-Nashr, 2000), 183–84. 58. Al-Shalabi, Al-Din wa al-siraa, 184–85. 59. Al-Shalabi, Al-Din wa al-siraa, 98–99. 60. Al-Shalabi, Al-Din wa al-siraa, 99–100. 61. Al-Shalabi, Al-Din wa al-siraa, 100–101. 62. Al-Shalabi, Al-Din wa al-siraa, 101–2. 63. Al-Shalabi, Al-Din wa al-siraa, 104–110. 64. Wahid Mahmoud Abd al-Nasser and Ahmad Kamal Abu al-Majd, AlTayarat Al-Islamiyah fi Misr (Islamic Currents in Egypt) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2001), 71–72, 71n49–50, 72n51–52. 65. Al-Nasser and Al-Majd, Al-Tayarat, 72–73, 73n53–54. 66. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 129–33. 67. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 133–36. 68. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 137–38. 69. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 138–42. 70. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 143–45. 71. Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami, 159–63, 175–76. 72. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 502–6. 73. Abd al-Raziq, Al-Ahali, 24–26. 74. Abd al-Raziq, Al-Ahali, 35–42, 42n6, 43–46. 75. Abd al-Raziq, Al-Ahali, 59–81, 86–90, 98–99, 121. 76. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat fi al-sahafah al-Misriyyah al-muasirah (Studies in Modern Egyptian Journalism) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1985), 290–97.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

364

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 364

Endnotes

77. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 297–305. 78. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 305–8. 79. Abd al-Raziq, Al-Ahali, 40–41. 80. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasat, 325–26. 81. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 137–38, 144–45, 574–75. 82. Musa Sabri, Khamsoun aaman fi qitar al-sahafah (Fifty Years on the Journalism Train) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1992), 876–82. 83. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 325–26. 84. Saleh, Azamat, 478–79. 85. Sabri, Al-Sadat, 167–68, 426, 449–51, 580–81, 587–91.

CHAPTER SEVEN 1. Ibrahim Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah al-Misriyyah, 1798–1981 (The Growth of Egyptian Journalism, 1789–1981) 4th ed. (Cairo: Mouassaset Sajil al-Arab, 1982), 51–52. 2. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat fi al-sahafah al-Misriyyah al-muasirah (Studies in Modern Egyptian Journalism) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1985), 20–22. 3. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 135–36. 4. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 22–23. 5. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 173–74. 6. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 188–92. 7. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 31. 8. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 202–5. 9. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 31–38. 10. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 42–47. 11. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 49. 12. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 243–44. 13. Robert Springborg, “Professional Syndicates in Egyptian Politics, 1952–1970,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 9, No.3 (August 1978): 278–81. 14. Muhammad Said Ibrahim, Hurriyat al-sahafah: dirasah fi al-siyasah al- tashriiyah wa ulaqatuha bi-al-tatawur al-dimocrati (Freedom of the Press: A Study in Legislative Policy and Its Relationship to Democratic Development) 2d ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah lil-Nashr wa al-Tawzee, 1999), 33–35, 39. 15. Springborg, “Professional Syndicates,” 288–94. 16. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 53–4, 56–60. 17. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 65–6, 68. 18. Ibrahim, Hurriyat al-sahafah, 33–34. 19. Paul Schemm, “Reshuffle Rumors,” Middle East International, (June 11, 2004), 18. 20. Ibrahim, Hurriyat al-sahafah, 34. 21. Abd al-Rahman, Dirasaat, 68–70. 22. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 252–53. 23. Suleiman Saleh, Azamat hurriyat al-sahafah fi Misr, 1945–1985 (The Crisis of Freedom of the Press in Egypt, 1945–1985) (Cairo: Dar al-Nashr lil-Jamiaat Al-Misriyyah, 1995), 521–22.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 365

Endnotes

365

24. Ibrahim, Hurriyat al-sahafah, 72. 25. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 253–55. 26. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 255. 27. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 255–60. 28. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 260–62. 29. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 262–62. 30. Abduh, Tatawur al-sahafah, 267–70. 31. Ibrahim, Hurriyat al-sahafah, 73–80. 32. Ahmad Othman, Hurriyat al-iilam wa al-tashriat al-iilamiyah (Freedom of Information and the Laws of Information) (al-Mansourah: Dar al-Samah lil-Tibaa, 2001), 153–56. 33. Othman, Hurriyat, 158–71. 34. Othman, Hurriyat, 199–221. 35. Othman, Hurriyat, 234–35. 36. Saleh, Azamat, 467–68. 37. Ahmad Bahaa al-Din, Muhawarati maa al-Sadat (My Debates with Sadat) 2d ed. (Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1987), 175–76. 38. Nabil Hilali, “Response,” in Ameenah Rashid, ed., Al-Hurriyah al-fikriyah waal-Academiyah fi Misr (Intellectual and Academic Freedom in Egypt) (Cairo: The Center for Arab Research in the African Council for the Development of Social Research, 2000), 142. 39. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Humum al-sahafah wa al-Sahafiyeen fi Misr (The Concerns of the Press and Journalists in Egypt) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1995), 78. 40. Hussein Abd al-Raziq, Al-Ahali: Sahifah taht al-hisar (Al-Ahali: A Paper Under Siege) (Cairo: Dar al-Aalem al-Thaleth, 2000), 121–22, 125–26, 163–69. 41. Abd al-Raziq, Al-Ahali, 334–42. 42. Abd al-Raziq, Al-Ahali, 343–45, 375–76. 43. Saleh al-Wardani, Al-Harakah al-Islamiyah wa al-qhadhiyah al-Filastiniyah (The Islamic Movement and the Palestine Question) (Cairo: Al-Dar al-Sharqiyah, 1990), 37–52. 44. Joshua A. Stacher, “Democracy with Fangs and Claws and Its Effects on Egyptian Political Culture,” Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Summer 2001): 88–89. 45. Abd al-Rahman, Humum, 80. 46. Musa Sabri, Khamsoun aaman fi qitar al-sahafah (Fifty Years on the Journalism Train) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1992), 947–49. 47. Adel Abd al-Ghaffar Khalil, Al-Ilam wa al-raai al-aam (Information and Public Opinion) (Beirut: Markaz Dirasaat al-Wihdah al-Arabiyyah, 2003), 168–72, 174–77. 48. Taher Shash, Al-Muwajahah wa al-salam fi al-Sharq al-Awsat: Al-Tariq ila GazaJericho (Confrontation and Peace in the Middle-East: The Road to Gaza-Jericho) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1995), 216, 266–77. 49. Taher Shash, Mufawadhat al-taswiyah al-nihaiyah wa al-dawlah al-Filastiniyah— al-amaal wa al-tahadiyat (The Final Settlement Talks and the Palestinian State— Hopes and Challenges) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1999), 50–52. 50. Abd al-Atheem Ramadhan, Al-Siraa al-ijtimaii wa al-siyasi fi asr Mubarak (The Social and Political Struggle in the Age of Mubarak) (Cairo: Al-Hayaah alAammah lil-Kitab, 1993), 745–51.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

366

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 366

Endnotes

51. Ramadhan, Al-Siraa al-ijtimaii, 765–73. 52. Anwar Muhammad, Harb bila banadeq: akhtar muwajahh bayn al-Arab wa Israil (A War Without Guns: The Most Dangerous Arab-Israeli Confrontation) (Cairo: Dar A M Lil-Nashr, 1997), 4–11. 53. Usama Ghazali Harb, ed., Mubarak wa muwajahat al-irhab (Mubarak and the Confrontation with Terrorism) (Cairo: Nahdhat Misr lil-Tibaa wa al-Nashr, 2002), 8–18, 92–96. 54. Abu-Bakr al-Disouqi, “Al-Raiis Mubarak wa muwajhat al-irhab” (President Mubarak and the Confrontation with Terrorism), in same as above, 143–45. 55. Al-Disouqi, “Al-Raiis Mubarak,” 145–46. 56. Al-Disouqi, “Al-Raiis Mubarak,” 146–48. 57. Al-Disouqi, “Al-Raiis Mubarak,” 148–49. 58. Al-Disouqi, “Al-Raiis Mubarak,” 149–54. 59. Midhat Fouad, Al-Qhadhiyah fi al-inaash (The Cause Is Still Alive) (Cairo: Madbuli al-Saghir, 2003), 14–20. 60. Rajab al-Banna, “Rihlat Mubarak wa tabiaat al-dawr al-Masri” (Mubarak’s Journey and the Nature of the Egyptian Role) October (September 14, 2003), 7. 61. Muhammad Abd al-Moneim, “Huduu al-Raiis Mubarak wa sinariyohat alGeneral Sharon” (President Mubarak’s Calmness and the Scenarios of General Sharon), Rose al-Yousef (October 19–24, 2003), 6–8. 62. Karam Jaber, “Arafat . . . Sharon . . . man minhuma yabdaa fi nasf ‘itifiq Geneve’?” (Arafat . . . Sharon . . . Who Among Them Will Start Demolishing the ‘Geneva Accords’?), Rose al-Yousef (November 29–December 5, 2003), 12–13. 63. Hamdi Abd al-Aziz and Samia Sadeq, “Al-Mantiqah fi intithar al-huduu allathee yaaqab al-aasifah” (The Region Awaits Some Calm Which Follows the Storm), Rose al-Yousef (December 27, 2003–January 2, 2004), 14–16. 64. Karam Jaber, “Suqut al-Shiarat wa suud al-waqiiyah” (The Downfall of Slogans and the Rise of Realism), Rose al-Yousef (December 27, 2003–January 2, 2004), 26–27. 65. Khalil, Al-Ilam wa al-raai, 306 66. Ali Jumaa, “Al-Filastinyoun al-Latheena youfajirouna anfusahum shuhadaa wa laisou muntahireen” (Palestinians Who Commit Suicide Bombings Are Martyrs, not Suicide Cases), Al-Tassawuf Al-Islami, Vol. 25, No. 297 (November, 2003), 6–8. 67. Donald Ellis, “Silah al-dhuafaa fi aalem al-aqwiaa” (Weapons of the Weak in The World of the Mighty), Akhbar Al-Youm (September 13, 2003), 8. 68. Muhammad Salim al-Awwa, “Aarais Filastin” (The Brides of Palestine), AlUsbuu (October 13, 2003), 4. 69. Said Naser, “Mashruu Amriki li-ihtilal al-aradhi al-Filastiniyah baad fashal kharitat al-Tariq” (An American Plan to Occupy the Palestinian Territories after the failure of the Road Map), Al-Nabaa (September 14, 1003), 8. 70. Nabil Zaki, “Ya, jabal, ma yihizak reeh” (O, Mountain No Wind Will Shake You) and “Camp David: 25 Years Hence,” Al Ahalii (September 24, 2003), 1. 71. Hassan Fath al-Bab, “Mata nusghi li-hathihi al-surkhat?” (When Do We Listen to These Cries for Help?), Al-Ahali (December 24 2003): 20. 72. Amin Yusri, “Al-Itidaa ala Maher . . . hadeth ala al-ardh am jaras inthar?” (The Attack on Maher . . . Was It an Attack on the Ground or a Warning Bell?), AlArabi (December 28, 2003), 11.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 367

Endnotes

367

73. “Wa Misr tuhather min khutarat al-qarar al-Israili” (Egypt Also Warns Against the Dangers of the Israeli Decision), Al-Wafd (September 13, 2003), 1. 74. Muhammad Hamid al-Jamal, “Usus al-irhab al-Nazi wa al-Sahyouni” (The Roots of Nazi and Zionist Terrorism), Al-Wafd (September 20, 2003), 7. 75. Mustafa Bakri, “Limatha al-samt?” (Why the Silence?), Al-Usbuu (September 15, 2003), 1, 4. 76. Muhammad Moro, “Al-Taharush bi-Suriya wa tawreet Turkiya” (Provoking Syria and Implicating Turkey), Al-Mukhtar al-Islami, Vol. 25, No. 254 (December 2003): 24–26. 77. Rifaat Sayyid Ahmad, “Inahum yatalamouna aydhan” (They Also Feel Pain), Al-Liwaa Al-Islami (November 6, 2003): 6. 78. “Al-Baba Shinoudah Yaduu li-imtilak al-quwwah qabl al-tafawudh” (Pope Shinoudah Calls for Possessing Power Before Negotiating), Al-Usbuu (September 15, 2003): 1. 79. Ibrahim Saadeh, “Ya Hala bi al-Jamiaah al-Arabiyyah” (Welcome to the Arab League), Akhbar Al-Youm (September 13, 2003): 1, 10. 80. Ibrahim Nafii, “Man huwa al-ghaib fi mufawadhat al-salam?” (Who Is the Absent Partner in the Peace Negotiations?), Al-Ahram (October 25, 2003): 3. 81. “Mubarak awal zaiim Aabi yudafii an Arafat wa al-Filastinyin” (Mubarak Is the First Arab Leader to Defend Arafat and the Palestinians), Al-Ahram (September 13, 2003): 5, 11. 82. “Al-Iitidaa lan yueeq dawr Misr fi tahqiq al-salam” (The Attack Will Not Deter Egypt from Playing a Role in Realizing the Peace), Al-Ahram (December 24, 2003): 11. 83. Salamah Ahmad Salamah, “Ahmad Maher,” Al-Ahram (December 24, 2003): 10. 84. Abd al-Atheem Ramadhan, “Kayfa wasalna li-Hatha al-maazaq?” (How Did We Arrive at This Crisis?), October (October 19 2003): 20. 85. Awatef Abd al-Rahman, Al-Sahafah al-Arabiyyah fi mwajahat al-ikhtiraq alsahyouni (The Arab Press Confronts Zionist Penetration) (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr alArabi, 1996), 166–75. 86. Ahlam al-Saadi Farhoud, Al-Tayyar al-Islami wa al-siyaseh al-Misriyyah tijah al- sulh maa Israil (The Islamic Current and Egyptian Policy Towards Peace with Israel) (Cairo: al-Zahraa lil Ilaam al-Arabi, 1991), 131, 136, 194. 87. Abd al-Raziq, Al-Ahali, 92. 88. “Safir Israili sabeq yuhajem Misr min qalb al-Qahirah” (A Former Israeli Ambassador Attacks Egypt from the Heart of Cairo) Al-Usbuu, (September 15 2003): 1. 89. “Al-Arab am al-Israiliyoun sayastathmiroun itifaq Sharm al-Shaikh?” (Will the Arabs or the Israelis Mine the Sharm al-Shaikh Agreement?) Al-Ahram, (September 17, 1996): 4. 90. Mustafa Majdi al-Jammal, “Taqrir an: Nadwat mukhatat al-taawun bayna Israil wa al-duwal al-Arabiyyah min al-tatbii ila al-haymanah’” (Report on: A Workshop on the Cooperation Agenda between Isreal and the Arab States from Normalization to Hegemony) Al-Mustqbal Al-Arabi, Vol. 10, No. 215 (January 1997): 164–69. 91. Wael Abd al-Fattah, “Al-Tatbii bayna a-intihaziyah al-siyasiyah wa al-iflas al-fanni” (Normalization between Political Opportunism and Artistic Bankruptcy) Rose al-Yousef (March 11, 1996): 2–4.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

368

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 368

Endnotes

92. Sayyid Bahrawi, “Al-An . . . akhtar” (Now . . . Greater Danger), (March, 11, 1996), in same as above, 7. 93. Mustafa al-Faqi, “Tabiiyah la tatbiiyah” (Normal, Not Normalization), in same as above, 8. 94. Farhoud, 272. The author quotes an article by Muhammad Abd al-Quddous, “Karithah Kubra: al-tabaud bayna Misr wa al-duwal al-Arabyyah” (A Great Catastrophe: Alienation between Egypt and the Arab States), Al-Daawa (May 1980): 47. 95. Moro, “Al-Taharush,” 34. See also, Paul Schemm, “Dialogue,” Middle East International (November 7 2003): 24. 96. Said al-Suwayrki, “Naqabat al-sahafiyeen: Welch dhid hurriyat al-sahafah wa al-taamul maahu mahthur” (The Journalists’ Syndicate: Welch Is Opposed to Freedom of the Press and Dealing with Him Was Prescribed), Al-Arabi (October 26, 2003): 1. 97. “Jamiaat Ben Gurion tamnah al-doctorah lil-al-Masri Ali Salem” (Ben Gurion University Grants an Honorary Doctorate to the Egyptian, Ali Salem), al-Hurriyah (June 18, 2005): 20. 98. Bahgat Qurani, “Mahiya Shurut sunu al-qarar al-najeh: qiraat li-harb October fi-iduha al-thalatheen” (What Are the Conditions for a Successful Decision: A Reading of the October War on Its Thirteenth Anniversary), al-Siyaseh alDuwaliyah, Vol. 39, No. 154 (October 2003): 11. 99. Henry Kissinger, Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003). Review by Hanan al-Badri, (October 2003), 32–35. 100. Midhat al-Zahed, “Injaz raii lil-silah . . . laken al-sual huwa: hal khathalat al- siyaseh al-silah?” (A Great Accomplishment for Arms . . . But the Question Remains: Did Politics Disappoint Arms), al-Ahali (October 8, 2003): 13. 101. Yaseen Husam al-Din, tr., “Harb youm al-qiyameh (The Yom Kippur War), al-Usbuu (October 13, 2003): 5. 102. Abd al-Haleem Hijazi, “Fateh abwab al-nasr wa al-nahdha” (The Man Who Opened the Doors of Victory and the Renaissance), Mayo (October 6, 2003): 11. 103. Kamal Abd al-Raouf, “Qiraat: Aqlam la taaref al-khajal” (Readings: Shameless Pens), Akhbar al-Youm (October 11, 2003) 7. 104. Shimon Peres, The New Middle East (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993), 4. 105. Shlomo Aronson, Israel’s Nuclear Programme, the Six Day War and Its Ramifications, King’s College London Mediterranean Studies (London: King’s College, n.d.), 18. 106. Aronson, Israel’s Nuclear Programme, 23–25, 23n19, 41. 107. Aronson, Israel’s Nuclear Programme, 18–19, 28–30, 54. See also: Murad Ibrahim al-Disouqi, “Bayn al-silah al-nawawi al-Israili wa muahadet adam al-intishar al-nawawi” (Between Israel’s Nuclear Weapons and the NPT) Al-Siyaseh AlDuwaliyah, Vol. 31, No. 120 (April 1995): 57–58. 108. Geoffrey Aronson, “Hidden Agenda: U.S.-Israeli Relations and the Nuclear Question,” The Middle East Journal, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Autumn 1992): 623. See also: Seymour Hersh, The Sampson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991).

10_303_z1_End.qxd

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 369

Endnotes

369

109. Gerald M. Steinberg, “Israeli Arms Control Policy: Cautious Realism.” The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (June 1994): 3, 5. 110. See: Al-Siyaseh Al-Duwaliyah, Vol. 31, No. 120 (April, 1995). 111. Hafiz Ramadhan Hajji, “Mashrouat mufilat al-quwa al-nawawiyeh” (Projects of the Nuclear Reactors) in: Al-Barnamej al-nawawi al-Masri (The Egyptian Nuclear Program) (Cairo: Al-Ahram’s Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 2000), 83–84. 112. Amin Khashab, “Al-tatawur al-aam lil-barnamej al-nawawi” (The General Development of the Nuclear Program) in same as above, 37–38. 113. “Discussion,” in same as above, 125–26. 114. Khashab, “Al-tatawur al-aam,” 132. 115. Mustafa Alawi, “Mustaqbal al-barnamej al-nawawi al-Misri” (The Future of Egyptian Nuclear Program), in same as above, 148–52. 116. Khashab, “Al-tatawur al-aam,” 37–38. 117. Muhammad, 399–401. 118. Mohamed H. Heikal, “Mawid maa al-harb” (A Date with War), Wujhat Nathar, Vol. 2, No. 23 (December 2000): 4–9. 119. Ibrahim Abd al-Kareem, “Israil wa al-mashrou al-nawawi al-Irani” (Israel and The Iranian Nuclear Project), Wujhat Nathar, Vol. 5, No. 57 (October 2003), 49. 120. Yasser al-Zayyat, “Al-Qhadhafi yakhlaa ‘aslihatuhu’ al-dakhiliyyah” (Qhadhafi Takes Off His Inner ‘Weapons’), Sawt A-Ummah (December 29, 2003), 5.

CHAPTER EIGHT 1. Adel Hammouddah, “Taleb fi madrasat al-tijareh al-mutawasitah” (A Student at The Middle School of Commerce), Sawt Al-Ummah (September 8, 2003): 26–27. 2. Khaled Hassan Hussein, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal : al-afkar wa al-mawaqef wa malameh al-shakhsiyah (Mohamed Hassanein Heikal : His Ideas, His Stands and Personality Features) (Cairo: Dar Hala lil-Tibaa, 2001), 16–17. 3. Adel Hammoudah, “Hisar al-ihbat fi al-Alamein” (A Failed Siege at Alamein), Sawt Al-Ummah (September 8, 2003), 30. 4. Hussein, Mohamed Hassanein, 17–19. 5. Adel Hammoudah, “Saher Aakher Saahh” (The Magician of Aakher Saaha), Sawt Al-Ummah (September 8, 2003), 35. Heikal published briefly in Rose al-Yousef in 1937. See p. 3, in same as above. 6. Rajab al-Banna, “Heikal wa Abd al-Nasser: iltiqaa al-sultah wa al-fikr (Heikal and Abd al-Nasser: The Meeting of Power and Thought), October (October 26, 2003): 8–10. 7. Al-Banna, “Heikal wa Abd al-Nasser,” 11–12. 8. Hussein, Mohamed Hassanein, 24. 9. Heikal, “Bisaraha: Abd al-Nasser laysa usturah” (Candidly Speaking: Nasser is not a Legend), Al-Ahram (November 6, 1970). Reprinted in Wujhat Nathar, Vol. 5, No. 57 (October 2003): 80. 10. Mahmoud Fawzi, “Qala lee Abd al-Nasser: ‘Khuth hithrak min al-Sadat” (Abd al-Nasser Told Me: Beware of Saddat), al-Arabi (December 7, 2003), 9.

10_303_z1_End.qxd

370

4/29/10

12:30 PM

Page 370

Endnotes

11. “Lahathat aseebah” (Tense Moments), al-Usbuu (September 22 2003): 15. 12. Heikal, Istiithan fi al-insiraf (Premission to Depart) (Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2003), 12–14. 13. Rajab al-Banna, “Heikal wa al-Sadat: taqarub masaleh wa sidam aqdar” (Heikal and Sadat: A Meeting of Interests and a Clash of Destinies) October (November 23, 2003): 13. 14. al-Zahed, “Injaz raii lil-silah,” 13. 15. Heikal, Istiithan, 21–23. 16. Al-Banna, “Heikal wa al-Sadat,” 16. 17. Heikal, Istiithan, 24–26. 18. Al-Banna, “Heikal wa Abd al-Nasser: hal kan haqqan mustashar al-saw?” (Heikal and Nasser: Was He Really the Counselor of Evil?), October (November 2, 2003): 8–15. 19. Al-Banna, “Heikal: tahqiq siyasi wa itab siyasi” Heikal: A Political Investigation and a Political Repprocah), October (December 21 2003): 13–14. 20. Heikal, Istiithan, 59. 21. Philip Malak Ibrahim, “Al-Ustath yaarifu akthar (The Teacher Knows More), al-Usbuu (September 15, 2000): 10. 22. Muhammad Ali al-Hayek, “Ustathuna . . . limatha kul hatha dafaatan wahidah?” (Our Teacher. . . . Why This in One Fell Swoop?) in same as above. 23. Hani Labib, “Shahadat lam taktamel” (Unfinished Testimonies), al-Usbuu (September 22, 2003): 25. 24. Yousef al-Sharif, “Sir ghiyab kitabatuh an al-Sudan,” (The Secret Behind the Absence of His Writings on the Sudan), al-Arabi (September 21, 2003): 13. 25. Salamah Ahmad Salamah, “Noun” (The Letter N), Wujhat Nathar, Vol. 5, No. 57 (October 2003): 3. 26. Salamah, “Noun.” 27. Tareq al-Bishri, “Mohamed Hassanein Heikal . . . limatha?” (M. H. H . . . Why?), in same as above, 5–7. 28. Adel Hammoudah, “Sir Heikal” (Heikal’s Secret), al-Ahram (September 20, 2003): 13. 29. Mustafa Nabil, “Hiwar khas jidan bayna Heikal wa Jamal Hamdan” (A Very Private Debate between Heikal and Jamal Hamdan), al-Arabi (September 21, 2003), 9. 30. Adel Hammoudah, “Heikal fi hujr al-sit hanem” (Heikal in the Lap of al-Sit Hanem), Sawt al-Ummah (September 8, 2003): 23.

10_303_z2_Apx.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 371

Appendix E

Journal Titles in Translation

Al-Aser al-Jadid Aakher Saaha Al-Adaab Al-Adl Al-Afkar Al-Ahali Al-Ahram Al-Ahrar Al-Akhbar Akhbar al-Youm Al-Alam Al-Arabi al-Nasseri Al-Balagh Al-Baseer Al-Basheer Al-Bilad Binaa al-Wattan Bint al-Nil Al-Burhan Al-Daawa Al-Dhameer Al-Fajr al-Jadid Fatat al-Sharq Al-Fidaa Al-Fustat

The New Age The Last Hour Literature Justice Ideas The People The Pyramids The Free Ones The News The Daily News The Flag The Nasserite Arab Information The All-Seeing The Herald The Countries Building the Nation Daughter of the Nile The Proof The Call The Conscience The New Dawn Daughter of the East The Sacrifice The Tent 371

10_303_z2_Apx.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

372

Al-Haqiqah Hawaa al-Jadidah Al-Hayat Al-Hilal Al-Hisab Hurriyat al-Shuub Al-Iitidal Al-Iitisam Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun Al-Ishtirakiyah Iskandariyah Iskra (al-Sharara) Israil Al-Ithnein Al-Jamaheer Al-Jaridah Al-Jihad Al-Jumhur al-Masri Al-Jumhuriyah Al-Kateb al-Misri Kawkab al-Sharq Al-Kirazeh Al-Kuttlah Al-Liwaa Al-Liwaa al-Islami Al-Mahrouseh Al-Maimoun Al-Majallah al-Jadidah Majallat al-Fath al-Islamiyah Majallat al-Ittihad al-Israili Majallat al-Kaleem Makarem al-Akhlaq Al-Malayeen Al-Manar Al-Maraat fi al-Islam Al-Masaa Al-Masri Al-Maydan May Miraat al-Sharq Misbah al-Sharq Misr Misr al-Fatah

Page 372

Appendix

The Reality The New Eve Life The Crescent The Reckoning Freedom of the Peoples Moderation Steadfastness The Muslim Brotherhood Socialism Alexandria The Spark Israel Monday The Masses The Newspaper The Struggle The Egyptian Public The Republic The Egyptian Writer Star of the East The Sermon The Block The Banner The Islamic Banner Cairo The Blessed One The New Magazine The Magazine of Islamic Victory Magazine of the Israeli Union Magazine of Moses The Best of Values The Millions Pharos Woman in Islam The Evening The Egyptian The Public Square May Mirror of the East Lantern of the East Egypt Young Egypt

10_303_z2_Apx.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

Page 373

Journal Titles in Translation

Al-Misriyyah Al-Muaradhah Al-Mudyyad Al-Mufid Al-Mukhtar al-Islami Al-Muqattam Al-Muqtataf Al-Mussawar Al-Nabaa Al-Nafir Al-Najah Al-Natheer Nisf al-Dunia Al-Nitham Nuzhat al-Afkar October Rawdhat al-Akhbar Rawdhat al-Madares Al-Risaleh Rose al-Yousef Al-Shaab Sabah al-Kheir Al-Shabeebah Al-Shams Sawt al-Arab Sawt al-Ummah Al-Shihab Al-Siyaseh Al-Siyaseh al-Duwaliyah Al-Siyaseh al-Usbuuiyah Al-Tahrir Al-Taif Al-Taleeah Al-Tankeet wa al-Tabkheet Al-Taqrir Al-Tarbiyah al-Hadithah Tarikh al-Israiliyeen fi Misr Al-Taseerah Al-Tassawuf al-Islami Al-Tatawur Al-Thaher Al-Thaqafah Al-Thawrah

373

The Egyptian Woman The Opposition The Supported The Useful Islamic Selections Al-Muqattam Mountain Selections Pictorial Magazine The News The Clarion Success The Warning Half of the World The Regime Journey among Ideas October The Garden of News The Garden of Schools The Message Yousef’s Rose The People Good Morning The Youths The Sun Voice of the Arabs The People’s Voice The Comet Politics International Politics Weekly Politics Liberation The Wanderer The Vanguard Humor and Forecasting The Report Modern Education History of the Israelites in Egypt Monetary Rates Islamic Mysticism Development The Visible Culture The Revolt

10_303_z2_Apx.qxd

4/29/10

12:31 PM

374

Al-Tijareh Al-Usbuu Um Durman Al-Ustath Al-Wadhah Wadi al-Nil Al-Wafd Al-Wajeb Al-Waqai al-Misriyyah Al-Wattan Wujhat Nather Al-Yasar Al-Zaman

Page 374

Appendix

Commerce The Week A Section of Khartoum The Teacher The Clarifier The Nile Valley The Delegation The Duty Egyptian Events The Homeland Viewpoints The Left Time

10_303_z3_Bib.qxd

5/10/10

10:22 AM

Page 375

Bibliography

Abd al-Kareem, Ibrahim. “Israil wa al-mashrou al-nawawi al-Irani” (Israel and the Iranian Nuclear Project). Wujhat Nathar, Vol. 5, No. 57 (October 2003): 49–51. Abd al-Latif, Salah. Al-Sahafah al-mutakhasisah (The Specialized Press). Cairo: Dar al-Tibaah al-Qawmiyah, 1997 Abd al-Nasser and Abu al-Majd, Walid Mahmoud and Ahmad Kamal. Al-Tayarat al-Islamiyah fi Misr (Islamic Currents in Egypt). Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2001. Abd al-Quddous, ed. Thakriyat Fouad Siraj al-Din (The Memories of Fouad Siraj alDin). Cairo: Al-Fursan lil-Nashr, 2000. Abd al-Rahman, Awatef. Dirasaat fi al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah al-muasirah (Studies in Modern Egyptian Journalism). Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1985. ———. Humum al-sahafah wa al-sahafiyeen fi Misr (The Concerns of the Press and Journalists in Egypt). Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1995. ———. Al-Sahafah al-Arabiyyah fi muwajahat al-ikhtiraq al-Sahyouni (The Arab Press Confronts Zionist Penetration). Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1996. Abd al-Raziq, Hussein. Al-Ahali: sahifah taht al-hisar (Al-Ahali: A Paper Under Seige). Cairo: Dar al-Aalem al-Thaleth, 2000. Abduh, Ibrahim. Tatawur al-sahafah al-Misriyyah, 1798–1981 (The Growth of Egyptian Journalism, 1798–1981). 4th ed. Cairo: Aalem al-Kutub, 1998. Abu al-Fadhl, Abd al-Fattah, Kuntu naiban li-raiis al-mukhabarat (I Was the Deputy Chief of Intelligence). Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2001. Ahmad, Abd al-Aati Muhammad. Al-Harakaat al-Islamiyah fi-Misr (Islamic Movements in Egypt). Cairo: Markaz al-Ahram lil-Tarjamah was al-Nashr, 1995. Alawi, Mustafa. “Mustaqbal al-barnamej al-nawawi al-Misri” (The Future of the Egyptian Nuclear Program), 141–58. In: Al-Barnamej al-nawawi al-Masri (The Egyptian Nuclear Program). Cairo: Al-Ahram’s Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 2000. Ali, Arafah Abduh. Malaff al-Yahud fi Misr al-hadithah (The Jewish File in Modern Egypt). Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1991. 375

10_303_z3_Bib.qxd

376

5/10/10

10:22 AM

Page 376

Bibliography

Aronson, Geoffrey. “Hidden Agenda: US-Israeli Relations and the Nuclear Question.” The Middle East Journal, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Autumn 1992): 617–30. Aronson, Shlomo. Israel’s Nuclear Programme, the Six Day War and Its Ramification. King’s College London Mediterranean Studies. London: King’s College, n.d. Ayalon, Ami: The Press in the Arab Middle East: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Bahaa al-Din, Ahmad. Muhawarati maa al-Sadat (My Debates with Sadat). Second Edition. Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, 1987. Barout, Muhammad Jamal. Harakat al-Qawmiyeen al-Arab (The Arab Nationalist Movement). Damascus: Al-Markaz al-Arabi lil-Dirasaat al-Istratijiyah, 1997. Al-Bishri, Tareq. Dirasaat fi al-dimoqratiyah al-Misriyyah (Studies on Egyptian Democracy). Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1987. ———. “Mohamed Hassanein Heikal . . . limatha?” (M. H. H. . . . Why?). Wujhat Nathar, Vol. 5, No. 57 (October 2003): 5–8. Crabbs, Jack Jr. “Politics, History and Culture in Nasser’s Egypt.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4 (October 1975): 386–420. Al-Disouqi, Abu-Bakr. “Al-Raiis Mubarak wa muwajahat al-irhab” (President Mubarak and the Confrontation with Terrorism). In: Usama Ghazali Harb, ed. Mubarak wa muwajahat al-irhab (Mubarak and the Confrontation with Terrorism). Cairo: Nahdat Misr lil-Tibaa wa al-Nashr, 2002. Al-Disouqi, Murad Ibrahim. “Bayn al-silah al-nawawi al-Israili wa muahadat adam al-intishar al-nawawi” (Between Israel’s Nuclear Weapons and the NPT). Al-Siyaseh al-Duwaliyah, Vol. 31, No. 120 (April 1995): 56–61. Fahmi, Ismail. Al-Tafawodh min ajl al-salam fi al-Sharq al-Awsat (Negotiating for Peace in the Middle East). Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1985. Al-Faqi, Mustafa. Al-Aqbat fi al-siyaseh al-Misriyyah (The Copts in Egyptian Politics). Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1988. Farhoud, Ahlam al-Saadi. Al-Tayyar al-Islami wa al-siyaseh al-Misriyyah tijah al-sulh maa Israil (The Islamic Current and Egyptian Policy Toward Peace with Israel). Cairo: al-Zahraa lil-Ilaam al-Arabi, 1991. Fouad, Midhat. Al-Qhadhiyah fi al-inaash (The Cause Is Still Alive). Cairo: Madbuli al-Saghir, 2003. Al-Ghubashi, Shuaib Abd al-Monem. Madkhal li-tarikh al-sahafah al-Islamiyah (An Introduction to the History of Islamic Journalism). Cairo: Aalem al-Kutub, 1998. Goldschmidt, Arthur Jr. Modern Egypt: The Formation of a Nation State. Boulder: Westview Press, 1988. Gunther, Albert C. “The Persuasive Press Inference: Effects of Mass Media on Perceived Public Opinion.” Communication Research, Vol. 25, No. 5 (October 1998): 486–97. Hajji, Hafiz Ramadhan. “Mashrouat mufilat al-quwa al-nawawiyeh” (Projects of the Nuclear Reactor), 81–99. In: Al-Barnamej al-nawawi al-Masri (TheEgyptian Nuclear Program). Cairo: Al-Ahram’s Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 2000. Hammoudah, Hussein Muhammad Ahmad. Harakat al-dhubat al-ahrar wa alIkhwan al-Muslimoun (The Free Officers and the Muslim Brotherhood). Cairo: Al-Zahraa lil-Ilam al-Arabi, 1987. Harb, Usama Ghazali, ed. Mubarak wa muwajahat al-irhab (Mubarak and the Confrontation with Terrorism). Cairo: Nahdhat Misr lil-Tibaa wa al-Nashr, 2000.

10_303_z3_Bib.qxd

5/10/10

10:22 AM

Page 377

Bibliography

377

Al-Hashimi, Tareq. “Al-Fikr al-qawmi al-Arabi li-Jamal Abd al-Nasser” (Jamal Abd al-Nasser’s Arab Nationalist Thought). Al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi, Vol. 8, No. 84 (February 1986): 125–42. Heikal, Mohamed Hassanein. “Bisaraha: Abd al-Nasser lyasa usturah” (Candidly Speaking: Nasser Is Not A Legend). Wujhat Nather, Vol. 5, No. 57 (October 2003): 80. ———. Hadith al-mubadarah (Concerning The Peace Initiative). Beirut: Sharikat alMatbuaat lil-Tawsee wa al-Nashr, 1986. ———. Al-Istiithan fi al-insitaf (Permission to Depart). Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 2003. ———. “Mawid maa al-harb” (A Date with War). Wujhat Nathar, Vol. 2, No. 23 (December 2000): 4–15. ———. Al-Salam al-mustaheel wa al-dimoqratiyah al-ghaibah (The Impossible Peace and Absent Democracy). Beirut: Sharikat al-Matbuaat lil-Tawzee wa al-Nashr, 1985. ———. Waqai tahqiq siyasi amam al-mudaii al-ishtiraki (Proceedings of a Political Investigation by the Socialist Public Defender). 8th edition. Beirut: Sharikat alMatbuaat lil-Tawzee wa al-Nashr, 1986. Hilali, Nabil. “Taaqeeb” (Response) 142–4. In: Ameenah Rashid, ed. Al-Hurriyah al-fikriyah wa al-academiyah fi Misr (Intellectual and Academic Freedom in Egypt). Cairo: The Center for Arab Research in the African Council for the Development of Social Research, 2000. Hussein, Khaled Hassan. Mohamed Hassnein Heikal: al-afkar wa al-mawaqef wa malmeh al-shakhsiyah (Mohamed Hassanein Heikal: His Ideas, His Stands and Personality Features). Cairo: Dar Hala lil-Tibaa, 2001. Ibrahim, Muhammad Saad. Hurriyat al-sahafah: dirasah fi al-siyaseh al-tashriiyah wa ulaqatuha bi-al-tatawur al-dimoqrati (Freedom of the Press: A Study in Legislative Policy and Its Relationship to Democratic Development). Second Edition. Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyah lil-Nashr wa al-Tawzee, 1999. Iskander, Suheir. Mawaqef al-sahafah min al-qhadhya al-wattaniyah, 1946–1954 (Stands of the Press towards National Issues, 1946–1954). Volume II. Cairo: AlHayaah al-Aammeh lil-Kitab, 1996. Ismael and al-Sa’id, Tareq and Rifaat. The Communist Movement in Egypt, 1920–1988. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Al-Jammal, Mustafa Majdi. “Taqrir an: nadwat ‘mukhatat al-taawun bayna Israil wa al-duwal al-Arabiyyah min al-tatbii ila al-haymanah’” (Report On: A Workshop on the Cooperation Agenda between Israel and the Arab States from Normalization to Hegemony). Al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi, Vol. 19, No. 215 (January 1997): 164–69. Al-Jammal, Rasem Muhammad, Al-Ilam al-Arabi al-mushtarak: diraseh fi al-Ilam alduwali (Unified Arab Information: A Study in International Arab Information). Beirut: Markaz Dirasaat al-Wihdah al-Arabiyyah, 1985. Al-Jarad, Khalaf Muhammad. “Rauayat Yasin al-Hafiz li-mawaqef Abd al-Nasser min al-qadhiyah al-Filastiniyah” (Yasin al-Hafiz’ View of Abd al-Nasser’s Stands on the Palestenian Issue). Al-Mustaqbal al-Arabi, Vol. 19, No. 213 (November 1996): 27–35. Khalil, Adel Abd al-Ghaffar. Al-Ilam wa al-raai al-aam (Information and Public Opinion). Beirut: Markaz Dirasaat al-Wihdah al-Arabiyyah, 2003.

10_303_z3_Bib.qxd

378

5/10/10

10:22 AM

Page 378

Bibliography

Khashab, Amin. “Al-Tatawur al-aam lil-barnamej al-nawawi” (The General Development of the Nuclear Program). Cairo: Al-Ahram’s Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 2000. Kissinger, Henry. Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003. Kitchen, Helen A. “Al-Ahram—The Times of the Arab World.” Middle East Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2 (April 1950): 155–69. Laqueur, Walter. A History of Zionism. New York: MJF Books, 1972. Majmout rasail al-imam al-shahid Hassan al-Banna (A Collection of the Messages of the Martyred Imam Hussan al-Banna). Cairo: Dar al-Daawa, 1990. Mannes, Aaron. “Arab Media Primer.” Middle East Insight, Vol. XVII, No. 2 (March– April 2002): 81–88. Martin and Chaudhary, L. John and Anju Grover. Comparative Mass Media Systems. Sydney, Australia: Sydney University Press, 1966. Muhammad, Anwar. Harb bila banadeq: akhtar muwajahah bayn al-Arab wa Israil (A War Without Guns: The Most Dangerous Arab-Israeli Confrontation). Cairo: Dar A M Lil-Nashr, 1997. Mursi, Fouad. Nathrah thaniyah ila al-qawmiyah al-Arabiyyah (A Second Look at Arab Nationalism). Kitab al-Ahali, No. 20. Cairo: Al-Ahali, 1989. Naguib, Muhammad. Kuntu raisan li-Misr (I Was Egypt’s President). Cairo: AlMaktab al-Misri al-Hadith, 1984. Nashashibi, Nasser al-Din. Sanawat fi Misr (My Years in Egypt). London: Dar alHikma, 2001. Nassar, Siham. Al-Yahud al-Misriyoun bayn al-Misriyah wa al-Sahyouniyah (Egyptian Jews between Egyptian Nationalism and Zionism). Beirut: Dar al-Wihdah, 1980. Noell-Neumann, Elisabeth. The Spiral Theroy: Public Opinion—Our Social Skin. Second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Othman, Ahmad. Hurriyat al-iilam wa al-tashriaat al-iilamiyah (Freedom of Information and the Laws of Information). Al-Mansourah: Dar al-Samah lil-Tibaa, 2001. Peres, Shimon. The New Middle East. New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1993. Quandt, William B. Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1967. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1993. Qutb, Sayyid. Maarakatuna maa al-Yahoud (Our Battle Against the Jews). Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1992. Ramadhan, Abd al-Atheem. Al-Siraa al-ijtimaii wa al-siyasi fi asr Mubarak (The Social and Political Struggle in the Age of Mubarak). Cairo: Al-Hayaah alAammah lil-Kitab, 1993. Rough, William A. The Arab Press: News Media and Political Process in the Arab World. Second edition. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1987. Sabri, Musa. Khamsoun aaman fi qitar al-sahafah (Fifty Years on the Journalism Train). Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1992. ———. Al-Sadat: Al-haqiqah wa al-usturah (Al-Sadat: The Reality and the Legend). Cairo: Al-Maktab al-Misri al-Hadith, 1985. Al-Said, Rifaat. Al-Sahafah al-yasariyah fi Misr, 1925–1948 (Leftist Journalism in Egypt, 1925–1948). Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1977.

10_303_z3_Bib.qxd

5/10/10

10:22 AM

Page 379

Bibliography

379

———. Al-Tayyarat al-siyasiyah fi Misr (Political Trends in Egypt). Cairo: Al-Amal lil-Tibaa wa al-Nashr, 2001. Salah, Mahmoud. Asrar wa hikayat fi balat sahibat al-jalalah (Secrets and Tales Concerning Her Majesty’s Court). Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1968. Salamah, Salamah Ahmad. “Noun” (The Letter N). Wujhat Nathar, Vol. 5, No. 57 (October 2003): 3. Saleemah, Aida. Misr wa al-qhadhiyah al-Filastiniyah (Egypt and the Palestine Question). Cairo: Dar al-Fikr lil-Dirasaat wa al-Nashr, 1986. Saleh, Suleiman. Azamat hurriyat al-sahafah fi Misr, 1945–1985 (The Crisis of Freedom of the Press in Egypt, 1945–1985). Cairo: Dar al-Nashr lil-Jamiaat al-Misryyah, 1995. Schemm, Paul. “Dialogue.” Middle East International (November 7, 2003), 24. ———. “Reshuffle Rumours.” Middle East International (June 11, 2004), 18. Al-Shalabi, Abdullah. Al-Din wa al-siraa al-ijtimaii fi Misr, 1970–1985 (Religion and the Social Struggle in Egypt, 1970–1985). A Publication of al-Ahali. Cairo: Sharikat al-Amal lil-Tibaa wa al-Nashr, 2000. Al-Sharif, Kamil. Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun fi harb Filastin (The Muslim Brotherhood in the Palestinian War). Cairo: Al-Zahraa lil-Iilam wa al-Nashr, 1987. Shash, Taher. Mufawadhat al-taswiyah al-nihaiyah wa al-dawlah al-Filastiniyah- alamaal wa al-tahadiyat (The Final Settlement Talks and the Palestinian StateHopes and Challenges). Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1999. ———. Al-Muwajahah wa al-salam fi al-Sharq al-Awsat: Al-Tariq ila Gaza-Jericho (Confrontation and Peace in the Middle East: The Road to Gaza-Jericho). Cairo: Dar al-Shuruq, 1995. Springborg, Robert. “Professional Syndicates in Egyptian Politics, 1952–1970.” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (August 1978): 275–95. Sommerfield, E. Lloyd. The Press in Developing Countries. Sydney, Australia: Sydney University Press, 1966. Stacher, Joshua A. “Democracy with Fangs and Claws and Its Effects on Egyptian Political Culture.” Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Summer 2001): 83–99. Steinberg, Gerald M. “Israeli Arms Control Policy: Cautious Realism.” The Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (June 1994): 1–16. Talhami, Ghada Hasham. Palestine and the Egyptian National Identity. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 1992. Al-Tarabishi, Mirvat. Al-Sahafah al-Misriyyah wa al-siraa al-Arabi al-Israili (Egyptian Journalism and the Arab-Israeli Struggle). Cairo: Dar al-Akhbar, 1994. Ubayd, Muna Makram. Makram Ubayd: Kalimaat wa mawaqef (Makram Ubayd: His Words and His Stands). Cairo: Al-Hayaah al-Aammah lil-Kitab, 1990. Al-Wardani, Saleh. Al-Harakah al-Islamiyah wa al-qhadhiyah al-Filastiniyah (The Islamic Movement and the Palestine Question). Cairo: Al-Dar al-Sharqiyah, 1990.

10_303_z3_Bib.qxd

5/10/10

10:22 AM

Page 380

10_303_z4_Idx.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 381

Index

Aalem, Mahmoud Amin, 124, 147, 173, 187 Aamer, Abd al-Hakim, 171, 174–76 Aamer, Sirri, 130 Abaza, Abd al-Rahman, 118 Abaza, Fikri, 148, 152, 194, 207 Abbas II, Khedive, 43, 47, 49, 58 Abd al-Aziz, Ahmad, 89, 115 Abd al-Hadi, Ibrahim, 124, 131 Abd al-Malk, Anwar, 104 Abd al-Quddous, Ihsan, 115–18, 122, 147, 155, 193, 207, 220, 339 Abd al-Rahman, Awatef, v Abd al-Raziq, Hussein, 230, 258, 326 Abduh, Ibrahim, 18–20, 117 Abduh, Muhammad, 27, 30, 32–34, 37, 44–45, 48, 63, 273 Abdullah, King, 110–11, 119, 123, 144 Abu-Alam, Sabri, 94 Abu al-Fath, Ahmad, 118, 119, 130, 135–37, 143–47 Abu al-Fath, Hussein, 122, 131, 137 Abu al-Fath, Mahmoud, 94, 96, 131, 137, 141, 339 Abu al-Fath, Safwan, 64 Abu al-Nasr, Muhammad Hamid, 231 Abu-Raqiq, Saleh, 124, 231

Abu al-Suud, Abdullah, 28, 33, 36 Abu-Wafyah, Mahmoud, 214, 228–29 Abu-Zeid, Mahmoud, 79, 80 Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 27, 32, 34–37, 55 Aflaq, Michel, 242 Aflatoun, Inji, 255 Agence France Presse, 14, 180 Ahmad, Muhammad Sid, 22, 68, 254–56, 288, 297, 325 Alami, Musa, 122 Ali Pasha, Muhammad, 15, 19, 26, 33, 36 Alliance Israelite Universelle, 69 Aloubah, Muhammad Ali, 81 American University at Cairo, 59 Amin, Ali, 95–96, 135–40, 155, 208, 215–18 Amin, Mustafa, 22, 95, 96, 114, 117–20, 135–41, 155, 171, 208, 214–18, 227, 240, 288, 343 Ammarah, Muhammad, 255 Anan, Muhammad Abdullah, 65 Anis, Abd al-Atheem, 147 Antoun, Farag, 230 Aqqad, Abbas Mahmoud, 25, 62, 94, 123 Arab League of States, 2–3, 23, 111, 122 Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), 162 381

10_303_z4_Idx.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 382

382

Index

Assad, Hafiz, 237, 260 Associated Press (AP), 14 Atifi, Jamal, 227, 233 Attar, Hassan Muhammad, 26 Awadh, Louis, 73, 147, 234 Azhar University, 58, 64, 77, 200–201, 243–46 Azmi, Mahmoud, 2, 123 Azzam, Abd al-Rahman, 81, 104, 126, 141 Badran, Shams, 174, 176 Bahaa al-Din, Ahmad, 154, 171, 196, 208, 215, 295, 301 Bahjat, Ahmad, 288 Bahrawi, Sayyid, 326 Bakheit, Muhammad, 73 Balfour Declaration, x, 23, 56, 86, 164 Bandung Conference, 173 Banna, Ahmad Abd al-Rahman, 79, 85, 125 Banna, Hassan, 74, 79–84, 87, 89, 93, 101 Baqouri, Ahmad Hassan, 125, 129 Baqri, Muhammad, 127, 130–31, 147 Barakat, Dawoud, 97 Baroudi, Mahmoud Sami, 27, 272 Bassily, Istephan, 119, 146, 274 Bassiouni, Mahmoud, 164 Bassiouni, Muhammad, 308 Begin, Menachem, 168, 239, 251–53, 260 Berger, Joseph, 65 Bishri, Tareq, 97–98 Bisseiso, Muein, 193 Bourgiba, Habib, 200 British Oriental Advertising Company, 103 Bryce, James, 9 Burgess, Donald, 191 Burke, Edmund, 1 Byrode, Henry, 141 Caffery, Jefferson, 128, 140 Cairo Evangelical Conference, 78 Caliphate, 76–77 Camilia, 117 Camp David Agreements, 3, 8–11, 16, 167, 227, 245–46, 249, 250–58, 294–96, 298–99

Carlyle, Thomas, 2 Castro, Leon, 4, 60, 70 Cattaoui, Aslan, 72 Cattaoui, Ida, 72 Cattaoui, Rene, 70–71 Cattaoui, Yaaqub, 71 Chaim, Henri, 103 Ciano, Count, 101 Cicurel, Joseph, 72 Comintern, 65–66 Coptic Conference of Asyout, 53 Cromer, Lord (Evelyn Baring), 38, 42, 48–49, 50, 55, 273 Cronkite, Walter, 265 Curiel, Henri, 68 Dagher, Assad, 122 Dar al-Ulum, 26, 28 Darwish, Yousef, 68 Dayan, Moshe, 184, 252–53 Dinshaway, 49–52, 56 Dufferin, Lord, 41, 273 Egyptian Feminist Union, 98, 142 Entente Cordiale, 47 Essayistes, 67 Fahmi, Aziz, 120 Fahmi, Ismail, 226–27, 238 Faisal, King, 343 Faqqi, Mustafa, 300, 327 Farghali, Muhammad, 88 Farid, Muhammad, 16, 32, 52, 54, 62–63, 274–75 Farouq, King, 57, 98, 101, 109, 113, 123, 128, 134 Fashoda incident, 43–44, 47 Fathallah, Hamzeh, 38–41, 273 Fawzi, Hussein, 26, 234, 324, 326 Fouad, King, 57, 77 Gemayel, Antoun, 122 Ghali, Boutrous, 18–19, 25, 51–52, 56, 274 Ghali, Boutrous Boutrous, 238 Ghanem, Fathi, 227 Goldman, Nahum, 309 Gorst, Eldon, 50–51, 55

10_303_z4_Idx.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 383

Index Habash, George, 163, 199, 242 HADATO, 66–68, 106, 123, 126, 173, 266 Haddad, Najeeb, 61 Haddad, Rose, 95 Haddad, Wadii, 163 Hafiz, Yasin, 165 Hakim, Tawfiq, 73, 95, 122, 174, 234, 238 Hamamsy, Jalal al-Din, 95, 146, 218, 228 Hamaty, Habib, 122 Hamdan, Jamal, 345 Hammoudah, Hussein, 124–25, 128 Hamroush, Ahmad, 123, 126–27, 144, 149, 208 Hamzah, Abd al-Qadir, 94, 96 Hanna, Milad, 255 Hanna, Murqus, 28 Harari, Ezra, 70, 107 Harb, Usama Ghazali, 309–10 Hashim, Labibah, 95 Hashim, Zaki, 103 Hassan II, King, 343 Hassanein, Ahmad, 134 Hatem, Abd al-Qadir, 152, 215, 219, 221 Hawatmeh, Nayef, 199 Heikal, Mohamed Hassanein, x, 17, 22, 113, 140, 146–53, 167–70, 174, 177–78, 181–86, 207–14, 256, 301, 337–45 Heikal, Muhammad Hussein, 28, 32, 93, 97, 116, 118, 345 Heikal, Yousef, 345 Hijazi, Latif Salim, 43 Hilali, Nabil, v, 255, 257, 295 Hilali, Naguib, 340 Hilbawi, Ibrahim, 43 Hinnawi, Kamal, 126–27 Hirst, David, 227, 266 Hitata, Sherif, 68 Hourani, Akram, 166 Hudhaibi, Hassan, 124–26 Hussein, Adel, 147, 244 Hussein, Kamal al-Din, 115 Hussein, King, 187–89, 220 Hussein, Taha, 4, 30, 32, 73, 77, 89, 93, 95, 138, 143, 154, 164, 175 Husseini, Haj Amin, 98, 122, 143 Huweidi, Amin, 255 Huweidi, Fahmi, 288 Huyawan, Muhammad, 288

383

Ibn Maimon School, 69 Ibrahim, Hafiz, 19, 28, 30 Ibrahim, Jundi, 50 Ibrahim, Muhsin, 162–63 Ibrahim, Sunallah, 327 Iron Guard, 113, 256 Isa, Salah, 257 Ishaq, Adib, 27, 34, 36–37, 39–40 Ishmawi, Saleh, 79, 80, 125, 231 Iskra, 66, 68, 70 Ismail, Khedive, 15, 17, 20, 32–36, 40, 45, 54–55, 60 Israel, Marcel, 68 Israeli League to Combat Zionism, 68, 70 Jabbour, Rafiq, 62, 66 Jaber, Karam, 316 Jabotinsky, Vladimir, 72 Jahin, Salah, 192, 261 Jalal, Fouad, 117 Jallab, Philip, 230 Jamal, Samia, 114 Jammal, Hamdi, 186, 208, 215, 260, 262 Jaweesh, Abd al-Aziz, 52–54, 74, 274 Jayyar, Mahmoud, 341 Jihad, 81, 85–86, 89–93, 241, 248 Jordanian Civil War, 197–99 Joudeh, Qassem, 149 Jumaa, Ali, 317 Kamal, Said, 305 Kamil, Mustafa, 16, 21–22, 32, 43–45, 47, 49, 51 Khaled, Khaled Muhammad, 2, 141 Khalil, Mustafa, 252–53 Khamis, Mustafa, 127, 130–31, 147 Khater, Suleiman, 298–99 Khazander, Ahmad, 87 Khouli, Lutfi, 147, 174, 208, 228, 244, 254–55, 297, 341 King Fouad University, 59 Kousa, Baheel, 65 Koweik, Raymon, 68 Kyrolos VI, Pope, 344 Laqqani, Ibrahim, 34 Larsen, Terje R., 305

10_303_z4_Idx.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

384

Page 384

Index

Lisca, 67 Liyashaa, Murad Farag, 71–72 Madani, Siraj Ibrahim, 38 Maher, Ahmad, 319–21 Maher, Ali, 87, 130, 132, 136, 138 Mahillawi, Nawal, 341 Mahmoud, Abd al-Halim, 245–46 Mahmoud, Kheiry, 105 Mahmoud, Muhammad, 81, 94, 97, 276 Makarious, Shaheen, 41–42 Malki, Saad, 69–70 Mansour, Anees, 208, 301, 326 Mansouri, Mustafa Hussein, 62 Maroon, Antoun, 67 Marwan, Ashraf, 216 Masri, Aziz, 118, 164 Mirza, Aziz, 133 Mosseri, Albert, 69 Mubarak, Ali, 26 Mubarak, Husni: and censorship, 289–96; and Palestine issue, 302–7; and the press, 301–2; and terrorism, 308–22 Muhammad, Ahmad al-Sawi, 133 Muhammad, Anwar, 308–9 Muhanna, Rashad, 129 Muharram, Othman, 132 Muhyi al-Din, Khaled, 126, 129, 150, 173, 256, 297 Muhyi al-Din, Zakariya, 163 Mursifi, Hussein, 32 Musa, Amr, 306, 308 Musa, Salamah, 25, 62, 65, 73 Muslim Young Men’s Association, 75–76, 164 Muwaylihi, Ibrahim, 33 Nabawi, Mahmoud, 106 Nadhuri, Muhammad Fahmi, 53 Nadim, Abdullah, 22, 27–28, 40–41 Nafiaa, Hassan, 325 Naguib, Muhammad, 131, 133, 135–36, 139–42, 340 Nahhas, Iskander, 34 Nahhas, Mustafa, 4, 73, 98, 117, 121–22, 130–35, 144, 277 Naqqash, Ameena, 257, 297

Naqqash, Farida, 254–55 Naqqash, Selim, 39 Naseef, Hafni, 30 Naser, Salah, 174 Nashashibi, Nasser al-Din, 121, 123, 156, 170 Nasser, Huda, 331 Nasser, Jamal Abd: and the Communist Party, 127; and feminism, 142–43; and Misr alFatah, 126–27; and the Muslim Brotherhood, 123–26; and Palestine issue, 143–45, 161–201; and the U.S., 127–29, 140–41 Nazli, Queen, 122, 134 Nile Valley Committee, 86 Nimer, Fares, 41–2 nuclear program, 329–33 Nuqrashi, Mahmoud Fahmi, 87, 108, 114 October War (Ramadhan War), 221–24, 328–29 Othman, Othman Ahmad, 255 Peres, Shimon, 308, 320, 325–27, 330 Pharonic school, 96–97, 167–68 PLO, 181, 186, 197–99, 258–62, 269–307 Qassem, Anees, 305 Qaysouni, Abd al-Moneim, 225–26 Qutb, Sayyid, 80, 90–93 Radhwan, Fathi, 131, 135, 229 Rafii, Amin, 93, 275 Rajab, Ahmad, 288 Rajab, Samir, 302 Ramadhan, Abd al-Atheem, 306, 322, 326 Raouf, Abd al-Moneim, 115 Rashad, Yousef, 113 Reuters Agency, 14, 39 Ridha, Rashid, 44, 54, 74, 77, 93 Rifaat, Kamal, 126, 155 Riyadh, Abd al-Monim, 185 Rogers Peace Plan, 188–97, 213 Rollo, Robert, 71 Rosenstein, Teodor, 63

10_303_z4_Idx.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

Page 385

Index Rosenthal, Joseph, 63–64, 67 Rough, William A., 17 Rouleau, Eric, 266 Saadani, Mahmoud, 147 Saadawi, Nawal, 255 Saadeh, Ibrahim, 208, 301 Saati, Abd al-Rahman, 80 Sabri, Musa, 117, 143, 146, 170, 193, 205, 207, 215, 218, 226, 234–40, 258, 264, 301–2 Sadat, Anwar: and al-Ahali, 253–58; and censorship, 28–29; and food riots, 225–27; and Islamic press, 240–51; and M. H. Heikal, 207–14; and peace negotiations, 233–40, 251–53; and PLO, 258–62; and Western media, 265–66 Sadat, Jihan, 215, 255, 266 Sadiq, Abd al-Hamid, 118 Sadiq, Yousef Mansour, 126–27, 131–32 Said, Ahmad (Sadiq Saad), 104 Said, Khedive, 26, 60 Said, Rifaat, 22, 59, 147, 230, 256–57 Salamah, Sadiq, 146 Saleh, Ahmad Rushdi, 102 Salem, Ali, 328 Salem, Mamdouh, 225–28 Salem, Salah, 136, 143, 154, 171, 175, 279 Salomon, Sartel (Ahmad Sadiq Saad), 68 Sandiyouni, Farid, 123 Sanhouri, Abd al-Razzaq, 139 Sanuu, Yaaqub, 27, 34 Sarrouf, Yaaqub, 41–42 Saud, King, 126, 148 Sayyid, Ahmad Lutfi, 4, 22, 30, 32, 50–51, 73, 77, 81 Schwartz, Hillel, 68 Shaarawi, Huda, 95, 98, 142 Shaath, Nabil, 305 Shafiq, Durrea, 95, 142 Shamir, Shimon, 324, 326 Sharon, Ariel, 315, 320 Sharqawi, Abd al-Rahman, 208, 227–28 Shash, Taher, 304–7 Shawqi, Ahmad, 19, 30

385

Shebab Muhammad, 80 Shemayyel, Shibley, 62 Shihadeh, Raja, 305 Shura Council, 282–87 Sibaii, Yousef, 262, 298 Sidqi, Ismail, 114, 119, 138, 276 Sindi, Abd al-Rahman, 125 Siraj al-Din, Fouad, 116, 120, 130–31, 217 Suleiman, Mahmoud, 51 TAAS, 14 Tabii, Muhammad, 94–95, 101, 122, 144, 148, 339 Taftazani, Muhammad al-Ghanimi, 64 Tahtawi, Rifaat Rafi, 26, 30, 32 Talmasani, Omar, 124, 231, 248–49 Tarazi, Zuhdi, 300 Taweelah, Abd al-Sattar, 147, 208 Tawfiq, Khedive, 36–37, 40–41, 46, 55–56, 272 Teqla, Bishara, 45, 110 Teqla, Gabriel, 47 Teqla, Selim, 33 Thabet, Karim, 94, 115, 118, 122, 134, 147 Tuhami, Mahmoud, 302 Ubayd, Makram, 29–31, 95 Ukashah, Tharwat, 130, 309 United Press International (UPI), 14 Unsi, Muhammad, 33 Uraabi, Ahmad, 27, 39, 40 Uraabi, Mahmoud Husni, 63–65 Uraabi, Zaki, 72 Viliotis, Nicholas, 298 Wadi Um Kimbo, 71 Wafdist Leftist Vanguard, 59 Wahbeh, Saad al-Din, 255 Wailing Wall Riots, 73, 81 Wakil, Zeinab, 131 Walters, Barbara, 265 War of Attrition, 179–86, 197 Wardani, Ibrahim N., 52, 274 Weiss, Avigdor Constantin, 65 Wilson, Rivers, 34, 46

10_303_z4_Idx.qxd

4/29/10

12:33 PM

386

Page 386

Index

World Zionist Organization (WZO), 4, 53 Yakan, Wallie al-Din, 62 Younan, Talaat, 95 Yousef, Ali, 16, 21, 34, 43, 47–48, 54, 93 Yousef, Fatimah, 96 Zaghloul, Saad, 16, 30, 32, 50, 60, 62–65, 75, 275 Zahrah, Sayyid, 297

Zaki, Ahmad, 81 Zaki, Hamid, 120 Zayyat, Latifah, 142 Zeidan, Emile, 339 Zeidan, Hamid, 120, 229 Zeidan, Jurji, 31 Zeidman, Edward, 63 Zifti, Republic of, 64 Zionist Union, 72 Ziyour, Ahmad, 73 Zuheiry, Kamil, 279, 288

10_303_z5_Aut.qxd

5/19/10

5:54 PM

Page 387

About the Author

Ghada Hashem Talhami is D. K. Pearsons Professor of Politics Emerita at Lake Forest College. She is the author of several books, such as Syria and the Palestinians: The Clash of Nationalisms and Palestinian Refugess: Pawns to Political Actors. She also edited works on Arab women, the 1967 June War, and the impact of Islam on women. She has contributed articles to Middle East Policy, Journal of Palestine Studies, and several encyclopedias. She is the past editor of Arab Studies Quarterly, and is on the board of editors of Muslim World. She was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Syria and attended two colloquia by the World Council of Churches on the subject of Jerusalem.

387

10_303_z5_Aut.qxd

5/19/10

5:54 PM

Page 388