All right. Good afternoon and welcome, everybody. I'm especially delighted and happy to have my friend here, Professor Ramey,
give us a few words on Rami just to situate where this talk here is and how it fits.
Also in in an Israeli studies seminar, Professor Gilad is currently heading the Political Studies Department at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
He took his degree from the London School of Economics under the supervision of L'écologie directed economy.
His work pays careful attention to the mutual of the interplay between politics and ideas.
He published many books and articles which all of which I'm not going to to state I'm going to make mention on.
Well, all of his works have focussed on the Middle East and the great powers,
especially in the Cold War, and I would mention only two books of his most recent books.
One is the definitive history of the Egyptian Communist Party, which was published about a decade ago on the 11,011 2011.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, almost a decade ago. And his latest book, published earlier this year with Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
Egypt and the Struggle for Power in Sudan from World War Two to Nationalism.
And the title of his talk today is called Egyptian Communism Voices of Peace.
And thank you and pleasure being here.
And I would just like to say a few things about this paper that we're going to talk about.
It's courageous. Yes, I think so.
Yeah. Originally I worked on my book History of Egyptian Communism and which was based on lots of archives in so many countries, including Russia,
Egypt, France, Holland with the International Institute of Social History and the United States and lots of archival material.
And when I was working on the Egyptian communist movement in the Palestine question,
I actually realised that there was lots of material that they wouldn't be able to use in this book,
that they'll have to come back to it at some point. So the lots of it were drawn from the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.
They have the collections of communist Egyptian communist activists who settled in in France after they were deported from Egypt in 1951.
So there's lots of and talk about them in a minute there.
There's lots of material that was there that actually was waiting for somebody to come and read it properly.
And I managed after I finished my last book on Egypt in the Struggle for Power in Sudan,
they managed to go back to this these documents that they actually these documents that I actually was waiting for.
And there's a very, very interesting picture on the efforts by the Egyptian left to advance peace in the Middle East,
especially the Arab-Israeli conflict. And the if we go back to the 19, 1947 to partition resolution,
you can see that the Egyptian left or the whole I would say the Egyptian communist movement and the generally speaking,
the Arab communist movements were bound work.
It wasn't actually something that they really wanted, but it was a line dictated for Moscow to support partition.
And this line from Moscow was something that was.
Actually it's changed significantly in the early forties and I will talk about it in a second.
So when we talk about the partition resolution of 1947,
we are talking about communist movements that actually swimming against the nationalist
currents in their country and support partition against the will of the people there.
And that was quite the crisis at a later stage for the communist movements, particularly those in Egypt,
because the leadership of the Egyptian communist movement were Jews, most of them were Jews,
and they were obviously blamed by the others for being a fifth column,
etc. They supported partition because the Jews and, and, and it was very,
very hard to persuade the political establishment and others that they were actually acting because this line was
drawn by Moscow and they were actually following the international communist general line on the future of Palestine.
Now the with the study of genuinely of the Israeli Arab dialogue,
this dialogue and context in the earlier period from 1947 and even before until the until later, until nowadays, it's quite developed.
I mean, there are lots of studies on this issue and the period that I'm going to talk about is 1947, 1958.
There were books written by people like Islam and and people there and Muhammad Hassan and I can move forward.
That is, we had the secret talks between Israel and the Arabs and Neil Kaplan and others.
So it's quite it was quite a developed subject and they focussed mainly on the great powers
initiatives and certain individuals initiatives and others and basically it was futile dialogue,
future initiatives and nothing happened. I was actually looking at the Egyptian left and the Egyptian left or the Egyptian
communist movements was something that was interesting because they were persistent.
If you go back to the 1947, from 1947 until 1958, the period that actually finished the paper,
the article, you will see that there were, despite lots of crises which were,
well, this period, they were persistent in their approach to peace between Israel and Arabs,
and they tried to advance it and they would give you examples later on.
So the question is, what was the difference between between them and the others?
And this is very interesting point why the communists, why the leftists wanted to advance peace with Israel and why the others did,
and moreover, why other followed the communist formula at a later stage and actually embraced the attitude towards peace with Israel.
And I will mention it Nasser himself in the Bandung conference in 1955, when they accepted the United Nations resolutions on Palestine,
which was basically in the meaning,
was that it was a de facto recognition of Israel and its pre 1948 borders and that was, but nothing happened after that.
I mean it remained within the framework of words, not deeds.
So nothing really happened. But it was an interesting point and I would refer to it also later on.
So why 1947?
You understand it's a partition resolution. Why in 1958, 50, 1958 is a very interesting year because in 1958,
after years of split and quarrels between within the communist movements in Egypt, the all the main factions factions,
the main groups, including the one that I referred to in this paper, the Democratic Movement for National Liberation Haddad,
two of them, and then a local democratically total Al-Watan in dispute.
That was the name of that movement.
They there was an amalgamation between the three main ones still allowed to remain in them and loyal to another communist group.
And they formed the United Egyptian Communist Party.
However, because the party was established, the conditions of some of the groups was that the.
Rome group, which are referred to in the Rome Group,
was a group of exiled Jews who settled in France after they were deported from Egypt in 1950 and they
established the branch of the Immanuel extended branch of different than before that I mentioned a minute ago.
And this branch was actually active representing the DMA now in international forums and other activities.
One of the main one was the dialogue of one of the most important one for discussion is the dialogue between the Israelis and Arabs,
Egyptians and others in 1958.
They were made to cut off relations with the Rome Group in 19.
As I said in general, in 1958.
And also there was another general development in February 58, the formation of United Arab Republic, the union between Syria and Egypt.
And from that stage, they actually forced the Nasser persecuted communists significantly and harshly in Syria,
particularly because it was a very strong movement in 1958, and it was a real setback for communism, the formation of the United Arab Republic.
So they couldn't do anything much. You know, there was no Rome group that was the one that goes between the Israelis involved.
And there was also the rise of pan-Arabism in Egypt.
And this policy obviously was completely different to the one to the earlier one we did the pre 1956 Suez crisis,
but we still witnessed some kind of dialogue between Israel and the Arabs, even on the among the political elites on both sides.
So that was how we changed in 1958.
Now, as I said before, the Egyptian left remained persistent in its policy towards peace with Israel.
And the and particularly that movement that I mentioned, the democratic movement for National Liberation in the seventies,
a significant dialogue was going on between Israeli peace activist and activist in France in the flat of the exiled leader of ideato and late career.
And this dialogue was quite interesting because, you know,
people from the Israeli left like multiplied and reactionary and others were coming to us for these discussions.
And bear in mind that in 1977, Sadat arrived in Israel.
I'm not saying that there was a direct link between this dialogue, obviously, but in 1977, actually that to have been Israel.
So peace became a reality two years later. Now, let me just this is just a general introduction.
I will. I would like to ask a few questions here.
First, when we talk about the Egyptian left. So who was the Egyptian left?
What was the Egyptian left? So when we talk about it, it's a very small group, always has been quantity.
Quantity, very small. But its impact upon the political and social developments of Egypt was quite significant.
It wasn't homogeneous. It wasn't a unified group.
In fact, it covers different, but it's a wide spectrum for moderate nationalist socialism to radical international communism.
And since its early days, the communist movement was characterised by tensions between those who adhere to internationalism and those,
too, wishing to nationalise socialism and communism.
So that was generally a very, very broad picture of the Egyptian left.
The founders of Egyptian of organised Egyptian communism were foreigners basically who settled in Egypt,
particularly after the occupation of Egypt in 1892 by the British.
It attracted foreigners, among them thousands of Jews who were geographically mobile.
They looked for Egypt as a country of opportunity, not particularly materialistically.
Following the Bolshevik Revolution,
the foundation of organised communism were mainly led by foreigners and the founders of the communist movement was a Jew called Joseph Rosenthal.
Joseph Rosenthal is a very, very interesting figure because establish the contacts with the Comintern, establish the contacts with the Soviets.
I saw all these amazing documents in the Soviet archives on these activities and these relations with the with the Soviet.
But in 1923, he was expelled from the movement that he established.
And there's lots of explanation why. And I won't touch it, because it's not a subject today in itself.
It's a very interesting subject. But Joseph Rosenthal was in his approach to Zionism, was very, very negative.
Very his approach to Zionism was advanced.
It was based on the attitude and the approach of Marxism-Leninism, which was obviously the beginning was very, very negative.
What was that approach of the Marxist?
What was the Marxist Leninist approach toward the future of Palestinians who will judge Zionism?
Generally, Marx would define Jews as an imaginary nation, negated the existence of Jewish identity beyond religion and cost.
Jews, he argued, were to be blamed for the existence of the Jewish problem because they separated
themselves from society by forming an economy class and was hated for usury.
Usury, the social emancipation of Jews, Marx stated, was the emancipation of society from Judaism.
Only the communist revolution would solve the Jewish problem, just as it would solve all other problems.
Lenin was to consolidate the international communist approach towards Zionism following the Bolshevik Revolution and his attitude,
his approach was quite similar. He was quite negative.
It regarded Zionism as a representative of the big bourgeoisie and so therefore he was against it.
And a change towards the Zionist project came only in the Soviet Union, came in, communist Russia came only in the early 1940s.
And why did it come?
We are talking about the change that took place in Russia's place in international affairs following the great victory in Stalingrad in 1943.
That victory was quite significant because following that victory they changed the
policy generally towards what they called the export of global social revolution.
It's not that they gave up on the idea, but it's relegated to second place.
And they were talking about expanding the Soviet Union's.
Zones of influence. They were actually started to think in terms of what we call nowadays Cold War, Cold War politics.
How can we expand out territories and the Middle East?
That was a territory just nearby the southern gate to the Soviet Union was quite significant.
So what we see 1943 and this again, some of my earlier works because nobody actually touched it before,
what we see in 1943 is following the abolition of the Comintern,
which Stalin now regarded as the Trotskyite project, following the abolition of the Comintern, the.
The Soviets started to talk to or was looking to nurture relations with Arab
governments and government generally in the region that were anti-imperialist,
anti-colonialist.
And for that reason, they were very willing to extend support, materialistically, diplomatically, etc. in order to advance that goal.
Basically, they wanted to neutralise the Middle East, the region, removing the British from the French and others,
and neutralising in the later stage when conditions would allow to put their feet inside that region.
And this doctrine was quite sophisticated and successful, I must say, until the sixties.
After that, things changed, particularly after the Six-Day War.
But I'm not going to talk about that period. But until then, they managed to establish very close relations with countries like Syria, Egypt.
And that was before the rise of Nasser,
talking about the period started in 43 with under the Wafd government that ruled Egypt and the establishment of diplomatic relations in 43.
All these kind of things are quite important to understand the change they took in Soviet Russia of Soviet Russia,
communist Russia embrace this kind, what we call international politics, realpolitik, not ideology, but realpolitik.
And for that reason, as I said, they were willing to support movements for national liberation and Zionism or the Zionist
movement was part of it because they were struggling against the British in Palestine.
And the Soviet policy towards Palestine was changeable.
In May 1955, they supported the establishment of bi national state of Indu one state, a single state in Palestine.
In September, October 1947, they changed their attitude and they supported partition based on the United
Nations Special Commission on Palestine that came up with its recommendations,
and what mattered for them was first to remove the British.
Then we can put our feet in Palestine. We can from Palestine, we'll be able to advance our strategic goals, etc.,
etc. I wasn't touching the whole issue, but it was quite a well-structured policy.
Wasn't just decided to support the partition and they supported the Jews in 1948 with arms,
with diplomatic support and by all means the opening of the gates of Eastern Europe
and the flood of lots of Jews who came and settled in Palestine and Israel.
So the Soviet policy was quite interesting.
On the other hand, the Communists had to obey or to to embrace that policy.
And for that reason, they accepted partition, as I said before, and continue after that, trying to advance a peace between Israel and the Arabs and.
What was the Communist explanation for the shift on the Palestine question?
Well. Well, what made him change the policy?
An activist, somebody I met in Egypt was quite I think he died not long time ago, Yusuf Elgindy or Gindi, as they call it, the Egyptian.
It was a former member of the large communist detto, and he argued that ever since the mid 1940s,
what they call the reaction forces intentionally accused the Egyptian left for supporting Zionism in order to defame and smear the left,
thus hoping to isolate it from public. These attempts aggravated since the outbreak of the Palestine War of 1948.
The fact that the Communists objected that war regarding it as a war of the Arab reaction at
the service of imperialism led the Arab reactionary political elite to blame the Communists,
and particularly the Jewish leaders for betraying the nationalist cause and supporting foreign interests.
Agenda argues that dialectically, by its way of conduct,
the reaction helped the Zionists to fulfil their goal of sabotaging the formation of the Palestine Palestinian state and requiring the leader
and founder of that movement that I mentioned was perhaps the most persistent supporter and defender of the two state solution until his death,
until he was assassinated in 1978.
Once the idea, of course, was endorsed by the Soviet Union, it condemned the 1948,
labelling it the imperialist usurpers war against the state of Israel.
In his view, it was a criminal war caused by imperialism and reaction.
Korea remarked that they initially hesitated whether to support partition,
but since the revolutionary movement worldwide supported it, they decided to follow suit.
They accepted the partition resolution because it was the only solution proposed and because it was the best because of their support.
A bomb was thrown at his house in Cairo and another one it algemeiner the newspaper of the ghetto at quarter.
In the first weeks of the war, the public supported the war and they felt isolated and cut of the nationalist mainstream.
But this did not last long. Gradually, the public and other political groups realised that the demands viewpoint was correct.
The war was concocted by British imperialism. Call it in retrospect.
Korea looked back on the dominoes, stand on Palestine contentedly,
and you said it did not take long before the utility of our position on both Jews and Arabs became understood by many.
The implementation of the partition resolution, especially the formation of a democratic state in Palestine,
would have promoted liberalism, democracy and peace in the Middle East.
At what was the communists stand over the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In the post 1948 war, after the establishment of the State of Israel, communists,
particularly the Jewish leadership and Jewish activists, were persecuted.
And many of them, after they were incarcerated, were deported and settled in different countries, some in France.
So in Palestine. And I interviewed some of them in Italy and probably other countries.
The rise of anti-Semitism, which wrongly linked all Jews with Zionism, led to to positively perceive the integration of Jews to Israel,
which its ruling elite was described as democratic bourgeoisie, removed from the ideal model of the ideal model of popular democracy.
These leftist progressive Jews could enhance the revolutionary potential and bring no less into this.
They could enhance the revolutionary potential and bring closely to the Israeli and
Egyptian communist movements and subsequently the Israeli and Egyptian peoples.
Well, some of them they met while I was interviewing them.
It's quite interesting. And the one was I lived in Haifa.
And he was when he got back to when he arrived in Israel, he was a member of family for a while and then gradually abandoned communism.
The other guy that was very, very interesting, his name was from far, he's quite well intellectual,
was telling me a lot about the past, why they joined communism and all this stuff.
But the most interesting thing is that he actually became very right wing and joined the Likud Party in the seventies, late seventies.
So he was complete that completely opposite view. So there were activist, obviously, as some of them remained within the left wing Israeli politics.
And the group that was most important to our debate or discussion is what we call the group that is called the High Court themselves alone,
the Partisans of Peace movement that was very active from 1950 to 1958.
I would like to say a few words about the rocket and silence alarm and the context in which it actually became active.
The political context in Egypt and in the Middle East, we are talking about in the early fifties.
The rise of neutral is a neutral ism is something to do with the Cold War.
Like neutrality, mutualism is something is a doctrine actually relevant to the Cold War?
And there are different modes of neutral ism. I wrote a lot about it in my book and see grounded of 25 mutualism different modes positive neutral ism,
passive neutral ism, ideological documentary, neutral ism presented by Nero and others.
And this is something that was a real development at that period and it was developing in India.
We Slava later on in and in the Middle East, in Syria, in Egypt and other countries, Israel,
just to mention, was in neutral east until 1950 in terms of its attitude towards the East-West conflict.
And gradually following the Korean War changed policy was actually forced upon how to identify itself with the United States.
But still you still remain neutral.
As long as you didn't take part in the Cold War, you didn't join the East or the West by signing a military pact with them.
The only time it happened in the Middle East was 1955, with the establishment of the Baghdad pact,
where the partition participation of Turkey and in Iraq.
So generally speaking, at that period, we're talking about the rise of neutral ism, very, very active, neutral ism.
In Egypt, there was a government run by the left party and the minister of foreign minister called Salahuddin,
and they were very, very anti-Western and nurtured relations with the Soviet Union.
And there was a period of real problems between the two countries, including lots of economic and then commercial transactions.
And and more importantly, you know, in 1951, October 1951,
the Egyptian government unilaterally abrogated the 1936 treaty with Britain, which was a significant event.
Basically, from their point of view,
the presence of British forces in Egypt in the Canal Zone is illegal and that led after that to terrorist activities or anti-British activities,
including activists from the Muslim Brothers, Communists and others.
And it created a real chaos along the canal and instability in a way that led eventually to the downfall of that government and few months later,
the revolution of the free officers that put an end to the monarchy in Egypt and to the era of the West.
So how I could understand.
Salaam was an umbrella group that was included in the beginning.
Muslim Brothers represented of the Nationalist Party, Socialist Party, the right, the, the, the Wafd left wing.
And it was active trying to persuade the people that, you know, we should shouldn't follow military alliances with the West.
It was a branch of the world peace movement. It was sponsored and funded by the Soviet Union.
There was another branch in Syria that was active,
and the whole idea was that we are actually against peace, against war, against nuclear weapons, etc.,
etc. and they managed to the campaign was quite successful because very significant political figures in Egypt signed it,
signed a petition to an anti nuclear war with anti military pact with the West,
etc. The parties in the peace movement took pains to advance its political platform,
and that's including an intensive campaign campaign urging local participants and intellectuals to add,
as I said, to the signature to the Stockholm Appeal for the prohibition of nuclear weapons.
That was one of the main things.
Although it was an umbrella organisation's member of the team and featured prominently in the Harkat Ansar Salam in the peace movement.
And gradually even members that came from different organisations became communists, converted to communism.
One of them was somebody called the Inside Camel and another one called Yusuf Kill Me to actually were quite prominent in that movement.
So a side come and say, I interviewed them in Cairo a few years ago, died.
And he told me, I said to him, Are you still communist, you know, in 2007?
And he said, once you're a communist, you die communist.
And that was his approach. But anyway, these two were quite active.
And one of them I would refer to was Yusuf Hilmi, who was.
I don't think I have much time to touch on all the dialogues.
Let me just say that during the period 1953, 1955, the main efforts by these groups were to establish contacts with the Israeli Egyptian left.
These were the Egyptian Israeli Communist Party, my key and my party, the United, the Labour Party.
And there were mutual appreciation and the words of goodwill.
But as they said to me, nothing serious happened at that time.
To change or something that they will refer to as a landmark was the Bandung conference, which took place in 1955, and I will just mention it.
Why did the Bandung conference perceived by the parties as a peace movement as an historical landmark?
The Afro-Asian conference in Bundaberg encouraged members of how I could, in silence,
allow the peace plan to increase the order to future efforts of advancing peaceful agenda,
to move from dialogue with like minded Egyptian, Israeli leftists to communists to the political elite,
also to talk to the political elites and also to talk to the Israeli public in Bundaberg, Indonesia.
Leaders of 29 countries met for seven days to discuss problems of common interest to the countries of Asia and Africa.
The conference discussed Ways and means by which the people of Asia and Africa could achieve the economic, cultural and political cooperation.
The conference succeeded in demonstrating that there was a broad Asian African consensus on a wide range of subjects,
one of which was concerning to the Israeli-Palestinian issue due to pressure exerted by Nasser.
The conference expressed in the record its support of the rights of the people of Palestine and called for the implementation
of the United Nations Resolutions on Palestine and the achievement of the peaceful settlement of the Palestine question.
That is, as I said earlier,
Nasser's acceptance of the United Nations partition resolution or the de facto recognition of Israel and its pre 1948 borders.
But again, this nothing happened after the Banlieue conference,
and that's why we first in a minute to use of Fellini and his activities to advance peace.
Following that conference.
Yusuf Fawehinmi served as the Secretary General of the market in Switzerland and they were quite pleased all with NASA's activities,
although the criticised in before the conference and said it is in reactionary and is persecuting communists and activist.
After the conference his image enhanced and he was positive, imaginative and he became like world champion of peace from their point of view.
So Hilmi believed that the time was ripe to advance peaceful solution between Israel and the Arabs.
Shortly after that conference in the World Assembly for Peace, which took place in Helsinki in May 1955,
he portrayed the change that took place in NASA's attitude to peace with Israel.
He paid tribute to Nehru, the Indian leader who played a significant role in the formulation of NASA's adverse approach to military pacts,
regional and inter interlock alliances and nuclear weapons and other issues.
No, emphasised me, was the time to translate the values decisions into practice.
Helmy quoted from NASA's interview to Newsweek. He gave it in 23rd May 1955.
There he expressed Nasser expressed belief that the Arab-Israeli relations,
and I quote, can be improved if Israel shows its willingness to achieve a just peace.
We, Egypt, do not demand that peace be achieved in our conditions,
but we insist that Israel should show goodwill and sincerity in accepting the decisions of the United Nations.
We have no aggressive intentions towards Israel or any other nations.
I would like to say as a soldier that I witnessed many of the horrors of war so that I've come to feel a sincere wish for peace and love.
Quotation for me. That was the first time the King of Leader stated officially that he had just peace with Israel was his preferred choice.
The champions of peace. Champions of peace.
And both of an Israeli side should convene a conference that would lay the general principles for a just settlement and peaceful coexistence,
it concluded. A few months later, in November, he decided to move things forward,
and he decided to send two letters one to the people of Israel and the other to Nasser,
urging them both to seize the historical opportunity created by the Bandung spirit and to embark on the peace boat.
I would like to read some Q lines from these two letters, which I think are very, very interesting.
First, mind you, tell me when he was writing the letter to Nasser.
He was in exile. He was in France. I think he was in France at that time.
It was not allowed to come back home, but is still sending him this letter saying.
The two praised him for being the driving force behind a binding resolution in Palestine.
Yet he asked him to take practical steps to implement this with the Russians,
and he asked Nasser in his letter, Why do you refuse to invite Ben-Gurion to Egypt?
Why don't you speak directly to the Israeli people in all languages and explain
to them the problem of making peace the rights of the Palestinian people?
In Fayemi's view, the only possible way to sort out the conflict would be to convene an Israeli international
conference such as the Geneva Conference that achieved peace between India and China.
As a first step is telling telling Massa You should propose or you should declare publicly your recognition of Israel's right to exist.
In his letter to the Israeli people, he asserted that the Israeli people put the Egyptian border incidents of 1955.
An arms race should stop and the two people should prove their right to have fought in energy to peace.
He reminded Israeli readers of his movement How to Islam, which was a part of the world movement for peace.
There were determined to continue with the activity, despite government attempts to delegitimize the movement and persecute its activists.
Then he said to the Israeli people that the incumbent Egyptian government by Nasser was
against war and had no interest to desire to attack Israel or desire to attack Israel.
To come as Israeli readers, he asserted that the check Egyptian arms deal of September 1955 was not against Israel.
In the 1948 war was a product of imperialism,
and the traitorous king for the Arab world had been going through a process of transformation in its approach to peaceful coexistence with Israel.
And this change manifested itself in the Bandung conference.
The Israeli people tell him you should trust Nasser,
his motives as he was the key figure behind abundant revolution in Palestine, Israel and its armed neighbour.
Neighbours should avoid joining military pacts advocated and proposed by the Western imperialist
come to perpetuate the state of conflict in the region and to advance the interests.
These letters, sadly, were not given the necessary attention, but neither Israeli nor Egyptian political elite.
But it was a very interesting stage because it's like it was a direct approach to the Israeli people on his behalf and also direct approach to it,
which was an Arab initiative, because he clearly wasn't exiled a communist Jew.
He was a Jew who was Muslim.
And it's quite interesting that, you know, he came up with this initiative.
Bear in mind, if we just try and put things in context.
We're talking about the Egyptian arms deals, which took place in 1955, the shortly after that.
Talking about the Swiss war took place in October 1956,
a war that Israel was actually aligning itself with the old imperialist forces, Egypt and Britain, and talking about peace.
After that, it was quite unrealistic immediately after that war.
And Israel also did the alliance with the French and British actually spoilt its relations with the Soviet Union,
too, although these relations were not great at the time, but it also affected them soon after.
But as I said, some of these companies were always optimistic and always believe that we can still do something,
we can still advance space and this one group and this and recoil.
It was a really interesting person, he continued.
And before that just it's a very interesting point.
Although he was expelled from Egypt is still remained in the Egyptian patriotic always refer to himself
as Egyptian and when the war before the war started well after Nasser's nationalised the canal,
he supported this move and his and his movement and he propagated in masses favour in a variety of international forums.
At some point the group received secret information from unknown sources of an Anglo-French plot to attack Egypt.
The information was forwarded on second September, a few months before the war,
but months before to the Egyptian authorities via the Central Committee of the United Egyptian Communist Party.
The Egyptian leadership remained indifferent for them.
The Communists weren't reliable source and the alliance with them was out of bounds at the time.
However, how much it's true about this information, they don't know.
I know that some other sources refer to more information that they gave about the three
the the collision between the Anglo Israeli French plans to to to to attack Egypt.
And even this information doesn't seem to be accurate because they refer to dates that don't exactly go line
with this with the the conference that took that took place in France just a few days before the attack.
So I don't know how much it's true about this information, but even though he wanted to go back to live in Egypt, Nasser refused.
Even though provided the information, he he he was forever connected in exile.
And they still continued.
I mean, after that, about 10 minutes of finish.
Despite that, after the Swiss walk today to continue to write reports and a plans to advance peace to activist.
There were Egyptians. They voted for Egypt. One is called Mohammed Chatah and the other one is Sharif.
I talked to a very famous activist. There were detailed reports on the Palestine problem in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The reports recommended to recognise the rights of all peoples for certain termination, including Israel.
And he criticised the prevailing belief represented represented by Arab reactionary circles,
what they called that Israel would not be able to extend the Arab economy blockade and that the spending of a
large portion of its budget on military and security affairs would weaken the country and lead to its collapse.
Also, these circles categorically ruled out peaceful solution that Israel saying that the latter would seize the opportunity
to take over the Middle East and the Middle Eastern markets among them as it still can here the nowadays.
But the to argue that the current situation was manipulated by imperialism whose
strategy was to exploit the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to advance its interests.
Its argument atrophied to repeat itself for the time that the UN Charter asserted that the interest of Israel and its Arab neighbours
were to avoid further escalations which would lead to more war and bloodshed which could constitute a threat to world peace.
I won't go into what these reports are. They're quite detailed and.
But they. That the main line is peace in the interest of Israel and the Arabs.
And the time is right. Let's do it.
Now, they mentioned here something that the Arab countries, the Arab states managed to do only after the Six Day war.
The question, who will represent the Palestinians?
They say that the Palestinians have so far been represented inefficiently and carelessly by Arab governments.
And for that reason, from now on, Palestinian officials should only be handled by their own representatives.
All peaceful negotiations with Israel should be held without preconditions.
And the only way, the only possible way to reach out to the Israeli public was to offer them peaceful coexistence with the neighbours.
Such a move would persuade them to get rid of the populist rulers that also they
are referring to the terminology not to use others terminology against Israel,
against Jews. Speak peaceful use, employ peaceful terminology like Israel does, and instead of presenting ourself as anti-Semitic,
anti fascist, chauvinist, etc. if we employ peaceful terminology, it will actually help our cause.
The passion and desire on the part of parties and the peace movement to move the peace train have gradually
faded away following the internal developments that they mentioned before within the Communist movement.
The split is it the unification and the removal, the removal of the expulsion of the Röhm group from that too.
Of course, this development was to have an adverse effect on the communist peace initiatives.
Prior to this, as we have seen the desire among Egyptian communists, whether the Muslims,
Jews or Christians to advance peace platform was noticeable, quite clear.
They represented the margins of Egyptian politics, yet, as was the case in many other issues.
Political ideologies represented by minority groups often gradually permeate permeated to
political elites representing the mainstream who embraced such ideas and implemented them.
In the case of Egypt, I would refer to some of them.
The agrarian reform of 1952, policy of naturalism in the East-West conflict and the subsequent development of close relations with the Soviet bloc.
The shift to socialism in the early 1960s.
Massive acceptance. Acceptance of the United Nations partition resolution during the Bulbbul conference.
According to some studies, NASA's acceptance of the Rogers ceasefire plan in August 1970 was also a result of a shift in his policy towards Israel.
In fact, facilities successive in his desire to probe and advance the Peace Channel.
As for the Rome Group and its contribution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, after the expulsions of Cadet two,
the group continued to be active, supporting movements for national liberation.
One of them was the FLN, quite active and there was very close relations between him and Ben Bella.
By the way, I don't know if you know the Algerian embassy in Cairo, which is an amazing building.
It was the house of Goya's parents, and he gave it as a present to the Algerians after the independence.
So it served to serve as the embassy. I actually went to see the place is really beautiful.
It. The Rome group did not abandon its desire to see the Arab-Israeli conflict settled.
It pursued covert and clandestine channels or channels of dialogue between Israelis and us throughout the period, especially, as I said, in the 1970s.
Career remained an ardent advocate of the two state paradigm until his assassination in Paris in 1978.
He was assassinated and nobody knows who did it. Lots of stories.
Who was behind it? For many years, he acted indefatigably from his exile to advance a peaceful solution to the endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Anwar Sadat Peace Initiative of November 77.
Menachem Begin His response? Positive response to it, but not a direct result of the above initiatives, obviously.
However, it's another subject to working with now a new study.
However, the road to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty had gone through earlier stations, peace initiatives,
decades of history of futile future attempts by partisans of peace on both sides to advance peace.
Regional peace continued. But as I said, at the end of the day, peace came from the political elite and it was a decision made by two governments,
Israeli government and obviously the Egyptian President Sadat.
I will stop here because there are lots of other things to talk about,
but the think is very, very happy to open it for questioning comments and feel free press.
Thank you. So I guess my question is about class and basically what?
Because in the Iraqi case, for instance,
both communists and Zionists were basically of lower socioeconomic classes and the elites were the ones who were more,
if not pro-Saddam, then at least in the French.
Right. And there was something about, you know,
being of low socioeconomic class that influence their political ideologies and made them both Zionist and communist,
which was at one point opposite sides of the spectrum.
And so I'm wondering if in the Egyptian case, if that was true, if the members of the who go with me or what was the other outlook I got?
And so it's if any of them were if there was any kind of coherent class identity as well, or if they were members of the elite and went into Israel,
were they in the models or were they, you know, part of the socialist Israeli Ashkenazi elite?
Did they join I mean, where were they in the kind of class, I guess, of the.
Yeah, right. It's a good question. And I think that the.
When you look at the activists, you have to divide them into groups.
I mean, when Korea was the leader of the communist movement, it really tried to pull optimisations of the movement,
like bringing into the movement workers and others, and educating them was really something that was noticeable.
But when you look at these activists in me and others, lawyers, etc.,
obviously they come from education and educated background and can refer to them as middle class activists.
But they were also within these movements to also others like Shot Shut Down that they mentioned before the trial of these reports.
He was a workers before and he was one of these people that Korea trained in order to make him a leader at a later stage in his family.
Yeah. So he came from the bottom, if you look at it that way.
But he became obviously the leader and it was at the beginning you could see the coming where
you see lots of middle classes in from quite privileged background some of them but also,
you know, here and there there were also activist workers and others of the movement because it was split and there were so many groups.
I mean, each one of them was different. The human L the one that the former version of that was established was very,
very different than Iskra, which is another one similar that was based on middle class and region,
lots of Jews and studied in the friendly city and other places and they were playing with the ideas of, you know, revolutions, etc.
So the there was politicisation was part of the policy and that movement and what they call the also
don't see a lot of CEOs like turning them into Egyptians because many of them were foreigners,
you know, came from many different countries, Europeans, Jews, etc.
So the idea was we want to seal Egyptian ties.
The leadership. Egyptian is the movement, including the. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was, that was the idea. Yeah. Cause this is kind of a full off question because I mean, the Iraqi case is illuminating and also the Iranian one,
because in Iran, the same time, political activity meant communism.
There was either the state suffocation of political affiliations and there was the communist resistance.
So the history of Iran is such that many of its the intellectual forefathers of the revolution,
of the Iranian Revolution went through the press of the Communist Party or Communist affiliations because that was the only viable way to,
um, I guess to object and really want to keep.
Can you maybe say a few words about the general political atmosphere in which they flourish or free to flourish in, in Egypt at the same time?
I think it's the well, I mean, you have to look, it's quite a long period of communism.
We were talking about the period starts in 1919 and then goes back to the sixties.
If you look at the monarchic period, it's one thing if you look at the revolutionary period, it's another thing is in the revolutionary period.
I would say that the communist activists and one of them,
which I referred to is Lutfi and Holy Lutfi Holy was the founder of what they called a new trend in Egyptian communism.
It's called nationalist Marxist.
And they were actually trying to if you look at that group, the group was composed by very intellectual intellectuals,
very bright people, lawyers, writers, etc., very, very sophisticated and.
They believed in their cause. People like you in particular, they like this liberal.
They believe in what they do. And at some point, he started in the ghetto.
And in 1955, he left. And then he started with this trend of Marxist nationalism.
And he became an interesting figure for Nasser because Nasser thought at some point I'm going to change my social policy.
It was talking about dual revolution, you know, political and social.
When you wanted to implement the social revolution, you needed Marxists in the theoreticians to come and help him with the to formulate
the they did the main lines of the theoretical aspect of that revolution.
So he embraced and actually recruited all these activists led by Lutfi actually to the establishment.
And in 1961, before he announced the Nationalisations, the laws of nationalisation and the beginning of the socialist revolution.
These people were working in newspapers trying to explain to people and trying to interpret the what's going to happen and why revolution.
Why the time is ripe for a revolution. And they became activists within the nationwide regime, serving the nationwide regime.
And as long as Nasser went through this process of socialism until 65, 66, they were quite satisfied.
There was a self abolition of the Communist Party.
The 1960 465, the old joined the establishment and they believe that something great is happening.
The Soviet Union is Nasser's best friend. Socialism is happening.
You know, this realisation would take the we took the land from the rich, we nationalised the main factories, the main infrastructure, and now we can.
We are very happy until things change.
In the late 1967, the war was a turning point.
The defeat, the relation in Nasser, her mind, were completely on how to occupy these territories,
how to be evacuated, how to compensate for this humiliation.
So he dumped the idea of socialism, the socialist revolution, gradually, and they were dissatisfied.
And then the conflict occurred again between them and the establishment.
So let's say that divided the best years of these guys were the sixties, and then things changed.
If you go back to the earlier period, I'll give you like the mentioned Joseph Rosenthal.
Joseph Rosenthal was somebody what was it from but it's one believe it but is from it's fact.
Oh, he comes from a family he comes from a family that was hired in Montreal to docs and he moved to here today was in Beirut.
At some point they actually started his Marxist education.
He was was a Palestinian Jew. It was a Palestinian Jew.
He went to Egypt in then 19, 1879, I think something like that.
No, after the British occupation 89. And he settled there.
He was a jeweller and he subsidised with his money the communist movement.
He with money giving the guy that went to represent him in Moscow in the first and second Comintern
was somebody that he paid his ticket and that same guy actually expelled him after that,
concocted something that was quite an interesting I wrote a lot about it, but this wasn't done before.
He was a leader of the Communist Party, was also involved in the struggle,
the anti-British struggle with nationalist figures like Mustafa Kamil, who was the nationalist leader.
It was very, very helpful to sides and all the leftist leaders.
It was the 1919 revolution was very,
very supportive and active and managed to bring lots of workers and peasants to take part in these demonstrations at the riots and the British.
Right. So he was also he had quite.
If we go back to it, you can say also that he was nationalist in the way, although he was internationalist, you know what I mean?
He wanted to get rid of the British first. And then after that we link our country to the homeland of communism.
But he believe that these figures like Mustafa Kemal and others and said all the people who
can really lead to a socialist tide over something really significant and it didn't happen.
So it was quite it was a very, very interesting figure.
Just say one thing about him.
When I finished my book, I was I never I didn't know where he died that somebody in Egypt, one of the activists I need interviewed.
Well, oh, he's buried in Alexandria. He was he died in 1946, said no, really.
So for me, it was if he said it was an authority, I gave a talk in Israel in the Tel Aviv University, and then here it's about the outside.
Man is a I. It was in my time and it was lucky.
Leftwing activist came to me and said, Do you know where he was buried?
I said, I heard it is. Sandra, 46, now is buried in Holland, in Israel.
I said, what? And then he came up with this amazing.
He came to me with this interview with Joseph wasn't done that Nasser long story allowed him to leave Egypt in 1966 or 65.
And he came to Paris to meet his son who lived there.
It didn't like the weather there, but it's too cold. Great.
I want to go back to the Middle East where I was born. So he went to Israel, settled in Melbourne, in Netanya.
And in Netanya he actually was so happy.
And then because he met lots of people who came to see him and that he came
and he gave a massive interview to Yedioth Ahronoth about all of his story.
It was an amazing interview and they really got lots of material that they never had and would have never found.
And he until he died, he believed that the Comintern expelled him from the party, although he never knew.
The Communist documents show that they never give in order to never.
And they were against it. Basically. They didn't like the idea. They called the others bring him back.
But it never happened. Full personal quarrels and all this stuff.
So he story is quite an amazing one. I went to learn just to see in my eyes that his death and I say to him, you know, Joseph Rosenthal,
66, in the interview video, the whole sorry, the interview with Yediot Aharonot for 66 I think.
Yeah, well, it's a larger thing. I think this is the best point to add because we want to do something along the lines of
something that but I don't know the answers to the questions in the first one said at Newsweek,
that quote is So, of course, all leaders say they want peace and they're ready to do it.
But the devil is in the details of what are the terms and conditions that they're really ready to settle for.
Right. So how do you understand his statement?
You do understand a sincere thing. He was ready to sign a deal.
And Nasser? Yeah, sorry. Nasser noted that. Of course, Nasser.
So it's one thing. Or was it just a soundbite for Newsweek to say?
Of course it was. But is there any any evidence behind that?
So that's a question of. RUBIN It's a good question, because when I mentioned it in the talk in Israel, somebody started to tell me,
no, no, it was Bourguiba, the first man to recognise Israel and all this stuff.
And and they said, no, if you just look at the documents of the Bandung conference, you realise, you know what?
But in accepting the United Nations resolutions, however, bear in mind that when he did that, that was after the partial delivered story,
it was in 1954, and it was a real setback and it was very hard after that to think the Nazis became more radical.
I think after that, although he when he went to Bandung, it was about a year later he accepted the United Nations resolutions.
You can ask yourself, was it something that you really believed in?
Did you? That's what he meant. There's no I can't answer that.
It's impossible to answer that because nothing happened after that. There were dialogues.
There were attempt by the Americans, the Alpha Project and others. I don't know what you want to do, Vali Nasr.
I know that one of my colleagues wrote a book about the I don't know if you know your Mittal.
And he wrote in his book, he said that basically Nasser accepted the world,
the other he mentioned the religious plan and all this stuff because he wanted to advance peace with Israel.
He was actually thinking of, mind you, the longest plan was American.
And he was an ally of the United of the Soviet Union. But he accepted the Americans, the one to really make peace between Israel and the Arab.
So things might have changed after that. I don't know exactly if he believed in it or not.
This is something that other people investigated.
But I don't think that Nasser wanted peace at that time in 1955.
He doesn't believe in it. And also my studies, my previous studies also worked in Russian archives,
and they discovered that the story of the arms deal with the Czechs, all these narratives, it was made by Muhammad Christian.
The radical was all false. Nasser himself.
And as I showed in the previous book, before looking at the Soviet,
Dr. Nasser himself was talking to the Soviets in 1954 before Israel's attack in Gaza.
And. Before they did the check.
It took place in July 1954, or he was 94.
He met the Soviet ambassador to Cairo, Daniel Solid, and they asked him specifically for arms.
And this is in the Soviet Archives document documented.
So if we ask for arms at that stage, I mean, you can ask yourself, what was the reason for that?
I don't know. I think that for Nasser, it was important to have modern arms.
It was part of establishing his position in the Army.
Mind you, it was a military revolution. So he needed to be strong and show that it's like we've got the modern equipment, etc.
And Israel was something that I really come to with the idea that very again, you know, the but it just if I understand to get the gist of your talk,
there seems to me some type of disjuncture or disconnection between individual both
who are sincere ideologues and really espouse world socialism were communism.
Yeah and want to have this brotherhood or unity of nations and countries which are acting basically on realpolitik,
even if they're having alliances with that.
And if that's true, it reminds me one of the most blatant cases is Stalin, who, you know, you think would be a good communist.
But when he's negotiating between alliances in the thirties, between going with Britain and going with Germany.
Know if you know Gordievsky? But his archival research shows that there's absolutely no ideological preference, no, no whatsoever between who he goes.
It really doesn't matter. It's what's the better deal for Russia.
I mention it in his politics in the Middle East in 43 there was nothing about ideology.
Yeah, it was all about zones of influence. How to increase the yeah.
You know, the positions in the Middle East, how to improve it.
And that was how we managed to eventually to break in to get this breakthrough inside the Middle East.
It was the way he handled it was amazing.
Unlike all these studies that say that the change took place after Stalin's death, I showed that did nothing like go that scheme.
But we have to go back to the Stalingrad story and what happened after that.
And it's amazing because Stalin was very pragmatic and very his politics was realpolitik.
You know, the obvious. I was just to answer the other question in the previous questions, you know, I was in Egypt and before that I wrote the book.
It's called Egypt in Complete Revolution. And the main figure is this literal holy that I mentioned before.
And when I when you read the book after that, it was quite, quite an interesting dialogue with him because he was anti-Israel.
He didn't want to meet me in the beginning, but he read the book and at some point, you know, he became an activist,
established the new Hawke-Keating challenge in Egypt, the peace movement, which was active after the Oslo Accord.
And I he invited me to Cairo and he said, I read your book and you understood my writings and to the day.
And I describe everything better than I did. I want to do something project with you.
And they said what kind of project they want to do. And when they got into Cairo, it was quite it was flattered by his invitation.
So I went to Cairo and we had the dialogue that went on for several good days.
And he said, look, I think that Mohamed Hassan and I called him a big liar.
And his book about the Israeli Egyptian peace talks is rubbish and they want to do something based on archival materials to disproves what he said.
He basically said, I want to work on the Israeli Egyptian dialogue under Nasser.
So said, can you get an access to the Egyptian archives and let me do it.
I will try and speak to Amr Moussa, who was then the foreign minister, and he said he was a good friend of mine.
He would try to help. And we started this project.
I was supposed to look at Israeli America and etc. and British and he were supposed to get somebody.
Obviously he's not going to work in the archives. He was going to hire somebody.
And I talked to him in January 99. I still remember the conversation.
He said, oh, the good news, good things might happen.
You know, things are going in the right direction. Know great.
Instead of looking somebody. And in February 99, he died in a heart attack.
So the whole project obviously collapsed.
But this could have been a great project if he could have given us the Egyptian side aspect of the whole thing.
And we could see the Israelis. It could have been a great subject.
That was it, but a missed opportunity. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you for doing that. I thank you for coming on.
Well, it was like.