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The Muslim Brotherhood against Nasser

By 1945 the Muslim Brotherhood, born in Egypt, had branch organizations in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. In Egypt the brotherhood numbered around 500,000, many of them in the professions. And with the struggle of Palestinian Muslims against Jews in mind, Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the brotherhood back in 1929, now 39-years-old, created an Islamic military section within the brotherhood.

With the end of World War II and the defeat of Hitler, Egypt's brotherhood hoped that Europe's Jews would be content to re-establish their lives in Europe. The Brotherhood was disappointed. And they were annoyed by Egypt's Jews helping to smuggle arms to Jews in Palestine. They asked their government to restrict the activities of Jews in Egypt. They complained about Jewish influence with Egyptian newspapers and magazines. They called for a boycott Jewish products and anything promoting Zionism, and they claimed that no difference existed between Judaism and Zionism.

In 1948, when Britain granted independence to Transjordan and pulled out of Palestine, Egypt's brotherhood was delighted, and they sent thousands to fight against establishment of the Jewish state. So too did Egypt's government, and with the failure of those forces, al-Banna became more outspokenly critical of the government. Tensions increased between Egyptian authorities and the brotherhood. Cairo's chief of police was assassinated. The government blamed the brotherhood, and, on December 8, 1948, al-Banna was banished to Upper Egypt.

Al-Banna expressed defiance. "When words are banned," he said, "hands make their move." On December 28, Egypt's Prime Minister was assassinated, and blame was immediately attributed to al-Banna. In the months that followed, properties of the Muslim Brotherhood were confiscated and thousands of members were imprisoned. Al-Banna, now back in Cairo, was shot down on February 12, and he was left to bleed to death on the floor of a hospital. The assassin was believed to have been a government agent, but nobody was ever charged with the crime.

In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood continued to flourish. They were members of the Armed forces, and in 1952 they joined in the overthrow of Egypt's monarch, Farouk (Faruq or Faruk). A honeymoon existed between the coup leaders and the Muslim Brotherhood. A decree in January 1953 that dissolved all political parties exempted the Brotherhood.

The President of Egypt was General Muhammad Naguib and the Prime Minister was Colonel Gamel Abdul Nasser. To the displeasure of the Brotherhood, Nasser sought secular solutions to the social problems faced by Egypt. The Brotherhood looked upon Prime Minister Nasser and his supporters as insufficiently devout. Nasser, moreover, was popular and was stealing some of the thunder that had been theirs.

Nasser responded to the hostilities of the Brotherhood by charging them with having set up an armed organization to seize power by force. On October 26, 1954, a gunman shot at Nasser as he delivered a speech in Alexandria. Nasser's government blamed the Brotherhood, and thousands of its members were rounded up. Of those put on trial, six were sentenced to death and seven others were sentenced to life imprisonment.

One of the many arrested and tortured was Yasser Arafat, age 25, who had grown up in Jerusalem. Arafat's father had worked in Cairo, where Arafat was born. Arafat's father and brother had been members of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1948, at 19, Arafat had left his studies in Egypt to fight against Israel in a military brigade that had been organized by the Brotherhood, and he had participated in the Brotherhood's campaign of sabotage and ambush against the British along the Suez Canal.

Also in the wake of the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Nasser, Egypt's president, General Naguib, was accused of having been a tool of the Communists and the Muslim Brotherhood. On November 14, 1954, he was driven from the presidency by his fellow army officers, and Nasser became president.

Saudi Security and the United States

Saudi Arabia had a new king, Saud, the eldest son of the previous king. And Saudi Arabia had Egypt as a hostile neighbor. Nasser of Egypt was not only a secularist Muslim, he was a socialist and allied with the Soviet Union, from whom he was acquiring aid, and he was leading other Arabs in the Middle East on a platform of anti-Americanism. He looked upon the creation of Israel in 1948 as the culmination of colonialism. He was a pan-Arabist,  wanting to unite the Arab world. With Saudi Arabia in mind he spoke against "reactionary forces." Nasser is said to have wanted Saudi oil under his control, claiming that it belonged to all Arabs. Egypt was the most populous of the so-called Arab states and stronger militarily. The Saudis feared Nasser and concerned with their security they embraced their ties with the United States -  the Saudis selling oil to the United States and the U.S. continuing to provide the Saudis with military security. And the Saudis appreciated the U.S. as a force opposed to Communism. They saw atheistic Communism as a greater threat than Zionism.

Never under colonial domination, the Saudis were less concerned with their identity than were neighbors, such as Egypt, who had been colonized. The Saudis were able to do business and maintain cordial relations with the U.S. and other Western countries, but with continued dislike by some Islamists in the kingdom. 

Saudi security involved an age-old feud with the Yemenis, to the south of Saudi territory. And the Saud family was determined to keep the Yemenis disunited and weak. The threat from Nasser was mitigated by Nasser's distraction with Israel, but officers in the Saudi army and air force who were sympathetic with Nasser plotted to replace Saud rule with a republic. They were discovered, and waves of arrests followed.

Mawdudi and Qutb, anti-Western Intellectuals

In Egypt, a Pakistani writer, Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903-79), was being published. He had a fear similar to other Muslims who had been subject to British colonialism. Mawdudi was afraid of Western influence overwhelming Islam. He found remedy in his fellow Muslims joining together as a political force against secularism. He believed that humans exercised their will in a universe ruled by God's will alone, and he extended this to the belief that people were obliged to followed God's laws, not man's. As he saw it, people had no right to make their own laws. In other words, he favored following only Islamic law - the Sharia. His was a liberation ideology of sorts. People could defy secular authority and pursue their reverence to God. Without saying so, the advances that had come to Western Society by way of secular law - through the Dutch, to the British, and the creation of the U.S. Constitution - were a part of the Western influence that Abul Mawdudi rejected.

An Egyptian, Sayyid Qutb, was influenced by Abul Mawdudi. In his youth, Qutb had been attracted to Western literature. He had studied in the United States. But in the 1940s he had become disillusioned with the West, disliking what he saw as excessive materialism and support for Israel. In Egypt, in 1953, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, and, in 1954, Nasser's regime sentenced him to fifteen years in prison. In prison, Qutb became more vehement and resentful. He had been a reformer and a democrat but now he hated Nasser and Nasser's secularism. Good Muslims, he believed, could not live in peace in a society like Nasser's Egypt. The Islamic world, he believed, was riddled with evil. Humanity, he said, was living in a large brothel. Like Mawdudi, he wanted to turn back the rising tide of secularism. He wanted a return to the Islam created by the Prophet Muhammad. He had become a born-again Muslim and wrote books that appealed to Egyptians unhappy with society.

About Jihad he wrote:

Before a Muslim steps into the battlefield, he has already fought a great battle within himself against Satan, against his own desires and ambitions, his personal interests and inclinations, the interests of his own family and of his nation; against anything which is not from Islam; against every obstacle which comes into the way of worshipping Allah and the implementation of the Divine authority on earth, returning this authority to Allah and taking it away from the rebellious usurpers.

Sayyid Qutb was executed in 1966, at the age of sixty. According to his admirers he died smiling, "showing his conviction of the beautiful life to come in paradise."

From 1953 to the Suez Crisis of 1957and the War of 1967

Since 1949, Palestinian guerrillas had been making raids against Israel - the raiders calling themselves self-sacrificers (fida'iyyun). By 1953 Egypt was supporting these raids - in part, at least, a concession to Arab public opinion, which remained passionately devoted to the elimination of Israel. With fellow Muslims, Egypt was agreeing that another try should be made at eliminating the existence of Israel, while secretly promoting talks with Israel. Israel's prime minister, Ben-Gurion, saw such talks as an attempt to anesthetize Israel before slaughtering it.

Between 1949 and 1956, the raids killed 1300 Israeli civilians. The Israelis tried to create a disincentive for such attacks, with the idea that if "you hit us we will hit back twice as hard." And Palestinians described Israeli retaliations as terror.

Ben-Gurion, decided on a showdown against Nasser and was pleased to have allies in doing so. Egypt was getting arms from the Soviet Union, which by now was employing a Cold War strategy in the Middle East. Israel needed weapons and was being denied by the United States and Britain. Israel found an ally in France, who was opposed to Nasser because of his support for the Algerians. In 1956, Israel joined Britain and France in attacking Egypt - Britain opposed to Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal. The world community was opposed to the military attacks on Egypt, the UN Assembly voting 65 to 5 for a cease fire. Eisenhower spoke against the attacks, labeling them violations of international law. Eisenhower was opposed to military actions by Britain and France in Iran or Egypt, believing that problems between these countries should be adjudicated in the United Nations. The Eisenhower administration did not was the U.S. associated with Britain's colonial heritage. The Soviet Union, supporting Egypt, joined in the demand for a cease fire. Israel, Britain and France were forced to withdraw, and the United Nations put troops from India between the Israelis and Egyptians.

In February, 1957, President Eisenhower invited the second King Saud to Washington, Eisenhower appreciating a Cold War asset. He wanted to renew the lease on the airbase at Dhahran, and King Saud agrees - this agreement  to remain the basis for a continuing U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia.

For a decade after the Suez crisis, Israel's border with Egypt was quiet, while Arab hostilities against Israel continued along the Syrian and Jordanian borders. From their positions on the Golan Heights, the Syrians shelled Israeli settlements, attacked fishing boats on the Sea of Galilee and fired on agricultural workers in the demilitarized zones along the frontier.

In 1964, at conferences in Cairo and in Casablanca, the Arab powers decided to intensify their struggle against Israel by diverting the headwaters of the Jordan River. The following year the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded, and a new Palestinian guerrilla organization began operating: FATAH (an acronym which translates to "the movement for the liberation of Palestine). Small bands of guerrilla fighters were sent from bases in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan against Israel.

The Six-day War

On November 4, 1966, Syria and Egypt signed a mutual defense pact. In April 1967, the Syrian harassment of Israeli farming operations and the shelling of Israeli villages increased. An air battle developed in which Syria lost six planes. The Syrians turned to the Egyptians. On May 16, Nasser asked the United Nations to withdraw its forces from Sinai, and the UN complied. On May 30, Egypt and Jordan signed a mutual defense treaty, and, on May 31, Egypt moved 100,000 troops, 1,000 tanks, and 500 heavy guns into the Sinai Desert.

Rather than sit by and leave the initiative to Egypt, Israel attacked, on June 5, virtually eliminating the Egyptian air force in a single blow. By June 7, Israeli troops had secured the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, and on June 8 Nasser accepted a cease-fire in order to keep the Israelis from driving to Cairo. Also, Israel drove the  Jordanian and Syrian offensives back. Israel had complete control of the skies, dropping napalm on the Arab forces. When the final UN cease-fire was imposed on June 11, Israel stood in possession of the Sinai Desert, the Golan Heights and Arab East Jerusalem. Israeli occupation of the West Bank (still officially ruled by Jordan) and of the Gaza Strip had begun. [note]

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