The neglected “professor’s” advice by Palestinian leadership

I thought that writing about the “professor” and “journalist” Muhammad Hassanein Heikal, on the centenary of his birth, about his life experience in the fields of journalism and politics, about his role in contemporary Arab life, and about his important role alongside Gamal Abdel Nasser, would be easy and smooth, but I quickly What I discovered as I was the follower and reader of all his famous articles titled “Frankly” throughout the years of the second half of the twentieth century, whether through Al-Ahram newspaper or through Arab and foreign newspapers, which amounted to more than a thousand articles, then the reader of each of his books, page after page, which numbered in the dozens, then The follower, listener, and viewer of most of his radio and television dialogues in the first fifteen years of the twenty-first century, then the follower and reader of most of what was written and said about him in books and articles. I discovered, as I follow all of this enormous intellectual heritage, that writing about him is a thorny issue, even almost difficult.

Perhaps I might add that what is most important after that is that I discovered, and perhaps others may have discovered, that “the Journalist,” as he liked to call himself, was a great Arab journalist, writer, and thinker by all standards, a man in whom many qualities came together. We were faced with a journalist who was the most important and prominent Egyptian of all. In the Arab world, and perhaps globally, in the twentieth century, he learned the profession of journalism from the school of life and advanced to it, and his profession as a journalist enabled him to make Al-Ahram newspaper one of the ten most important newspapers in the world in the sixties of the twentieth century, and we are faced with a political writer par excellence who is the most important of all, Egyptian and Arab, and perhaps We are in front of a great Arab writer who mastered the Arabic language and made it smooth and easy. We are in front of a great Arab intellectual who educated himself by himself. He did not enter a university, meaning he did not obtain a higher university degree. Although he had studied in scientific courses at the American University in Cairo, he mastered and enriched his mother tongue. Arabic and introduce new terms and expressions to it, learn and master more than one foreign language, and we are facing a mind that possesses a large encyclopedia of information and knowledge in all areas of life from history and geography, to politics with its various topics and people, to literature and poetry to culture and art in its various styles, and we are also facing A man who sought to collect and preserve tens of thousands of Egyptian, Arab, and foreign documents related to the issues of Egypt, the Arab nation, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, and made of them a large and enormous store of documents that will be at the service of Arab and foreign scholars and researchers in the future. We are in front of an important man who was in a continuous dialogue with Gamal Abdel Nasser. From the morning of July 23, 1952 until September 28, 1970, and this dialogue may have reached many times to be a partner in Egyptian decision-making at that time, and we are facing a man who was able to become shoulder to shoulder with senior politicians, scholars, writers, journalists, writers, and others in various parts of the world.

Hence, and with all that I have previously said, writing about “the professor” is almost a difficult task, especially since it comes within an article, and I asked myself: What then should I write about the late great man? Should I write about Muhammad Hassanein Heikal, the journalist, or about the writer, or about the politician, or about the writer, or about the strategic thinker, or about his role with Gamal Abdel Nasser? Or about what?
It occurred to me to write about his position on the Arab-Israeli conflict and its developments and wars since the era of the monarchy, through the eras of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat, and ending with the era of Hosni Mubarak, including Sadat’s visit to Israel, the Camp David Accords, the Arab-Israeli negotiations, the Oslo Accords, and beyond.

Yes, his positions on the issue of Palestine and his follow-up of the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict deserve to be narrated on his centenary, especially since he was the most prominent Egyptian journalist whose name was associated with the events of Palestine in 1948. In the spring of 1948, before the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, he came as a journalist to Palestine and moved. Between Amman, Jerusalem, Gaza, Bethlehem and Hebron, he met with King Abdullah and his army commanders in Amman. Heikal headed from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and from there to Hebron and met with the Egyptian leader Al-Bakbashi Ahmed Abdel Aziz, commander of the Egyptian volunteer forces, at his headquarters on the outskirts of southern Jerusalem near Bethlehem. He toured with these forces - and they were semi-regular forces that entered Palestine before the Egyptian army entered it - and after that he visited the positions of the Egyptian army stationed in southern Palestine in Al-Majdal, Iraq Al-Manshiya, Iraq Suwaidan, Gaza, and Al-Falujah. At that time, he wrote from Palestine his famous series of articles in the Egyptian Akher Sa’a magazine under Title: "Fire Over the Holy Land"
On the land of Palestine, Heikal met for the first time with the jeweler Gamal Abdel Nasser. He narrated the circumstances of this meeting, saying: One day in June 1948, I was heading from Jerusalem to Al-Majdal in a jeep belonging to Ahmed Abdel Aziz’s forces, and the car stopped near (Iraq Suwaydan) because of a battle. There was a circle there, so I got out of the car and walked towards (Iraq al-Manshiya) and learned that the Sixth Battalion of the Egyptian forces had won thanks to its commander, who was able to repel a direct Jewish attack that aimed to control (Iraq al-Manshiya) and (Iraq Suwaydan). I learned from the officers and soldiers who were Very happy that the one who led the operation was the jeweler Gamal Abdel Nasser, Staff of War of the Sixth Battalion..

Heikal went to see this leader, and found in front of him a tall young man, spread out on a blanket, with traces of fatigue visible on his face, and was preparing to sleep... Their session lasted a third of an hour, and Heikal did not produce a result that would benefit him as a journalist, because (Al-Sagh) refused to speak, not because he was tired or He had been sleeping for five days, but because he was angry at what the Egyptian press was publishing and the way it was treating the Palestine War.. Abdel Nasser was very critical of the press. From the perspective of dealing with the news and developments of the war, from his point of view, journalists were exaggerating and writing incorrect statements. Heikal asked Abdel Nasser: Have you read what I write about the war?! Heikal was referring to his series of articles on Palestine entitled Fire Over the Holy Land. Abdel Nasser told him: No. Then he continued: I do not mean you, I am speaking in general terms, and we know things from newspapers, and what is published in them is neither appropriate nor correct. The meeting was not happy at all, as Heikal himself described.

After the July 1952 revolution, Heikal continued to follow the issue of the Arab-Israeli conflict, firstly in his journalistic capacity and secondly because of his closeness to the decision-maker in Egypt, the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Through his reading of the roots of this conflict, which began with the issuance of the Balfour Declaration in 1917, Heikal formulated Abdel Nasser’s concept and his conception of the Balfour Declaration and Instrument. The famous phrase about this promise: “The one who does not have, made a promise to the one who does not deserve, then the two of them, “the one who does not have” and “the one who does not deserve,” were able, by force and deception, to rob the legitimate right holder of his right to what he owns and what he deserves. That is the true picture. The Balfour Declaration, which Britain made to itself, in which it gave - from a land that it did not own, but rather owned by the Palestinian Arab people - a pledge to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine.” This phrase was included in the letter drafted by Heikal and sent by Gamal Abdel Nasser to the late President John Canadian in August 1961. Since then, this phrase has been repeated in Arab forums whenever there is a reference to the Balfour Declaration
Heikal continued his follow-up and monitoring of the Israeli-Arab wars later, starting from the Suez War of 1956, passing through the June 1967 War, continuing with the War of Attrition 1969-1970, and ending with the October 1973 War, some of which he witnessed. He even wrote the strategic guidance for that war at the request of President Anwar Sadat, and issued three volumes of supported books. With documents about those wars under the title “The Thirty Years’ War.”

Perhaps his most prominent role in the Palestinian cause after the setback of June 1967 was his position on the Palestinian resistance, especially with the leadership of the historic Fatah movement. He was the one who inaugurated the first meeting between Gamal Abdel Nasser and the first Palestinian guerrilla, weeks after the setback of June 1967, Major Khaled Abdel Majeed. “Name.” The activist or pioneer Fayez Mahmoud Hamdan, son of Jabal Al-Mukaber, in Jerusalem, who met him in Cairo and took him in his car to meet the late leader at his home, and wrote about the martyr Khaled Abdel Majeed in his article frankly entitled “On Hope and Death” published in Al-Ahram newspaper on August 16, 1968, and it is an article worth reading. This meeting took place before Heikal himself once again accompanied the leaders of Fatah at that time, namely Yasser Arafat, Farouk al-Qaddoumi, Salah Khalaf, Khaled al-Hassan, and Hail Abdel Hamid, to meet with Gamal Abdel Nasser. In this regard, Heikal said: It was my luck that I introduced the Palestinian revolution to the Egyptian revolution, and accompanied Yasser Arafat and some of his companions from the Fatah leadership took my car to Gamal Abdel Nasser’s house for the first time he saw them and them, and this meeting was a far-reaching turning point in the strength of the Palestinian resistance, in the value of its work, and in the space it occupied in the Arab arena. I attended every meeting without exception, and participated in every conversation on a variety of topics that were discussed. I asked President Abdel Nasser for permission to accompany Yasser Arafat secretly with him to Moscow in July 1968 to meet with the Soviet leaders, where great cooperation was later established between the PLO and the PLO. Palestine and the Soviet Union.
Heikal remained a follower of the Palestinian resistance movement and an advisor to the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization during its continuing journey later on. In 1988, the leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization asked him for advice when pressure was on the organization to accept recognition of Israel and to accept UN Security Council Resolution No. 242. Indeed, he offered his opinion and advice during a meeting. In Tunisia, leaders from the Liberation Organization were included, including Yasser Arafat, George Habash, Abu Iyad, Nayef Hawatmeh, Farouk al-Qaddoumi, and others. He stated clearly: If the Palestine Liberation Organization is required to deal directly and openly with Israel on the basis of its recognition, then the basis that can be adopted is the partition resolution issued by The United Nations General Assembly, and he added that the Palestine Liberation Organization can now submit to the United Nations and to the United States its recognition of the partition resolution, Resolution No. 181 issued by the United Nations General Assembly of 1947, which is the resolution regarding the establishment of two Arab and Jewish states. Then the organization can declare the establishment of an independent Palestinian state in Exile demands and negotiates to achieve the sovereignty of the Palestinian people in their homeland. This resolution addresses Palestine as a whole. As for the demand for recognition of Resolution 242, which relates only to the territories occupied in 1967, it is not required. He stressed that the recognition required of the organization of Israel now would preferably take place under the umbrella of the partition resolution before any Another international principle. Heikal later followed the course of the Palestinian issue, deploring the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, and remained a close follower of the development of the Palestinian issue, which for him was a central issue for Egyptian national security and Arab national security.

His positions were clear regarding the issue of Palestine and the Arab-Israeli conflict and its repercussions. Perhaps the most important thing that expresses his positions and summarizes them is what he said in describing his feelings on the day of Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem: “I confess timidly, while I was on the seashore in Alexandria, that I could not control myself when I heard Cairo Radio talking about Arrangements for President Sadat's arrival in Jerusalem on the evening of November 19, 1977. Among other things, it says: An Israeli Air Force squadron will go out to meet President Sadat's plane. I could not control myself and did not know at that moment why? So, I covered my eyes with my palms and burst into tears that I had not known since that terrible moment. I stood next to Gamal Abdel Nasser's bed while he was taking his last breath, and I could not control my feelings and surrendered myself to a sad silence that overwhelmed me for long days. And he said once when Menachem Begin visited Egypt in 1980, describing his feelings, "His convoy was in front of the window of my office, crossing the Nile Bridge. At that moment - and for a few minutes - I had an overwhelming feeling that I had no choice but to pack my bags and leave, but after hours I asked myself: Should I leave the Nile Bridge to him? And the answer came from deep within me: Neither the Jordan Bridge, nor the bridge of a small spring of water on the soil of any Arab land.

He remained until the last day of his life saying that defending Palestine is defending Egyptian national security and Arab national security, regardless of the organic connection between Egypt and Palestine, the two countries that belong to one Arab nation.

I say on the centenary of his birth, we were faced with a first-class Arab strategic thinker in the field of Arab and Egyptian national security who possessed a vision of the Arab reality and future that was unparalleled.