Hossam Badrawi Official Website
Attached is the original article by Dr. Hossam Badrawi today in Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper before parts of it were deleted, entitled “Between October and October”
Between October 6, 1973, and October 7, 2023, fifty years passed. October 73 witnessed a historic event for the first Arab victory in a war battle in centuries, which was unexpected at the time, but was preceded by planning and building a military front and participation from all sects of the Egyptian people and the alliance of a great people with its army and the entry of educated people and holders of higher degrees into military service, sacrificing their career future, as no one knew when they would return to civilian life.
It was a battle aimed at changing and moving a situation that had lasted 6 years after a shameful defeat in 6 hours. The goal was to negotiate from a position respected by the enemy and those standing behind it, in front of it, and with it..
It was a calculated adventure, but it also carried terrifying possibilities, and it came to an important result, which is the return of Sinai to Egypt and its sovereignty over its lands. Regardless of what the desperate wretches say about the October War and their attempt to turn it into a defeat because it did not eliminate Israel as they imagine, there are lessons and experience that the Egyptian people gained from this war.
First: The army and the people are one system, and without the support of civil society for its armed forces, there would not have been victory, and all attempts to divide the country by separating the army from the people and dividing the people into ideological, religious and geographical categories will fail with the civilized awareness of this great people.
Second: If we had entered the October War without a fundamental change in the concept of managing the military institution and emphasizing the professionalism of the military army, and coordination between civil, diplomatic and military action, there would not have been victory. The concept of military action that led to defeat has changed to a new concept that led to victory.
October 2023, after 50 years, it was not an event but an incident, as Hamas factions attacked Israel in an hour of time without calculations and without measuring long-term effects.
I asked at the time: Who will pay the price???
And I answered as a writer, most likely the Palestinian people and most likely Egypt will bear responsibilities in one way or another. And after a full year of the Hamas heroic act, what can now be measured and documented has been proven.
Israel launched a war of extermination against the Palestinian people, destroyed the Gaza Strip and displaced millions. Israel tested the whole world, and it was assured of the absolute military and material support of the United States of America. Rather, American politicians raced to please Israel in a blatant way that had not happened in the past or present. Israel has confirmed the perpetual sleep and coma of the Arab world, and the tragedy of its leaders who are unable to work together on even a joint condemnation of the criminal act. Rather, they have made matters worse by suppressing the youth of their countries, to the point that youth demonstrations in Western universities filled the news, and demonstrations by Western peoples and their condemnation of Israel’s inhuman cruelty filled the streets. We have not seen a single protest from students in a single Arab university, nor an expression of the anger of the masses, despite our knowledge of its existence, in any single Arab street.
What happened from Israel is not related to a reaction or action within a limited geographical area, but rather a new procedure that extends beyond Palestine.
Was the action and reaction a “major behavioral folly” without comprehensive awareness, or is it part of new arrangements that were revealed with complete clarity by the head of the Netanyahu gang government on October 9, 2023, and then reaffirmed with more comprehensive clarity at the end of September 2024, after he carried out the second invasion operation in Lebanon.
The project is the new Middle Eastern arrangements, whose base is launched from Tel Aviv in implementation of a long-term vision of creating major facts that will have the upper hand in shaping the penultimate scene.
From my point of view, the final scene will include Sinai, but not in this shot.
Unprecedented, blatant, aggressive lust, carried out by a gang, not a country, believing that it possesses “immunity above the law”, not in its international dimension, as it is outside it, but in the regional environment, relying on technological, military and financial superiority that exceeds its size, but it expresses the philosophy of occupation and Western control of the Arab homeland in new forms.
The belief that the current battle is a settling of accounts between Iran and its tools with Israel is nothing but absolute political naivety, and an escape from the major confrontation, as the real conflict is not between them, but rather both of them are working for new consensual arrangements, under the auspices of the United States of America, arrangements that grant Iran something in Iraq and formal security in exchange for changing the political structure in the region and building a sectarian system that serves its strategic interests and divides the Arabs from each other, and all in the interest of the form of the new Western colonialism and the savage Zionism that establishes the pillars of its project to impose the features of “Israel is greater than the geography of Palestine”, and there is no temporary objection to a smaller project that grows every two decades. The time to reach “Greater Israel” from the Nile to the Euphrates, which has not disappeared, and will not disappear, but rather it is possible that it will expand eastward to the Arabian Peninsula.
This will continue as long as there is no real wall of resistance capable of destroying the idea of Israel and its ambition.
The features of the project were revealed with the course of the war of aggression on Palestine and Lebanon, as maps were published and then withdrawn, to send messages that would be imprinted in the conscience of the youth of Israel and the Arab world about the nature of Israel.
The talk about arrangements for a new Middle East by the Netanyahu government is not a return of arrangements to what they were on October 7, 2023, but rather steps for major changes, if they continue on their path according to the plan, they will always need “major events” in order to implement them.
The current war project is not a response to a side action that could have ended in hours, but rather a complementary plan for the American-English plan of 2011 towards a new Middle East from which homelands and nations will fall and be erased.
Are there weapons that the Arab countries possess that have the ability to be the owners of the comprehensive change project to create a new Middle East, according to concepts that stem from the supreme national interest in its modern form, far from the old concepts? Is there a possibility to create a consensus vision based on a new construction project that protects the Arab entity from current distortions, restores its status, stops the fascist dimension of Israel, and puts it before a choice, coexistence according to the law of the region or leaving for another region? The answer is, yes, there are weapons, including the oil weapon, which was used only a little during the October 73 war.
And there is, and this is more important, the weapon of people and the potential of the youth of the Arab world, especially Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, who can be a powerful force within two decades if we wake up to the priority of education, technology, training, capacity building and providing opportunities.
We should not seek a momentary reaction in a snapshot of what is happening from global Zionism and the Western invasion of the Middle Eastern countries and the occupation of the minds of their citizens and the terrible economic pressure on Egypt in particular.
Egypt will remain the hope for regional balance if it keeps itself away from the trap of entering into military adventures for two decades, provided that there is a plan to build the capabilities of its youth to be the pillar of the future industry.
We must seek sustainable solutions.
Cooperation between Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iraq may be the heart of the possibility of standing up to the Zionist tide.
I conclude my article with a quote from an article by Dr. Ibrahim Nawar, with an adaptation that I see as appropriate to our position, where he says:
A rational person can trick his mind, deceive it and deceive others, lie to it and to others, and falsify the truth about himself and others, until he himself becomes a victim of deception, lies and falsification. This is what happens on a large scale in politics and in relations between nations, and the media and social media technologies have increased its impact.
I believe that some of us must understand before speaking, and a person will not understand unless he tries to learn, and he will not learn unless he hears, reads and sees with an open mind beyond the limits of what he sees and knows. He will not see the truth as it is, nor will he hear the opinion as it is, nor will he read the argument as it is, unless he comes out of the prison or the closed box that he made for himself to live in.
The leaders of our Arab world live in the box of power, wealth and rule and see only what they want to see.
In conclusion, Dr. Ibrahim says, and I praise what he says, “We have what we look forward to, and we have what we fear for, and in facing it there is what we fear, and what could hinder us, but my certainty is that we are the masters of our destiny, the masters of our future, we make what we want if we want. We may make mistakes, and we may make the right, the matter depends on us speaking with knowledge, and working with knowledge, and stopping celebrating failure as pride, which we must celebrate. Once again, I warn against reproducing failure, especially in fateful issues related to the future of our coming generations.
