Hossam Badrawi Official Website
As usual, in the month of October, I communicate with young people who dream of tomorrow, including the youth of my family and those who work with me in public work, especially the Takatof Association and Education First, and the Association for the Dissemination of Culture and Knowledge, in addition to my students at the university. A group of young people who were with me from a distance, respecting social distancing. In my lecture to them on Zoom, in which I spoke about the great victory of October, I told them that the sixth day of October is the greatest day of my life, because whoever has not lived the humiliation of defeat (67) cannot taste the beauty, impact and value (73).
I was in the Bachelor of Medicine in Qasr Al-Ainy, and each of us had a brother, father, friend or relative in the army who fought for the country’s dignity. We were chilling around the radio as we heard real, staid military statements unlike in 67. The media learned from the mistakes of the past and was honest with the people, and the country’s leaders learned from the great Egyptian people and were up to the level of responsibility..
Suddenly one of the young men who was born 30 years later said to me:
“It is not so strong, Doctor Hossam. There are books and articles that say that Egypt did not win this battle in the first place. Who do we believe?
Another said: You did not say that about a war (56) and it came out in the end, with its consent, not victory, and Israel occupied Sinai after that, had it not been for the intervention of America.
I said: “This is not true, because the outcome of a war battle is known by those who imposed their will on the other, in (56) Egypt imposed its will on England, France and Israel, and every country uses its armies and diplomacy to achieve the purpose. At the end of the war, Egypt imposed its control over the Suez Canal and regained the Sinai, so the result of the war was a victory for Egypt, and the resignation of the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
As for (73), we basically believed, and the whole world affirms, the impossibility of crossing the Suez Canal and penetrating the Bar Lev Line, which was considered at the time the strongest lines of defense in the history of world war, with the technological and strategic superiority of Israeli aviation. It was the belief of the world that this was an end situation that would not change.
What happened in the end is the crossing of our forces with wise organization and leadership, changing the stable military situation, then negotiating from a position of strength and not defeat.. All that happened after that was the opening of the Suez Canal to global navigation, the return of the displaced people of Port Said, Ismailia and Suez, and the restoration of Sinai. The October war was part of an integrated strategy to restore dignity and land. Solidarity with the military and the diplomatic and legal work to restore the last point in Taba, and the Sinai became complete in the possession of Egypt once again.
They said, “But the number of our forces in Sinai has been determined, and the restoration of Sinai is considered deficient…”.
I said: “You and I go to (Sharm el-Sheikh) and (Saint Catherine), and until the start of ISIS terrorism, we used to go to Arish and roam in Sinai as we wanted. Every gain has a price, and we must understand that and realize that the Golan is still under absolute occupation after fifty years, and that the East Bank is likewise. Rather, Israel brazenly announced the annexation of the Golan to it, and the world began to recognize Israel’s ownership of it, and now America is declaring that as well.”
Do not let the frustrated, who see nothing but defeat, transfer to you their negative energy.. Egypt won, in war and negotiation, and we have changed a geographical and historical reality.
They said, “Why do we only read rumors and verbal outbursts in the media that make us really doubt the large number of outbidding?”
I said: You have a right, and you have a duty… The truth, I agree with you that media outbursts, blowing up victory and hiding mistakes as if we are angels and Superman question the facts.
But we must also search, read the memoirs of our heroes and enemies, and make up our minds. The truth is that our army and our people won after defeat, and we did not surrender, and we regained the land after (6) years of the Israeli occupation.
The truth is that the army sought the highest qualifications from civil society, so its performance level rose, and science entered its flanks, and that the people, despite their anxiety, impatience, and the migration of a quarter of its population internally supported its soldiers and overcame their pain and triumphed.
I would like to remind you once again that October (6) is really the greatest day in my life, as we were surprised that our army crossed and achieved a victory, and my feeling of pride and pride will not be forgotten. Everyone volunteered according to their abilities, and Egypt actually won.
Another young man said: What is the importance of the Golan to Syria, and why did Israel announce its annexation from among the occupied lands?
I said: The Golan is a strategy for Syria, and in the event that Syria is able to do so, I think that several cities inside occupied Palestine can be threatened. But your question made me remind you that every time I read a statement about the Arab lands that are still under the Israeli occupation, I find them decreasing in the memory of the daily and periodic media, as it no longer mentions the West Bank, the Golan and, more recently, all of Jerusalem, and almost the sources of the Jordan River and villages from southern Lebanon and the rest of the villages and valleys of Palestine, which expanded and expanded Unfortunately, the Israeli settlements – I say – are almost forgotten by the media. There is even a fear of dividing Syria itself between Turkey and Israel and the ethnic divisions. The Golan has gone out of sight, and this could have happened to the Sinai.
Whoever lived and remembers October 73 must now be over fifty years old, and the teaching of the October War in education curricula must be based on a scientific vision and not rhetorical arguments that make students not believe the facts afterwards.
There are tournaments that are not often talked about, such as the heroism of the Egyptian people, whose army returned with a cruel and humiliating defeat in 67, which forced the country’s president to resign, as a result of the failure. The people did not accept the resignation as a symbol of not accepting defeat. so what? Jokes and mockery of the Egyptian army in the whole world and the Arab countries, and suddenly the Egyptian military uniform became an area of underestimation in word and deed, and the emigration of citizens living on the canal line into the country by the millions.
Here, a civilized metal appeared for the Egyptian people, who resisted the negative wave directed at the army and raised its morale, and every educated certificate holder participated in the army without knowing when to leave
He embraced civil life and the people accepted the emigrants of their homeland, and this people restored to their army their prestige and prestige.
This is a battle that no one talks about and no memories of.
The people of Egypt revived their army after the defeat, and the army of Egypt revived its people with its victory in October.
We must know that there are lessons learned to remember and remember in October. First, that the army and the people are one organization, and without the civil society’s support for its armed forces, there would be no victory and all attempts to divide the country by separating the army from the people and dividing the people into nervous and geographic groups, we will conquer them with the civilizational awareness of this great people.. Second, that if we had entered the October War without change What is essential in the concept of battle management, and coordination between civil, diplomacy, and military action, is victory.. We learned at that time that it is not possible to do the same thing in the same way and wait for different results, so the concept of military action that led to defeat changed to a new concept that led to victory. The third is that there is no victory without mistakes and sacrifices, and what is not documented as if it never happened, and as we analyze defeat, we must analyze victory. The defeat of 67 was harsh, harsh, harsh, but change occurred and experience accumulated, so that victory in 73 occurred. When the 1967 war happened, I was in high school, and as young people we were under a false sense of power and waiting to enter Tel Aviv at the end of June 5.. We were deceived by the hypocrisy of the authority, and the fear of expressing free opinion and the people were in a state of slumber and false ecstasy until our horizon and our army returned to escape And the enemy in the sky of Cairo..a lesson that I will never forget, created in my political conscience a rejection of the singularity of thought, or the belief of what has no proof. It created in my mental structure a rejection of hypocrisy and a desire for transparency and disclosure.
My children, the lesson of October is great, and its results can be applied today by insisting on the plurality of opinions, freedom of media, respect for differences that reveal the truth, construction rather than demolition, positivity, working as a team, and benefiting from the energies of all people.
Happy October.
