The Most Dangerous Aspect of Abdel Nasser's Recordings

Asharq Al-Awsat

30-04-2025

A leaked recording of a 17-minute conversation from August 1970 between the late Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Muammar Gaddafi, in which they discuss the conflict with Israel and the Palestinian cause, has discredited ideas and movements that long had fed off 'another' version of Abdel Nasser.
Yes, there were two sides to Abdel Nasser. As Mr. Mamdouh Al-Muhaini noted in an article on these pages, the sensible Abdel Nasser, whom we hear in the leaked clip, buried the other version of him that stirred emotions and inflamed passions at the time, leading to Arab disaster.
As Mr. Abdulrahman al-Rashed wrote in his article, Abdel Nasser 'kept chasing his slogans until he became, in practice, a hostage of the monster he had created, the radicalized street demanding more boisterous speeches and statements.'
Much has been said and will be said about that recording, which shocked Abdel Nasser's followers. At one point, he tells Gaddafi:
'Leave us alone... When are we supposed to fight and where would we get weapons from? Those who seek war and liberation should go ahead. How are you going to liberate Tel Aviv? The Jews are ahead of us; I'm telling you.'
Abdel Nasser adds that the Israelis 'are superior to us on land. And they're superior in the air. I'm not saying this because I'm defeatist. I'm saying that if we really want to achieve a goal, we must be realistic. How are we going to achieve it?'
'If achieving that goal is unlikely... then we're stepping away from the whole thing. Leave us be. We support a defeatist peace of surrender. And I can accept that with a clear conscience. Those of you who want to wage a war should go ahead and do that.'
Yes, all of the above is indeed shocking to Nasserists. He himself repeatedly points to this in the recording. Fully aware of the potential repercussions, he was afraid. He was afraid to embark on a peace process and afraid to speak rationally for fear of clashing with the 'monster' he had created, as Mr. al-Rashed put it.
The most alarming segment of the recording (and this is not to downplay the significance of the statements that shocked his followers) is his apathy about Jordan's stability. Indeed, says that he hoped the 'fedayeen' take over Jordan so everyone could see what King Hussein would do.
He went on to say that if the 'fedayeen' were to rule Jordan, they would then have to face the realities of fighting Israel, thereby understanding how difficult it really is to achieve anything through war or armed struggle. I say that this is the most alarming because it reveals how, driven by personal desires, Abdel Nasser engaged recklessly and arrogantly with the regimes.
Meanwhile, journalists and intellectuals have romanticized, on weak grounds, the reasoning of the military officers who destroyed Iraq, Syria, and others. Meanwhile, Abdel Nasser was speaking purely out of rivalry, a thirst for power, and contempt for the stability of neighboring states.
I say this is the most alarming because anyone who has reflected on the destruction of those countries now finds that Iraq, Syria, South Yemen, and others are no longer part of the region. Those who had once vowed to throw Israel into the sea ended up devastating their own countries and the Palestinian cause.
And here we are today. We fear for the viability of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders. Borders that, as Abdel Nasser said in the recording, would cancel out the demands of 1948. Today, the real question is: can a deal that returns to the 1967 border even still be achieved after the events of October 7, 2023?
So, where are the ideologues now? Where are those who once celebrated the fall of regimes or supported Yahya Sinwar; what do they have to say about the revelations? Who is willing to learn the lesson?