Thinking back to the battle that raged in the skies above the Delta city of el- Mansoura on the afternoon of October 14, 1973 should help all Egyptians to forget for a moment any concerns they have about the nation's future or any frustrations they might feel at the slow pace of change since the January revolution. That battle should fill them with pride. With the Egyptian army trying with some difficulty to advance further into the Sinai Peninsula, the Israeli air force took its chance to try and establish the same kind of air superiority that had brought it victory in the Six Day War in 1967. Advancing from three different directions, their plan was to take out Egyptian air bases around Mansoura, Tanta and Salihiya. Their plan didn't work. The air battle of el- Mansoura proved decisive for the Egyptian Air Force. Seventeen Israeli fighter planes were shot down that afternoon, with the loss of six Egyptian jets. The idea of Israeli air superiority had been crushed. Just what it had felt like a week before, on the afternoon of October 6, 1973 is hard for us now to imagine. For decades now, we have listened to the re-writing of history as it has been relayed to us from news channels all over the world. The Israeli state has managed to fool the whole world into believing its propaganda. Bringing professional liars onto our television screens, the greatest blow it has dealt in this war of words has been to make Arabs and Muslims feel that there is nothing they can do. Faced with Israeli superiority in every sense, they are told, it is useless to resist. With the backing of their American friends, they have managed to convince the world of the rightness of their claim to the land of Palestine, taken from its people in 1948. Remembering October 6 should bring us all back to our senses. Remember that Egypt had been crushed in the Six Day War, with its army and air force left in ruins. It had seemed to the world and the region that Israel would now be supreme forever. All this changed on October 6. It was only six years, remember, since the crushing, humiliating defeat of the Arab armies by Israel, prompting President Nasser to announce his resignation, only to withdraw it again after mass demonstrations in his favour. In that 1967 war, whole air forces had been destroyed on the ground, without a plane taking off. The suddenness of the Israeli attack had left no time for preparation and the Arab nations were left overwhelmed and defeated. The entire Sinai Peninsula and even Jerusalem itself had been lost. In fact, it is true that ever since the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian soil in 1947, the Arab nations had been at a loss as to how they could respond to their neighbour. Defeated in war in 1948, they remained defeated and disunited in the face of Israeli strength. During the Tripartite Aggression by Britain, France and Israel in 1956 to protect their interests in the Suez Canal Zone, Egypt would have been overcome if pressure from the United Nations and the US had not prompted the aggressors to withdraw. Nasser managed to turn seeming defeat into victory. It was a pyrrhic victory, though, since the Six Day War managed to destroy any confidence the relatively new Egyptian Republic might have had. In the face of all this, then, imagine how those ordinary Egyptians must have felt when they turned on their radio sets on that afternoon of October 6, 1973 to hear that Egyptian forces had crossed the Suez Canal and were already advancing into the Sinai desert. The attack had begun at 2pm, the hottest part of the day. The soldiers had been fasting since dawn. Yet, with cries of Allahu Akhbar, and under cover from the Egyptian air force, these soldiers, both Christian and Muslim, had forged their way across the Canal to plant the Egyptian flag once more on the land of the Sinai Peninsula. The myth of an invincible Israeli state had been shattered. Historians will one day relate how much of a military victory this actually was. Under intense pressure from the United States, eager to support their Israeli friends and sending massive armaments of the most sophisticated kind to their aid, President Sadat was compelled to sue for peace, much to the disdain of his Arab allies who had attacked at the same time and on different fronts. History will also tell us one day, when peace has at last come to the region and the Palestinian people have all returned to their homeland, whether or not President Sadat was right to have signed a Treaty with the state of Israel, establishing normal relations and recognising its right to exist on Palestinian soil. What historians cannot dispute is the new heart which the October War Victory put back into the Egyptian people. Historians cannot dispute the tears of joy that were shed that October afternoon throughout the Arab world as the Israelis were beaten back, shocked and stunned at what had happened to them. So, almost forty years on, what are we to think? Was the October War Victory just an event of the past to be remembered with nostalgia? Or does it have something to say to the world today? Even though the state of Israel continues to feed the world's media with its own version of history, in which Arabs have no role to play, the Victory of October 1973 should inspire us with new hope. Were the Crusaders not in the land of Palestine for two hundred years, with kings with crowns on their heads sitting on royal thrones? Yet, when their time was up these Crusaders left. This Israel has existed in Palestine for a little over sixty years. The October War Victory should first of all inspire us all, young and old, to resist the lies and to make the truth, concealed for sixty years, known to the world. It should re-inspire us to continue boycotting all those goods and services which only serve to bolster the economy of the Israeli state. And it should fill us all with the confidence to resist this fait accompli, sold to us again and again by the world's media, wherein Israel and her friends will decide borders and nations. The reawakening which we are seeing throughout the Arab and Muslim world teaches us that everything is possible. There is nothing that cannot be changed if people have the heart and the faith to make it so. Inspired by the October War Victory we are filled with hope that justice will prevail and that peace will one day return to the land of the prophets, if only we have the courage and the humility to believe that, with the help of Allah, everything is possible. The author of eight books about Islam, British Muslim writer, IdrisTawfiq, divides his time between Egypt and the UK as a speaker, writer and broadcaster. You can visit his website at www.idristawfiq.com
