[IsraelTimes] In an excerpt from his [unpublished]​ memoir, a professor of Arabic literature describes the horror at learning his country had lost the Six Day War and the shockwaves that followed the defeat.
Egypt’s disastrous defeat in the 1967 war with Israel was the shock of my generation. I was fifteen at the time and the war broke out during our school exams. I was living in Alexandria with my parents, my sister and my older brother, his wife and their children. The family, with the exception of my brother and myself, decided to move for the duration of the war to Biyala, our village in the Nile Delta.
The country was gripped with war hysteria. Ahmed Said of Cairo Radio’s "Voice of the Arabs" hurled threats of annihilation at the enemy. "Bushra ya ’arab, (Good news O Arabs!)," he would shout, "the day has come; let us erase Israel from the map!" |