MEHAT Presents Khaled Fahmy, "The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: A Revisionist Account"

This talk addresses the 1967 Arab-Israeli War from an Egyptian perspective. Despite the lack of original documents, the talk will tell the story of this brief war by weaving a narrative of the life-long friendship between President Gamal Abdel-Nasser and the Commander-in-Chief of his army, Field-Marshal Abdel-Hakim 'Amir. The lecture will give a detailed account of military operations in Sinai during the brief days of combat while also linking these operations to the labyrinth of factional fighting, political intrigue and treasonous plotting in Cairo. The lecture will end by raising questions about how nearly all of the generals responsible for the dismal performance of the army evaded justice, and how, generations later, Egyptians still don't have a closure around this most catastrophic of defeats."

Khaled Fahmy is Sultan Qaboos bin Sa'id Professor of Modern Arabic Studies at the University of Cambridge. His research interests include the social and cultural history of the modern Middle East, with a specialization on nineteenth-century Egypt. He is the author, most recently, of the award-winning In Quest of Justice: Islamic Law and Forensic Medicine in Modern Egypt.