It was an ancient Egyptian idea to link the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea almost at the present locations.
They dug a canal connecting the River Nile with the northern tip of the Sea of Crocodiles, the present Gulf of Suez, in 19th century B.C. This was the forerunner of the present Suez Canal.
Ancient Egyptian King Necho II (609 B.C. to 593 B.C.) made an attempt at cleansing the canal, which used to be filled with huge quantities of sand.
The king could not complete the work because the war with Persians demanded his full attention.
The Persian Emperor Darius I continued his attempt to dig a navigable waterway between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. The receding sea blocking the canal with sand was a recurring complaint. Emperor Ptolemy II was another Egyptian king who took a keen interest in the canal. After him some Roman emperors too made efforts to make the canal a reality again.
In eighth century A.D. the first Arab Egyptian Governor Amr ibn Al-As began digging the canal calling it the Gulf of the Commander of the Believers. However Caliph Omar ibn Al-Kattab did not approve the idea, fearing that it would endanger the security of the Egyptians and Arabs communities as it might whet the ambitions of the invaders to occupy Egypt and other Arab countries. This fear has been proved right after centuries when the European greed to control and colonize the East became irresistible after the digging of the modern Suez Canal. The canal was navigable until 770 A.D. when Abbasid Caliph Mansour ordered its immediate decommissioning.
It was roughly more than a millennium later that Egyptian Governor Saeed Pasha issued the permission to dig the 195 km Suez Canal on Nov. 30, 1854. The work was completed under the supervision of the French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps.
Fulfilling the forebodings of Caliph Omar, Britain occupied Egypt in 1882 bringing its forces through the new waterway. The succeeding events t led to the Western colonization of the Middle East and finally the foundation of the Sate of Israel and the resulting losses and endless sorrow.
Egypt is currently celebrating the 50th anniversary of the nationalization of Suez Canal though saddened by the Israeli pogroms in Lebanon and Palestine. Nobody in Egypt, or for that matter in the Arab world, would forget the booming words, “In the name of the nation, the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez is hereby declared nationalized and has thereby become an Egyptian joint stock company,” of the late President Gamal Abdul Nasser on July 26, 1956.
Though it was a declaration of the Egyptian sovereignty over its own territory and resources, the entire Arab world was proud of Nasser’s heroic move that affirmed the Arab right to retrieve their rights from their European colonial powers.
Britain and France, the major beneficiaries of the maritime canal, were furious at Nasser’s action. They decided to attack and discipline Egypt though some Western leaders advised them to give up the idea of war and make Egypt pay the damages through diplomatic channels. It was a time when there was a general distaste for war and bloodshed. Moreover, the validity of the Suez contract was to expire after 12 years.
However Egypt was determined on nationalization while Britain and France decided to go ahead with their war plans with the support and encouragement of Israel, which wanted to have a share in the canal’s control.
The Anglo-French war did not fulfill its aim but resulted in the resignation of British Premier Anthony Eden and French Prime Minister Guy Mollet. Egypt’s right over the Suez Canal was established for good. Hundreds of British and French soldiers were killed in addition to many Egyptians in the war. No one at that time or later accused Egyptians, who fought for their national right, of terrorism.
Port Said soon transformed into a fast developing city at the mouth of the Suez Canal with a huge light house to guide the ships seeking to enter it, though the city was ravaged by the arrogant colonial soldiers in the war.
I underscore this point because the demolitions and destructions in Palestine and Lebanon by Israel and United States will end soon. Like Port Said the Lebanese and Palestinian towns and cities will start flourishing some day in a not very distant future. Extremist Jews of Israel will, on the contrary, live in fear and anguish over their criminal acts and in grief over the loss of the lives of their fellow men apart from the billions of shekels they wasted. In the meantime the Americans would lose their last shred of respect, if any, in the Arab world. The Arab and Muslim loathing for the present US president and his relatives who adopt a hostile stand toward the Muslims will last forever. This is what the history taught us and the lessons from history never go wrong.
