A decades-old audio recording made at a pivotal moment in the history of the Middle East has recently come to light, and it has a direct bearing on one of the most pervasive and important issues in the region: the Arab-Israeli conflict.
It reveals what went on at a meeting in August 1970 between Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leader of Egypt, and his newly installed counterpart from Libya, Muammar Gaddafi.
Published on Nasser TV—a YouTube channel administered by the family of the late president on 25 April—the recording has gone viral. While there is significant historical detail on how Abdel Nasser’s thinking was changing at the time, the popularity of the encounter comes from its direct relevance to contemporary politics in a region beset by stubborn conflict.
The five-decade-old exchange reveals thinking that has lingered in Cairo to the present day. At the time, Gaddafi was 28 and new to the regional political arena. He had taken power a year earlier by deposing the Western-backed Senussi monarchy in Libya. His political base was similar to Egypt’s Free Officers' Movement, which ended the country’s monarchy in 1952 and brought Abdel Nasser to power in 1954.
Gaddafi idealised Abdel Nasser and the idea of Arab nationalism that he championed. This is probably why Abdel Nasser did most of the talking in the 17-minute exchange.
Gaddafi's naiveté is exposed when, during the conversation, he suggests that the Arabs muster military force to fight Israel and its allies: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, among others, to regain territories occupied by Israel in 1948 and 1967 once and for all: "We either remove the aggression, or the aggression removes us," he tells Abdel Nasser.
A changed man
In front of Gaddafi was a man who was almost twice his age. And Abdel Nasser was tired of fighting, having seen enough since his country’s defeat by Israel in 1967. The recording reveals how the 1967 War had sobered Abdel Nasser's view of his nation’s relative strength, making him hesitant to wage any future campaign to regain territory occupied by Israel in 1948 and 1967.
During the conversation, Abdel Nasser rails against Arab rulers for failing to provide him with the military support they promised for his showdown with Israeli forces occupying the Sinai Peninsula. He explains to the young Gaddafi how Israel spent more on its military than the budget of the entire Arab world's militaries combined. This was clear on the battlefield, where he says that for every Israeli soldier killed, Egypt would lose up to 10 of its own troops.
He goes on to say that the best-case scenario would be for Egypt to regain the Sinai in return for recognising Israel and staying away from military confrontations. Other Arab armies were welcome to fight Israel, he explained, even adding that he could pledge up to 50mn Egyptian pounds to support such efforts, but ultimately, he would keep Egypt out of it.
"Just leave us alone", he says.
Face-saving exit
A few months earlier, US Secretary of State, William P. Rogers, proposed a plan to end the War of Attrition between Egypt and Israel and promote a comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict in the light of a decision from the United Nations Security Council decision—Resolution 242— which called for Israeli withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967.
What came to be known as the "Rogers Plan" gave Abdel Nasser a face-saving exit: to regain the Egyptian territories Israel occupied in 1967 without fighting, in return for recognising Israel. In the recording, Abdel Nasser argues in favour of this peaceful option, even as he appears aware of the reputational danger—and even the direct personal threat— he would face, with most Arabs likely to accuse him of letting them down and betraying the Palestinian cause.
In the recording, Abdel Nasser also tells Gaddafi that he would accept a demilitarised West Bank if he were ruling Jordan, which was responsible for the administration of the West Bank from 1950 until 1988. In his view, this was better than losing the West Bank altogether to the Israelis and a step towards getting more land back.
Aversion to military confrontation
The way the recording reveals the transition in Egypt’s position on the Arab-Israeli conflict sheds light on its current policies vis-à-vis Israel and Gaza, where its primary concern is safeguarding its own borders and not getting itself into outside military adventures.
For his part, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi described the October 7 2023 Hamas attack on Israel as a "zero-sum game" where there are neither winners nor losers. Much like Abdel Nasser, this was intended more as an invitation for realism than a call for surrender, as some critics claim.
Apart from highlighting the enormity of change happening in Abdel Nasser's thinking, his argument for a peaceful settlement of conflict shows that the treaty Egypt signed with Israel nine years later would have been something he favoured. His successor, Anwar Sadat, however, ended up paying with his life for making this peace with Israel, when Islamist radicals assassinated him in October 1981.
