Two months ago, an audio recording from August 1970 went viral, with Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser telling a young Muammar Gaddafi that liberating Palestine was nearly impossible. His preference for entering into peace negotiations with Israel upset those who viewed him as a revolutionary.
The same group of people had long criticised Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as a "traitor" for visiting Israel in 1977 and signing the Camp David Accords in 1978. They refused to believe the man who championed pan-Arabism had been willing to negotiate with the Israelis just three years after his defeat in the June 1967 war, and mere weeks before his death in September 1970.
A look back at archives of the Arab-Israeli conflict, however, reveals that peace had crossed the Egyptian president’s mind as early as 1952, when he engaged in secret negotiations with Israel, which ultimately failed.
Secret Paris channel
In the autumn of 1952, Egyptian press attaché in Paris Abdel Rahman Sadek was at the Palais de Chaillot, the meeting place of the United Nations General Assembly in France, when an Israeli embassy employee approached him, saying: "I am Jewish, and I want to see peace between Egypt and Israel." Sadek asked, "Are you Jewish or Israeli? Who do you represent?" The Israeli diplomat answered, "I represent Moshe Sharett, and my name is Ziamah Divon."
Moshe Sharett was one of the founding fathers of the State of Israel. His family had immigrated to Palestine in 1906, where he mastered Arabic and spent his childhood between Ramallah and Jaffa. He had met Lebanese leader Riad al-Solh in his early years when the latter vacationed in Palestine with his father. In 1949, Sharett attempted to negotiate peace with Syria under Husni al-Za'im. By 1952, following the military coup that overthrew King Farouk, Sharett sought peace with Egypt and tasked Ziamah Divon with opening a communication channel through Abdel Rahman Sadek.
In a recorded interview with David Ben-Gurion, broadcast by the BBC in the late 1990s, Israel's first prime minister claimed he had tried to reach out to Abdel Nasser via Yugoslav President Josip Tito, proposing direct, secret negotiations. Fearing assassination, Abdel Nasser turned down the offer.
After this brief encounter, Sadek returned to Egypt and met with Abdel Nasser, who immediately asked, "How is your friend?" Abdel Nasser, then a member of the Revolutionary Command Council, was seemingly aware of Sadek’s meeting with Divon. He did not oppose it—in fact, he encouraged it, provided military matters were not discussed. He instructed Sadek to continue unofficial meetings with Divon and to report their progress via written letters sent through diplomatic channels to his office director, Ali Sabri.
Sadek returned to Paris and met Divon again on 1 February 1953, stating that he was authorised to continue the talks by a high-ranking Egyptian political figure, without naming Nasser. Over several meetings in hotels and cafés, they discussed:
1. Halting Egyptian and Israeli media propaganda against each other.
2. Controlling Palestinian military operations from the Gaza Strip.
3. Israel using its influence in Britain to push for the liberation of the Suez Canal.
4. Egypt using its influence to reduce Arab hostility toward Israel.
Sadek asked whether Israel was willing to repatriate Palestinian refugees expelled in 1948. Divon—according to his BBC testimony—said that Israel was open to discussing the matter. Sadek pressed, "How many would you take back? 70%? 80%? 90%?" Divon avoided giving a definite answer and shifted the conversation to Israel’s right to access the Suez Canal. Sadek replied, "Let’s wait for the canal’s liberation first."
The Qibya Massacre
To build trust, both Sharett and Abdel Nasser adhered to the Paris negotiations. Abdel Nasser succeeded in halting fedayeen operations from Gaza but had no control over attacks from Jordan. On 12 October 1953, Palestinian fighters from Jordan attacked an Israeli settlement, killing one woman. In retaliation, the Israeli army, led by a young officer named Ariel Sharon who went on to become prime minister, raided the West Bank village of Qibya on 14 October, killing 69 Palestinians and destroying 45 homes.
The brutal response was shocking. Sharett claimed he had not authorised it. In Paris, Sadek confronted Divon, who blamed "Israeli extremists" loyal to former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Upon returning to Egypt, Abdel Nasser told Sadek: "I’ve decided to enter the battle between Israeli moderates and hardliners. I will go public, and you can inform your contact in France that I am responsible for these negotiations."
However, Israel’s political climate was not conducive to peace efforts. Ben-Gurion, through Defence Minister Pinhas Lavon, sabotaged the talks.
The Lavon Affair
Lavon plotted a series of terrorist attacks against foreign interests in Egypt, aiming to strain Egypt’s relations with the West, keep British forces in the Suez Canal, and derail the secret Paris talks. Israel recruited a covert cell of 13 Egyptian Jews to carry out sabotage. On 2 July 1954, they bombed a post office in Alexandria. Less than two weeks later, they targeted a theatre and US information offices in Alexandria and Cairo.
One operative was arrested, and under interrogation, the cell’s Israeli ties were exposed. When the news broke on Egyptian state radio, Sharett told his advisor Gideon Rafael, "This can’t be... I’m the prime minister here, and I never authorised this." Sharett urgently contacted Abdel Nasser through Sadek, pleading innocence and requesting clemency for the detainees.
Abdel Nasser responded that the matter was now in the hands of Egyptian and Arab public opinion. At most, he could ensure a fair trial, but he immediately lifted press scrutiny, allowing Egyptian newspapers to attack Israel. The trials began on 11 December 1954 and concluded on 27 January 1955. Two detainees committed suicide in prison, two were hanged, and the rest received prison sentences ranging from seven years to life.
Sharett wrote in his memoirs: "If I don't remove Livon, I would be supporting something rotten that will destroy the Defence Ministry and Army Command. If I do act, it will destroy the party and cause a scandal. What should I do?"
Lavon was eventually forced to resign on 21 February 1955, but the damage was already done. The Sadek-Divon talks collapsed. After the Qibya massacre and the Lavon Affair, Abdel Nasser concluded that fighting Israel was his only option. He reportedly said, "We need weapons, even if they come from the devil himself."
