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Apr. 1, 2005 In 1952, the Egyptian people, under the leadership of Gamal Abdel Nasser, staged a coup d'état, deposing King Farouk, a puppet of the British, and installing Muhammad Naguib as president in 1953. Naguib, in his turn, was deposed by Nasser, who became Egypt's second president in 1954. Until about that time there had been as many as 80,000 Jews in Egypt, they or their parents having arrived in the late 19th or early 20th centuries from the Ottoman Empire, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. At the time of Nasser's rise to power, Israel's prime minister was David ben Gurion (alias David Grün of Plonsk, Poland). Israel's defense minister was Pinhas Lavon. It was probably either ben Gurion or Lavon who instigated a false-flag operation in Egypt that ended in a scandal known as the Lavon Affair. Also implicated were Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres, both protégés of ben Gurion. Nine Egyptian Jewish men and one Egyptian Jewish woman, who had never even so much as visited Israel, began organizing pro-Israel, anti-Egypt political activist cells in Alexandria and Cairo. Their names were Moshe Marzouk, Shmuel Azar, Yosef Carmon, Meir Binnet, Victor Levy, Philip Nathanson, Robert Dassa, Meir Meyuhas, Meir Za'afran, and Ms. Marcelle Nimio. One of their goals was to keep the British in Egypt perpetually, as they felt Britain would be a buffer between Israel and the increasingly hostile Arab population. In the early 50's, Avraham Dar, an Israeli undercover agent knowledgeable in techniques of sabotage and espionage, was sent by ha-Mossad, Israeli intelligence, to make contact with these Egyptian Jews. Dar, pretending to be a British citizen of Gibraltar by the name of John Darling, instructed his new friends in such things as photography and making explosives. In 1952, several of these Egyptian Jews were sent to Israel for intensive training in sabotage and underground techniques preparatory for a piece of treachery known as Operation Suzannah. The idea was to frame Egyptian Arabs for acts of terrorism against the US and England, in order to discredit the newly-formed Egyptian government. Before the operation was set in motion, Avraham Dar was replaced by Avraham Seidenberg, another Israeli versed in espionage and sabotage. He went to Germany first and got credentialed as a former SS officer by the name of Paul Frank. He would also take part in the phoney terrorist attacks that the Egyptian Jews were devising. On July 2, 1954, the Egyptian Jewish gang bombed post offices and American libraries in Alexandria and Cairo, A few days later, Philip Nathanson, on his way to a movie theater, was injured by the explosion of a bomb he was carrying, but surviving, he was arrested, hospitalized and, later, jailed. It was only a matter of time before Mukhabarat, Egyptian intelligence, rounded up the whole crew. Only Seidenberg escaped, returning to Israel as a hero, but the nature of his mission was not revealed publicly. Trials were held in 1954. There was a good deal of pressure just to hang them all, but the fledgling Egyptian government was looking westward, and sought not to create the bad publicity this would generate. Only Marzouk and Azar were hanged. Carmon and Binnet committed suicide in prison. Levy and Nathanson got life, and the others received lengthy sentences. Apparently, they all suffered torture during the proceedings. The judge, Fuad ad-Digwi, later admitted that the verdicts and the sentences had been dictated to him before the beginning of the trial. In the ensuing scandal, ben Gurion and Lavon blamed each other for instigating the attacks. Ben Gurion resigned, but later became prime minister again, only to resign again. Thus, the "Lion of Israel" spent his last days in retirement in obscurity. Dayan and Peres were shown to have produced forged paperwork tending to incriminate Lavon, but Lavon resigned in disgrace. These machinations were kept secret from the Israeli public until years later, with Israel disclaiming any responsibility. Even as late as 1978, the year of the Camp David accords, Israel remained mum on this subject. Israel is not mum now though. Quite the contrary, the Egyptian Jewish agents provocateurs were honored recently by Moshe Katsav, the president of Israel, in a semi-centennial ceremony. Said Katsav, "Although it still a sensitive situation, we decided now to express our respect for these heroes," that is, the heroes that firebombed American libraries in Cairo and Alexandria to provoke American wrath against Egypt. Incidentally, much later it turned out that Avraham Seidenberg may have been a double agent, working for Egypt, and that he may have denounced the gang to the Egyptian authorities. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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