Inspired by sandmonkey’s remark on gifts to Egypt from foreign revolutionaries, I went to see the 1973 War Panorama the other day – also to learn more about the war’s first half. (For some reason, the show stopped before the IDF built four pontoon bridges crossing the canal into the other direction and before Egypt’s Third Army got trapped.)
The panorama is a gift from North Korea:
Now my visit got quite a sad note to it, if you see this CSF conscript who is so scared from his superiors that he does not dare to answer which two countries were fighting in the 1973 war and in which year it started. (See this post on 3arabawy.)
Back to The Crossing: I’ll hire these guys next time I need to cross Salah Selim during rush hour.
PS: On a (maybe not) related note, I’d sponsor one shark soup for anyone who can tell me the secret history of the Korean restaurant deep inside the Cleopatra bunker on Midan Tahrir.
Update: The sign on the first picture reads Panorama creators D.P.R. Korea 1989. I’ll try to enlarge the pictures.
If you really want a heroic socialist North Korean-made extravaganza, check out the Military Museum in the Citadel complex (aka the History of the Free Officers and How Wonderful and Brave they Are museum). They’ve got some good 1973 memorabilia but the 1967 room was oddly cordoned off…ahem.
Don’t know the secret history of the Korean restaurant, but it cetainly does a roaring business in Chinese tour groups, at least two large groups seem to rotate in and out every time I’m there.
Actually, they are Korean tour groups on holy land visits!
Really! Sounded like they were speaking Chinese, and they addressed the restaurant hosts in English, so presumed they weren’t fellow-Koreans.
Yeah, I’ve seen Korean businessmen in there, so I assume the restaurant — which is quite good but hidden — caters a lot to travelling businessmen and Korean tour groups.
Frederik, are you talking about kowloon? Here’s a detailed review
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/660/li3.htm
Maybe they were Chinese. Koreans have this weird thing about only wanting to eat Korean food, even when traveling to foreign countries. Kowloon is a favorite of Korean embassy folks.
I’m Egyptian and i beleive we should show the second half of the war showing the Israelis cross the other side.
But, we should also show what happened to the Israelis when they tried to take over Suez city (after crossing to the Western side)…
Any troops tried to go in there were wiped out. The tanks (till recent) were deisplaed on your way from Cairo to Suez.
Imagine this, THe israelis who crossed couldn’t take over a small city like Suez and suffered big losses.
Imagine if they really tried to give it a go at Cairo…the capital…lol
No more needed to say!
On the important matter of Korean restaurants in town, have many people checked out the one hidden in the basement of the otherwise seedy Amoun hotel on Midan Sphinx? Paxy’s is, to my mind, the best Korean restaurant in town — and also does a roaring business of Korean tour groups.
Yes! Paxy’s food is fabulous. They also have karaoke, in principle…bet that’s a big hit with the visiting businesspeople.
To fadfadation: the 1973 is a sad joke. Egyptians really think they won 1973 while the rest of the Arab world knows they lost. Seriously, if the war ended as Israel virtualy surrounded and could have destroyed the 25,000 troops in the ‘famous’ third army, how is that a victory for Egypt? Superpower interention (american pressure from Kissinger) spared them humiliating defeat. The Egyptian argument that they ‘won’ is that the war set the conditions for a political settlement and thus a ‘victory’. but was it a military victory? hardly. As much as this site and its respondents criticize Israel, one thing should be recognized, at least ‘loss’ is memorialized. Israel treats it as almost a defeat The 1973 -Yom Kippur war is thought to be a tragic war where Israel was caught off guard but I would say Israel achieved more of a military victory than Egypt did. You cannot just divide the war in the first few hours and then ignore the rest of it as the Panorama museum does. This is not history.
To rl: I have been there, one of the “25,000 troops in the ‘famous’ third army”. Yes I might agree that it ended up as a “sad joke” but it was a victory and a real one between the 6th and 19th of October then. Yes I was there crossing over the canal, helping in destroying the Barlev lines, taking the ten kilometers strip that will assure us victory. But then, for God know why, they took off the protection of my back leaving me no choice but to run back to my unit all I have in mind is to avoid capture and to die where my identiry could be recognised. So yes, I have had my victory and it was real but they have stolen it from me, not the Israelis of course. At any rate, it is not a joke for me sad or otherwise. So please be careful. Those 25.000 made a victory and real big one considering the circumestances but it has been stolen from them.
To RL:
Besides what misse said (which is a good point),
Of course it is not right to split the war into two…and i did say WE NEED TO SHOW THE WHOLE STORY.
As for the millitary war, well tell me this..
1- Israel as i mentioned before coun;dn’t invade a small town like suez (troops wipped out at any attempt), can they for heavens sakes beat a whole army? or invad Cairo for instance… ??
2- The troops that were on the western side of the canal (towards cairo and suez) which israel and western media show off as the winners, were at least 800KM away from the main support (think of ammo and supply line).
That is a very long line to hold on to for a while.
3- If Israel won, why did the who administration get saked (resign)??
4- Why dod GOlda maeir vanish out of the political life?
5- Why did Egyptians get back their land?
If Israel had the REAL upper hand, do you want to convince me that they would have just pulled back and said ok take Sinai for peace?!!
If you say yes, then you are kidding yourself. Beucase Israel neve wanted peace except on it’s terms. And its terms ALWAYS included that Sanai was to be theirs.
They we hit very hard in that war. And then knew that Military battles with Egyptians are very hard and with high losses for them. That’s why they gave in.
Even if you want to say that they won the military war, the thing is Egypt won the Stratigic war and got what it wanted out of the situation… it got back ITS land…Sainai
And that my friend is what counts!
i had comments for fadfad and Nisse but they got eaten.If I have more time, i’ll write again. In short, not all of fadfadations comments are worth responding to. Nisse, you are right to say your victory was during that period, and i can imagine as an egyptian soldier you must have felt that way. However, my point was that regardless of the political outcome five years later, the war isn’t celebrated as a military victory the way it is celebrated in Egypt, even though Israel technically won the war. Israel regained its terrority at the end of the war and had surrounded the Egyptian 3rd army when the war ended. That’s a victory. you can’t say hitler won world war 2 because he defeated france so quickly. But i know this isn’t your point either. Israel did suffer devasting losses at the begining of the war and what’s remembered in Israel is the terrible price they paid for: war in general; loss of life; defense of their country; being unprepared war and overconfidence/arrogance.
To fadfadation, the comment the Israelis only wanted peace on their terms’ is silly. what country doesn’t? who goes into a negotiation with someone else terms? I’ll keep this short but both countries benefited tremendously from camp david and neither Israel nor Egypt was ‘forced into it.’ Israel certaintly benefited, and while the war in 1973 certainly conditioned Camp David, it would be false to say that it caused Israel to come to the negotiating table.
To RL:
“while the war in 1973 certainly conditioned Camp David, it would be false to say that it caused Israel to come to the negotiating table”
The only time Israel agreed to sit down and give someone their land instead of taking over land (remember 1948, 1967??) was after what happened in the 1973…
I wonder why? you can do the maths yourself.
It is a fact that they did go to the table after it. Doesn’t it seem more than a coincidence??
As i asid before, at the end of the day (stratigically speaking)… we got back our land.
If Israel and you want to feel good about it and say Israel won..
OK, you won (military winning, as you said)…and we got the land 🙂
By the way, just to be fair….
It is good that Israel (or any other nation) makes investigations after a crisis. I am not saying no to that. We all hope all our countries do that. No one wants to be unprepared war and overconfidence/arrogance.
Hopefully also, we’ll see America punishing whoever was behind the nonsense of Iraq having weapons of mass distruction and then invad iraq.
To fadfadation:
As far as I understand, Sinai has never been a strategic area for Israel. Giving it back was a very cheap price to neutralise Egypt and later to have its leadership as Israel’s biggest alley and supporter. The smart Sadat has been decieved by the smarter Kissinger and gave in too early, remember!. Also look at the state of Sinai right now, who really have control over this piece of land right now?
Dear Fadfadation,
Once again, i won’t respond to all of your comments because you still don’t understand my point. I don’t seem to want to consider alternative view that might contradict the narrative you were taught.
To your comment that ‘the only time israel agreed…”
How do you explain Oslo? Would you say it was the first intifada that caused israel to negotiate? Yasser arafat was week after Madrid. in fact, this what many of his critics attack him for. And how do you explain Wye, hebron, etc? part of Oslo or a result of Hamas’s suicide bombing campaign during Oslo?
Israel suggested a number of land for peace plans, even after 1967. some would argue they weren’t serious but i don’t think the Nasser and the Arab LEague’s three No’s. were too helpful? Ii could easily come up with more examples. I am not arguing that Israel was always ready to offer peace-it wasn’t. what i’m saying is that your statement that Israel only agrees for peace is after a ‘loss’ or a costly battle. I think you need a little balance in your view of history.
RL:
I guess i’m not the only one who will have some of his points not answered…
And obviously, i’m not the only one who has issues with alternative views that contradict with the narrative you were taught.
You must practice what you preach man… lol
I think you need to chill out… 😉
In your last comments, you avoided the argument about 1973 war and the peace treaty and the fact that we got our land. Instead of agreeing that the 1973 war complete it’s strategic plan which was getting our land back (by war, then peace).
You avoided it and now you are drifting away into other issues. I caught you there Mr. ! 🙂
We started with the argument of who won the war, and i told you at the end:
“If Israel and you want to feel good about it and say Israel won..
OK, you won (military winning, as you said)…and we got the land :)”
And that’s the end of that issue.
As for what you mentioned which i won’t answer as a whole because each issue has it’s own circumstances and ways to deal with it (every incident has a long history behind it).
In other words, what applies today doesn’t apply tomorrow that is a fact of life.
So, you can’t say that in Oslo (the build up) Israel was using the same mentality\strategy as they did in 1977-78… that’s lame man. You need to be more balanced yourself…not only I apparently 🙂
All you mentioned happened “AFTER” the initial issue we were talking about.
Talking about peace treats or peace proposals as a whole (all you mentioned and the rest of them), both of us can keep arguing all day about each and every one of them.
Regardless of all that we both wrote: about who did what, when and where… at the end of the day, we are both talking about the past.
The important and valid issue worth talking about is..
Don’t you think it is shameful that we are in the 21st century and the only occupied nation is Palestine?!
A land that 3 million immigrants scattered all over the world since the 1948 war whom till now (God only knows till when) have no right to return to THEIR homes.
A people that are humiliated each day at check points, surrounded by the famous (illegal, per the International court) wall, …etc. do i need to go on?!
I think that whoever comes here and wants to brag about Israel and their achievements, should be ashamed of Israel and maybe even himself.
I have to excuse myself from this post now, because the last thing I want to see is you (or any pro-Israeli) writing something nonsense about Palestine and trying to justify what is happening there.
I’m sure you’ll come up now with some slick answer … go ahead the post is all yours.
Have fun 🙂