A Lesson In History: Karl Marx or the Marx Brothers?

ROSEN, DEBORAH NODLER

A LESSONINHISTORY KARL MARX or the MARX BROTHERS? DEBORAH NODLER ROSEN It's a toss-up whether the course of history is buffeted more from those who follow in the footsteps of Karl Marx or of...

...However, they must get this treaty to Rommel and obtain his signature before the battle begins...
...2 The committee agrees to close the strait...
...2 In Search of Identity, p. 172...
...Egypt's political situation is of constant concern to Israel because the smallest incident has the potential for turning a peaceful neighbor into a warring enemy...
...Working on that nice Arab aphorism—the enemy of my enemy is my friend—many Egyptians, including Sadat, look to the Germans for assistance in ousting the British...
...New York: The John Day Company, 1957...
...Fast forward to May 1967...
...SAM and antiaircraft batteries are ordered to hold their fire until Amer lands...
...As I learn that he has obtained an English plane for the mission, I wonder to myself how those Nazi gunners on the ground are going to know that inside the British-made Gladiator beats the heart of a German sympathizer...
...He offers to spare their lives in exchange for a complete confession...
...Reviewing his options, he immediately decides to land the plane— in a tree...
...Out of the blue appear two Nazi spies—Herr Eppler and Hen-Sandy...
...gets into the cockpit, he apparently turns the oil pump off instead of on...
...Sadat and both spies are quickly arrested...
...Had the Marx Brothers chosen to create a comedy sequence from them, I wondered, how could they possibly have improved on the farce...
...He and al-Masri escape, but—Al-Masri has packed his belongings in his own mono-grammed luggage...
...Rumor has it that Egypt will be given to Italy and that Mussolini intends to claim his prize like a Roman emperor by riding into Cairo on a white horse...
...Then, after takeoff, when he reads the oil gauge, he concludes that he has run out of oil...
...While Amer & Company fly over Sinai, Israeli planes effectively wipe out the Egyptian air force...
...Eppler and Sandy tell Sadat that their transmitters aren't working, but Sadat finds nothing wrong with them...
...However, the 1967 war itself might never have taken place had it not been for the marksmanship—or the lack thereof—of a 35-year-old plumber more than a decade earlier...
...In their haste to get away, the suitcase with the letters A.M...
...These young men, awash in counterfeit banknotes and transmitters, have set up shop in a houseboat on the Nile owned by Hikmat Fahmi, a widely known belly dancer...
...On Friday, June 2, 1967, Nasser warns his air force commander that Israel will attack on Saturday, Sunday, or at the latest Monday morning, and that the air force should expect the first blow...
...According to Newsweek, a secret panel of the Muslim Brotherhood hired Mahmoud Abdel Latif, a Cairo plumber...
...Ahmed Saudi Hussein offers to fly the treaty to Rommel...
...Hussein Sabri, whom Sadat warrants to be an excellent pilot, "borrows" an Egyptian army plane to take al-Masri to Beirut...
...He suspects they have put one out of commission and are feigning ignorance about the other in order to prolong their stay on the river and at the Kit-Kat Nightclub where they are habitues...
...I get cold shivers every time I think that I probably owe my freedom in these United States of America to a besotted young soldier...
...His assignment: Kill Nasser...
...The prime minister has come secretly to Cairo in August 1942, on his way to Moscow to meet with Stalin to discuss their strategy for defeating the Germans...
...As I collected material for a biography of Anwar el-Sadat,* I was repeatedly astonished by the antic quality of the events that I was researching...
...Nasser says, "Now with our concentrations in Sinai, the chances of war are fifty-fifty...
...Egypt continues to have problems with its German connection...
...As a historian looking for reasoned explanations and logical causes, I find it disquieting to discover the annals of history spliced with scenes from old Marx Brothers movies...
...Abdel Hakim Amer, field marshal of the Egyptian army, has, at the behest of other Arab nations, urged Nasser to close the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping...
...As Sabri * Deborah Nodler Rosen, Anwar el-Sadat (Chicago: Children* Press, 1986...
...Five dollars and seventy-nine cents...
...Egyptians want real sovereignty...
...8> 1 Sadat told two versions of this incident and several of the ones that follow...
...He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce...
...A little levity might help maintain perspective—for instance, looking at historical events in Egypt through the Marx Brothers' eyes...
...I think to myself, doesn't sedition demand some sacrifices...
...Now al-Masri wants to escape to Beirut, where he can make contact «with the Nazis...
...What if it had invested $11.58 in its future and acquired a sharpshooter twice as skilled as Mahmoud...
...If Nasser had been assassinated in 1954, the world, for better or worse, would have been different...
...Hussein takes off and when he reaches the German lines, he is shot down and killed...
...Sadat says the voluptuous accommodations on the houseboat, well-stocked with bottles of whiskey and perfume, remind him of the Arabian Nights...
...They implicate Sadat, who goes to jail, where he spends the next three years preparing for the war's end—by studying German...
...DEBORAH NODLER ROSEN It's a toss-up whether the course of history is buffeted more from those who follow in the footsteps of Karl Marx or of Groucho Marx...
...Picture this scene, for instance: It's March 1941.1 On paper, Egypt has a treaty of independence from Great Britain, but actually London is still the power behind Egypt's throne and parliament...
...The Egyptian government has been persuaded by the British to cashier General Aziz al-Masri, the Egyptian army's inspector general, because of his pro-German sentiments...
...With the treaty in flames, Sadat needs another road to Rommel...
...If that ancient city falls, Cairo is next...
...Anwar el-Sadat, In Search of Identity...
...The British find al-Masri and jail him—hoist with his very own English valise...
...New York...
...Sir Winston Churchill intervenes on behalf of Eppler and Sandy...
...Gamal Abdel Nasser, now president of Egypt, calls a meeting of his Supreme Executive Committee...
...Karl Marx said, "Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice...
...They prepare a treaty for Rommel in which they offer to fight with the Germans and to give them aerial photographs of British positions in exchange for a promise of Egyptian independence...
...Surely even Miss Manners would agree that propriety while treating with the enemy does not require initialed luggage...
...The specter of a new overlord galvanizes Sadat and his cadre of young revolutionary officers...
...Sadat reports on the proceedings...
...But if we close the strait, war will be a one hundred percent certainty...
...Kit-Kat is also popular with British intelligence agents, who are keeping an eye on the two spies...
...On Monday, June 5, 1967, Field Marshal Amer asks his top commanders to join him on an inspection tour to Sinai...
...What if the Brotherhood had doubled the ante...
...Sadat calls them a godsend...
...Members of the Brotherhoods gave Latif a pistol, two months' worth of shooting lessons, and $5.79 for a one-way railway ticket to Alexandria...
...In 1954, the Muslim Brotherhood wanted to overthrow Nasser and his Revolutionary Command Council, which had been ruling Egypt since the 1952 revolution...
...When Sadat comes to the houseboat to borrow the transmitter, the British tail him...
...By July 1942, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps have blitzkrieged their way to el-Alamein, 65 miles from Alexandria...
...is left behind...
...See: Anwar el-Sadat, Revolt on the Nile...
...They vary as to dates, details and names...
...Instead of eight bullets gone astray, one might have hit its target...
...Where would I be if, on that frigid, snowy morning of December 26, 1776, one of those Hessians guarding Trenton hadn't been quite so drunk on Christmas rum when Washington crossed the Delaware and swept into his camp...
...Harper & Row, 1977...

Vol. 13 • April 1988 • No. 2


 
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