Image by Dylan Shaw.

For my father’s generation, Gamal Abdel Nasser wasn’t just another Arab leader; he set the standard by which all others have been measured, and none have quite reached it.

For the Arab masses, and Palestinians in particular, Nasser was an icon. His heroic image, in the eyes of Palestinians, took hold in Al-Faluja, a key pocket of resistance against the Zionist takeover of historic Palestine in 1948.

This small village in southern Palestine came under a significant Israeli military siege, trapping Nasser, then a Major in the Egyptian army, along with thousands of Egyptian officers. The siege lasted for months, ending in February 1949, but only after the Egyptian soldiers had put up remarkable resistance.

With the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian Armistice Agreement, the soldiers were finally allowed to withdraw through Gaza. Despite their sorrow over the lost homeland, Palestinians treated these retreating soldiers as heroes. It was during this period that Nasser’s legend truly began to grow.

For that generation, it would have been difficult to associate Nasser with anything other than deep valor, strong honor, and a profound love for Palestine. Even after the disastrous 1967 war – the Naksa, or the ‘Setback’ – they consistently sought reasons to justify the disorganization and poor planning that led to the historic defeat of Egypt and the wider Arab world at the hands of a Western-backed Israel.

That war was particularly devastating, allowing Israel to significantly increase its size, encompassing the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and parts of Syrian and Jordanian territory. The outcome of the war greatly diminished........

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