After I noted in this column what I had heard Major General Omar Suleiman say in Cairo, I received a letter from Lieutenant General Mustafa Tlass, which he began by saying, “The difference in opinion must not ruin the cause for cordiality", but then continues with a very harsh sentence and biting insults against the Major General. Perhaps the least cruel thing Tlass said about Suleiman was this: “This clown visited Tel Aviv 1520 times in 30 years. Maybe you will tell me that he was just carrying out the orders of his president Hosni Mubarak; but my response would be that there is not a single man in Egypt who likes Israel [...]. Does he not have an iota of dignity to apologize to his president for his dirty work [?]" I did not respond to Lieutenant General Tlass's letter. Then after Major General Omar Suleiman passed away, I was surprised that many Egyptians celebrated his death and gloated, and railed insults at him on Facebook and Twitter, while only a few prayed God to have mercy on him. I say that those who attacked Omar Suleiman do not know him. While I may find an excuse for the Muslim Brotherhood, which was at war with him, I believe that the man had been wronged alive and wronged dead. The following is some of what I directly heard from Hosni Mubarak and Omar Suleiman: - Hosni Mubarak hated Israel, and only visited it once after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. When I would turn off the recorder, he, like any Egyptian, would say, “Those Jewish sons of dogs" [Sic]. Nevertheless, he had arrived at the conviction that Egypt cannot win a war against Israel, and that the United States, in the event of war, would establish two airlifts – not just one – with Israel, as had happened in 1973. - The opinion of the Egyptian president (and I am not saying he is right) is that the Arab states do not want to fight a war; he also enjoyed a good and ongoing relationship with Saudi Arabia. - Major General Omar Suleiman shared the above views with President Mubarak, but he no doubt tried to help the Palestinians without antagonizing America and Israel. - I wrote once that Suleiman had showed me the map of the tunnels between El-Arish and Gaza, and the names of the owners of each tunnel and the fees for smuggling. He told me that the Egyptian side pretended not to know about the tunnels to the Israelis and the Americans, because of the treaty and economic and military aid. - The metal barriers were a propaganda trick, and did not stop any actual tunnels, and were only undertaken to pretend to comply with American and Israeli pressure, without implementing anything real on the ground. - I heard him once when I was in his office, with colleague Jihan al-Husseini present, explain to President Jimmy Carter, in a phone conversation that lasted 15 minutes, the undeclared measures taken to help the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. - He was not fond of Hamas or its policies, and considered it part of the Muslim Brotherhood. However, he made a distinction between his political dispute with one faction and the Palestinian people of Gaza. - He always opposed rocket fire against Israel, and said that the rockets were completely ineffective and only give Israel an excuse to respond and kill innocent Palestinians. The above is Major General Omar Suleiman as I knew him personally, and is what I heard from him directly. Any other claims reflect only his quarrel with the Muslim Brotherhood or ignorance of the history of a patriotic Egyptian officer who fought in the wars of 1967 and 1973, and ultimately, he defended Egypt first and foremost. I was aware that Suleiman had a condition in his heart and lungs, but when I sat with him for three hours last May, I only saw health and determination, and an explicit desire to return to politics in his country. When I read in the news ticker the breaking news about his death in Cleveland, USA, my reaction was to think that he was killed to protect the secrets he knew, before discounting that as the hospital he was being treated in was quite reputable. A few minutes later, I received a phone call from a PhD student in London who insisted that there was a conspiracy at play, and that the Americans had assassinated Major General Suleiman. I attributed what she said to the enthusiasm of youth, before being later surprised to see that everyone I know, including experts, colleagues and friends, are insisting that Suleiman was murdered or believed it likely, and the majority invoked an American-Zionist conspiracy. I cannot confirm anything, but I only wanted to set the record straight on the image of Major General Omar Suleiman among people that do not know him. All I ask for in the end is that God have mercy on him and on us. [email protected]
