Why did nasser want to destroy Israel?

Answer 1

Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser wanted to destroy Israel for several major reasons.

Arab Nationalism: President Nasser was a Pan-Arab Nationalist. This led Nasser to hate Israel based on the idea that Israel prevented Pan-Arabism from coming to pass. He argued that Israel drove a geographical wedge between Egypt and North Africa in the west and the Levant, Iraq, and Arabia in the east. This would prevent Arabs from coming together as one united people, which was his dream. As a result, the removal of Israel was necessary to fulfill his vision of the world.

Egyptian Humiliation: In the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9, Israel forced Egypt to accept a ceasefire, which was widely seen by Egyptians a humiliating defeat. Early in his presidency, Nasser's forces were defeated by Israel again in the Arab-Israeli War of 1956. Israel's consistent military victories over Egypt enraged him.

Anti-Semitism: Nasser was a noted Anti-Semite (Jew-hater) in his own right. His vision of "retaking Palestine" from the Jews was necessarily bloody. He argued quite vehemently that the Holocaust was a hoax. He spoke approvingly of the bombings of the Cairo Jewish Quarter in the late 1940s and expelled almost the entire Jewish population in Egypt in 1956. He supported the publication of Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Given that Nasser was an Anti-Semite, his hatred for Israel should be self-evident. The Logic goes thus: Anti-Semites oppose any Jewish aspiration to freedom and/or power. Zionism promotes Self-Determination for the Jewish people which is an aspiration to freedom and power. Therefore, Anti-Semites oppose Zionism.

Anti-Zionism: Nasser fundamentally rejected the idea that the Jews had a right to self-govern, especially on what he deemed to be "Arab lands". He opposed the underlying concepts of self-determination for the Jews and saw no issue with them being an eternally cosmopolitan people, subject to the wills and whims of other governments.