A ‘victory’ that’s now a fading memory

A boy taking pictures with a phone of a recreated war scene while visiting the ‘6th of October War Panorama’ museum and memorial of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war in Cairo. — AFP

FIFTY years after what Egypt celebrated as its “October victory”, the memory of the 1973 war against Israel that has shaped the Arab nation’s politics and diplomacy is fading.

Successive Egyptian presidents over the course of decades drew legitimacy from their military past fighting Israel.