Editing Gamal Abdel Nasser (section)

=== Criticism ===
[[File:Nasser and Sadat in National Assembly.JPG|thumb|right|alt=Two men in suits seated next to each other with their arms resting on a table|[[Anwar Sadat]] (left) and Nasser in the National Assembly, 1964. Sadat succeeded Nasser as president in 1970 and significantly departed from Nasser's policies throughout his rule.]]
Sadat declared his intention to "continue the path of Nasser" in his 7 October 1970 presidential inauguration speech,<ref name="Cooper67" /> but began to depart from Nasserist policies as his domestic position improved following the 1973 [[1973 Arab–Israeli War|October War]].<ref name="Podeh100" /><ref name="Cooper67">{{Harvnb|Cooper|1982|p=67}}</ref> President Sadat's [[Infitah]] policy sought to open Egypt's economy for private investment.<ref name="Osman 44">{{harvnb|Osman|2011|p=44}}</ref> According to Heikal, ensuing anti-Nasser developments until the present day led to an Egypt "[half] at war with Abdel-Nasser, half [at war] with Anwar El-Sadat".<ref name="Ahram" />

Nasser's Egyptian detractors considered him a dictator who thwarted democratic progress, imprisoned thousands of dissidents, and led a repressive administration responsible for numerous human rights violations.<ref name="Ahram">{{cite news |url=http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/501/nasser2.htm |title=Liberating Nasser's Legacy |first1=Hani |last1=Shukrallah |author-link1=Hani Shukrallah |first2=Hosny |last2=Guindy |work=[[Al-Ahram Weekly]] |publisher=[[Al-Ahram]] |date=4 November 2000 |access-date=23 November 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806232017/http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/501/nasser2.htm |archive-date=6 August 2009}}</ref> Islamists in Egypt, particularly members of the politically persecuted Brotherhood, viewed Nasser as oppressive, tyrannical, and demonic.<ref>{{harvnb|Podeh|2004|p=61}}</ref> Samer S. Shehata, who wrote an article on "The Politics of Laughter: Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarek in Egyptian Political Jokes" noted that "with the new regime came the end of parliamentary politics and political freedoms, including the right to organize political parties, and freedoms of speech and the press".<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1261035|jstor=1261035|title=The Politics of Laughter: Nasser, Sadat, and Mubarek in Egyptian Political Jokes|last1=Shehata|first1=Samer S.|journal=Folklore|year=1992|volume=103|issue=1|pages=75–91|doi=10.1080/0015587X.1992.9715831}}</ref> Liberal writer Tawfiq al-Hakim described Nasser as a "confused Sultan" who employed stirring rhetoric, but had no actual plan to achieve his stated goals.<ref name="Osman 44" />

Some of Nasser's [[Liberalism in Egypt|liberal]] and Islamist critics in Egypt, including the founding members of the [[New Wafd Party]] and writer [[Jamal Badawi]], dismissed Nasser's popular appeal with the Egyptian masses during his presidency as being the product of successful manipulation and demagoguery.<ref name="Podehix-x" /> Egyptian political scientist Alaa al-Din Desouki blamed the 1952 revolution's shortcomings on Nasser's concentration of power, and Egypt's lack of democracy on Nasser's political style and his government's limitations on [[freedom of expression]] and [[Participation (decision making)|political participation]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Podeh|2004|p=50}}</ref>
American political scientist Mark Cooper asserted that Nasser's charisma and his direct relationship with the Egyptian people "rendered intermediaries (organizations and individuals) unnecessary".<ref name="Cooper64" /> He opined that Nasser's legacy was a "guarantee of instability" due to Nasser's reliance on personal power and the absence of strong political institutions under his rule.<ref name="Cooper64">{{Harvnb|Cooper|1982|p=64}}</ref> Historian Abd al-Azim Ramadan wrote that Nasser was an irrational and irresponsible leader, blaming his inclination to solitary decision-making for Egypt's losses during the Suez War, among other events.<ref name="Podeh105">{{Harvnb|Podeh|2004|p=105}}</ref> [[Miles Copeland, Jr.]], a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] officer known for his close personal relationship with Nasser,{{sfn|Wilford|2013|pp=xi, 67–68, 137, 153, 225, 283}} said that the barriers between Nasser and the outside world have grown so thick that all but the information that attest to his infallibility, indispensability, and immortality has been filtered out.<ref>{{Harvnb|Podeh|2004|p=49}}</ref>

[[Zakaria Mohieddin]], who was Nasser's vice president, said that Nasser gradually changed during his reign. He ceased consulting his colleagues and made more and more of the decisions himself. Although Nasser repeatedly said that a war with Israel will start at a time of his, or Arab, choosing, in 1967 he started a bluffing game "but a successful bluff means your opponent must not know which cards you are holding. In this case Nasser's opponent could see his hand in the mirror and knew he was only holding a pair of deuces" and Nasser knew that his army is not prepared yet. "All of this was out of character...His tendencies in this regard may have been accentuated by diabetes... That was the only rational explanation for his actions in 1967".<ref name="Parker1993p79" />

====Antisemitism====
Nasser told a German neo-Nazi newspaper in 1964 that "no person, not even the most simple one, takes seriously the lie of the six million Jews that were murdered [in the Holocaust]."<ref>{{cite book |last=Satloff |first=Robert |title=Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach Into Arab lands |publisher=PublicAffairs |year=2007 |page=163 |isbn=978-1-58648-510-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Laqueur |first=Walter |title=The Changing Face of Antisemitism: From Ancient Times to the Present Day |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2006 |page=[https://archive.org/details/changingfaceofan00laqu/page/141 141] |isbn=978-0-19-530429-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/changingfaceofan00laqu/page/141}}</ref><ref name="Wistrich1985p188" /> However, he is not known to have ever again publicly called the figure of six million into question, perhaps because his advisors and East German contacts had advised him on the subject.<ref>{{cite book |last=Achar |first=Gilbert |title=The Arabs and the Holocaust |publisher=Saqi Books |year=2011 |page=210}}</ref> Nasser, convinced of its authenticity, also encouraged the distribution of the antisemitic fabrication ''[[The Protocols of the Elders of Zion]]''. He believed that the Jews greatly influenced the global financial market and that they ultimately strove for world domination. Nasser also hired former Nazi officials like [[Johann von Leers]] to distribute antisemitic propaganda. He is, however, thought to have been more moderate in that regard than contemporary political powers like Young Egypt or the Muslim Brotherhood.{{sfn|Herf|2009|p=260}}{{sfn|Stillman|2005|p=483}}