Qutb lost faith in the pan-Arab nationalism that was the prevailing ideology of the Arab world in his own time.
Baathism was associated with radical Arab nationalism - a key barometer for this was a hardline approach to the Palestinian issue.
Considering Egypt's position as the most populous Arab country and the historical leader of Arab nationalism, mounting momentum for change there could have wide-ranging implications for the region.
Nasser led the 1952 overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy, touted and implemented socialist reforms, supported pan-Arab nationalism, and led a losing fight against Israel in the Six Day War.
But like for all Jewish communities in the Arab world, the advent of Arab nationalism in the mid-20th century forced the overwhelming majority of Tunisia's Jews to leave the country.
In the 1950s and 1960s, a wave of Arab nationalism emanating from Egypt swept over the Middle East - threatening the pro-Western monarchies such as the House of Saud with destruction.
But it may also herald the re-emergence, after a decades-long trend among Israel's neighbours to accommodate the Jewish state, of a broad rejectionist front, this time inspired by pan-Islamist feeling rather than the pan-Arab nationalism of the 1960s and 1970s.
While the star of Arab nationalism has fallen everywhere, among the Palestinians in the West Bank it is still alive, kept on life support by international aid, the Israeli military, and an unquantifiable sense of dread at the prospect of a Hamas takeover.
To flatter him, flag-waving schoolchildren lined the streets, Egyptian bedouins with links to Mr Qaddafi's own tribe cheered him on, and the state-controlled media offered blanket coverage of his forays to the Egyptian Museum and the tomb of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president whom Mr Qaddafi still idolises as a hero of Arab nationalism.
Israel's peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994) are instructive that neither nationalism nor religion are insurmountable obstacles to reaching an Arab-Israeli settlement on Palestine as proposed in the UN plan of 1947.
First is the fact that "Arab culture" is really many cultures, that "Arab people" are really many peoples, and that "Arab countries" are filled with a combustible mix of ethnicity, religion, nationalism, and race that produces the entire range of human passions.
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