Abdel Hakim Amer
Mohamed Naguib was first introduced to the Free Officers Movement by Abdel Hakim Amer during his tenure as the Director of the Cairo Royal Military Academy. The Free Officers were a group of nationalist army officers fiercely opposed to the continuing presence of British military personnel in Egypt and Sudan since 1882, and the attendant political role that the United Kingdom had in Egyptian affairs. Additionally, they viewed the Egyptian and Sudanese monarchy as weak, corrupt, and incapable of protecting Egyptian and Sudanese national interests, particularly against the United Kingdom, and the State of Israel. In particular, they held King Farouk responsible for the poor conduct of the war in Palestine in which 78% of the former Mandate of Palestine was lost to the newly proclaimed State of Israel, and some three quarters of Palestine's Muslim and Christian population were variously expelled from the country, or fled in to exile.