Despite periodically portraying themselves as native Pharaohs, Muslim sultans or Nationalist despots, every single person who ruled Egypt from the deposition of Nectanebo II in 343 BC to the revolution in 1952 self-identified primarily as descending from elsewhere, whether from Macedon or from the Hejaz or Kurdistan or even far off Albania. Was there a strong nationalist or anti-Arabist response in support of the revolution?
Mohammad Naguib came to power after the 1952 coup d'etat that forced the king to abdicate and the Free Officers took power. Naguib was the leader of the free officers so automatically he became the person in charge. The Egyptian vs. Turk distinction was without question persistent since the Urabi Revolt, and possibly before that as well, after he protested the conditions of Egyptians in the Army in comparison to Turks or people of Turkish decent. Over time, this distinction was more and more undermined to the extent that a prominent Egyptian Nationalist, Mustafa Kamil, and his disciples in the National party, advocated that Egypt should maintain its Ottoman Identity, although Egypt was not a typical Ottoman province if it could be considered one at all. Ironically, Mustafa Kamil was considered by the Free officers as a national figure after 1952, since the national party was out of favor with the king and the emphasis was more on the Wafd party and Saad Zaghloul.
During 1952 Coup, it was without question one of the justifications of the Free officers that Mohammad Ali and his lineage were not Egyptian and that Egypt should be ruled by Egyptians however, there were other important goals for the free officers as well, namely eradicating nepotism, corruption, leading the British out of Egypt, equality and so on. The people were quickly getting over the promises of the free officers after Kafr al-Dawar incident where the military opened fire on factory worker after they refused to disband from their strike. This was closely followed by the law of agricultural reform, which the Free Officers were famous for. To put it simply, this law was intended to confiscate land from feudalistic Pashas and Beys (who were most of the time Egyptian) who supposedly acquired it unjustly through their connections with the king and give it to the poor fellahin. Many politicians and historians argue that this move was put into action at that time to give the free officers national backing after Kafr al-Dawar incident made them become increasingly unpopular. In light of those events, the significance that you are speaking of diminished since there was a constant change of emphasis. The fact that Egypt is now ruled by an Egyptian possibly never got its share in the spotlight the same way the agricultural reform law, the marginalization of Naguib by Nasser and the end of British military presence in Egypt did.
So....I've heard this claim before, but is this even true? I've always assumed that this was rhetoric specific to the 1952 Revolution, but was something of a nationalist myth (or a very hair-splitting reading of history), mostly to cast King Farouk as the last in a long line of "foreigners". Like I'm not sure why Mohammed Naguib (who from my perusing looks like he was born in Khartoum and had a Sudanese Arab mother) should be considered more of a "native Egyptian" than the many rulers who were born and raised in Egypt between 343 BC and AD 1952.