The Egyptian regime loses the Palestinian card

It is said that historical facts can be distorted but geographical facts can’t. The latter help to shape external policies in the world of geopolitics, which connect Egypt and Palestine, especially the Gaza Strip. The former provides strategic depth for Palestine which, in turn, is a gateway to national security for Egypt.

Since the 1948 Palestinian Nakba, and even before, Egypt has had a prominent regional role for reasons related to the state itself and others to its relations with Palestine. Egypt is the largest of the Arab countries in terms of power and influence as a result of its physical size, population and the soft power it possesses, in addition to its recent political history and central location.

Egypt’s history has also been connected to the Palestinian issue in peace and war for other reasons due to common neighbours, borders, the Suez Canal, Egyptian leadership of the Arabs and popular sympathy with the cause, as well as the role of Islamic, national and leftist elites in supporting it. In turn, Egypt went to war for Palestine and Egyptian volunteers, mainly from the Muslim Brotherhood, took part. There has been an active movement for the boycott of normalisation with Israel by various professional associations and trade unions, and among the public.

Accordingly, Egypt was the strongest and most prominent ally for the Palestine liberation movement, particularly during the era of President Gamal Abdel Nasser. For this reason in particular, perhaps, another role was drafted for Egypt as part of the Camp David peace treaty, which was clear during the Mubarak era, which is to keep a relative state of calm between Palestinians and Israelis. Egypt has to absorb crises and defuse conflicts before they erupt; confrontation has to be kept under control.

Although during the later phase of Mubarak’s rule there was hostility towards Hamas’s victory in the 2006 elections, the deposed president did not go beyond that framework. Even though he tightened the blockade against the Gaza Strip, started to build a steel wall on the borders and allowed Tzipi Livni to announce a war against Hamas in 2008 from Cairo, the regime mediated ceasefires and opened the border. Wounded Palestinians were treated in Egyptian hospitals, roughly in line with Mubarak’s infamous claim: “I will not allow Palestinians to go hungry.”

Thus, Egypt has always had to stop matters from reaching the point of no return. It hasn’t crossed that fine line in relations with resistance groups, which it does not like that much, mainly because of their links with the Muslim Brotherhood and how they view the conflict and possible resolutions.

Post-revolution, under the rule of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the status quo was maintained. Under elected President Mohamed Morsi, though, things changed. Less than four months after taking office, Israel assassinated Hamas military leader Ahmed Al-Jabari, launching a war that lasted for eight days, during which the Egyptian position took on new positions which cannot be ignored.

For a start, Prime Minister Hesham Qandil visited the Gaza Strip during the first hours of the aggression, in solidarity and to break the siege; humanitarian aid and medical convoys were allowed to go through the Rafah Crossing. Egypt also backed visits by delegations supporting the people of Gaza. In fact, the ceasefire agreement and Palestinian demands it contained were sponsored by Egypt; the terms were announced in Cairo by Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders. In all of this, Morsi told the Palestinians of Gaza, “We’re together and we will not leave you alone.”

Some observers believe that this advanced role during the 2012 Israeli-launched war was one of the factors which prompted the military coup against Morsi, and support from regional and international governments for Al-Sisi.

The coup was bad news for the Palestinian cause and the resistance groups in particular. The Rafah Crossing was closed and the tunnels under the border, which represented the main lifeline for the enclave, were bombed and destroyed before any official or popular Palestinian statement about what had happened in Egypt was made.

Media outlets controlled by the new regime began an unprecedented campaign to discredit the Palestinians in general and Hamas in particular. The movement was accused of meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs, breaking into prisons during the revolution, killing Egyptian soldiers in Rafah, and sending its fighters to support Morsi during his period in office.

However, the most important and prominent developments in Egypt’s role regarding the Palestinian case have been the following:

1. A court order declaring Hamas to be a terrorist movement and prohibiting its activities in Egypt; this was seen as a political rather than a legal decision.

2. Adopting a political position hostile towards Hamas and considering it as a threat to Egypt’s national security during the interim presidency of Adly Mansour. This is still the situation under President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi.

3. The current Israeli war against Gaza was described by Al-Sisi as a “crisis” 17 days after it started; there has been no condemnation of Israeli actions by the Egyptian president. Indeed, the foreign ministry regards both parties to the conflict as equal, calling upon “Israel and Palestinian factions” to abide by an “immediate ceasefire” as part of an initiative it proposed without even consulting the resistance factions. The minister of foreign affairs crowned his country’s position by holding Hamas responsible for the huge number of victims of Israeli bombs.

4. A vicious media campaign in Egypt has attacked the Palestinian resistance and accused it of hostility towards Egypt, to the extent that a prominent media anchor thanked Netanyahu for killing all these Palestinians and asked him to kill more. He claimed that Egypt is willing to support Palestinians in Gaza only if they rebel against Hamas rule.

5. The ministry of foreign affairs refuses to amend its ceasefire initiative, even though all Palestinian factions have rejected it, and despite changes on the ground, including US and Israeli signals suggesting that the terms could be amended. This demonstrates that Egypt’s current foreign policy is malicious, and seems stricter towards Hamas than Netanyahu himself.

It is clear that Egypt has lost its influence in many important regional issues, starting with the Suez Canal, over which it has no real authority; African issues, the influence over most of which it lost during Mubarak’s time although Al-Sisi has lost in that sphere too, notably over the Ethiopian dam; and finally the leadership of the Arab front, which Egypt has abandoned, leaving Saudi Arabia to lead while Egypt follows (the pictures of Al-Sisi in the Saudi king’s plane were clear in this respect).

Thus, Cairo only has the Palestinian file left to it as a result of the geopolitical situation as neighbours and the role of the Rafah Crossing, although it seems that the current regime is about to lose this as well due to its policies. These have deviated from Egypt’s traditional role. The ceasefire initiative, official statements and hostility towards the resistance have put Cairo outside the circle of influence. Ceasefire negotiations have moved to Qatar, to which international delegates have flocked, not only because Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal stays there but also because the government in Cairo has lost its role as a mediator.

The irony is that this is not only rejected by the Palestinians, but also by the United States (and perhaps Israel), as America does not want Egypt to put pressure onto the besieged people, which many people are doing, with Israel at the forefront. Washington wants Cairo to play the role of the guarantor in order to make sure that matters do not go into the unknown or beyond the point of no return; the regime’s latest stances have been introduced at the cost of its credibility to fulfil such a role.

The bottom line is that malicious policies that are remote from diplomatic norms and Egypt’s history in relation to the Palestinian cause, as well as the current regime’s lack of clarity in dealing with Egypt’s gateway to Palestine, lead some to fear a direct Egyptian military intervention in Gaza and the loss of the Palestinian card altogether. This will deepen the crises engulfing the Egyptian regime, as it is going in a direction that will eliminate or minimise the rationale for its existence as far as the international community is concerned, in particular the United States.

Translated from Al Jazeera net, 30 July, 2014

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.