Why the media attacked Hamas and the Brotherhood but ignored Sinai

This is not the first time Al-Ansar group or the Sinai Peninsula have carried out an attack against the Egyptian army. It is not the first time that losses are inflicted. It is not even the first time the media launches an attack on the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas holding them responsible for it.

This time, however, may be slightly different. The organisation did indeed pledge allegiance to Al-Baghdadi and named Sinai one of his districts. Therefore, it would seem that the liability is clearer and more explicit. Furthermore, the claim of responsibility for the operation by the organisation was swift and immediate. This was particularly evident in the most recent operation. However, what is strange is that the pro-Sisi media machine did not touch Sinai much this time. The media focus was concentrated on the Brotherhood, Hamas and Al-Qassam.

The Egyptian media did not immediately announce the attack. Even after its announcement, they did not swiftly launch an offensive against the perpetrators. It would seem that the military supervisor was still studying the situation and how to employ the incident well for publicity purposes. The operation and its size are shocking indeed. Nevertheless, it is possible to employ the enormity of such a shock internally quite well in order to cover up for the failures and even to make new gains which are believed possible due to the amount of blood shed. This may explain why the media waited two days before embarking on the offence campaigns that were methodological and systematic and from all the channels.

In my analysis I have tried this time to stand in the position of the military supervisor or the sovereign whoever he is and understand the thinking mechanism that prompted him to take the attack on the Brotherhood, Hamas and Al-Qassam as a priority locally, while ignoring the real perpetrator or at least marginalising it at best.

The military regime views its battle in a systematic manner. It considers the course of the battle, as announced to the public since its start, to be “the Brotherhood versus the state”. For this reason, any deviation away from this course or the entry of a new party may be considered a distraction from the main course of the battle and a dispersion of the process of mobilising the public against it. Furthermore, the widening of the circle of the battle may inspire the masses to think that those in charge are not in control and that the entry of new parties amounts to failure. Therefore, the military regime has prime interest in linking what is going on to the original course and not to add new courses or in the least define the other courses as separate or occurring in a different context. The mental image of the multitude of fronts will imply an inability to control the situation. In fact, exporting the conflict has augmented the situation.

The military supervisor, or the sovereign, also views the infrastructure of each battle separately. Sinai, which is isolated, in terms of geography, information and demography, and which has been burning like hell since the military coup, is not affected at all by the media propaganda campaigns. In fact, it is not at all targeted by the media because the tribal and Bedouin environment does not always respond to the sort of discourse coming out of channels anchored by the likes of Lamis and Okashah. Such discourse is deemed alien.

The Bedouin mind set does not respond much to the sort of propaganda that influences the rural or urban segments of Egypt. Additionally, the Sinai citizen cannot be fooled by the media or by a campaign here or there for he is a witness to whatever is going on and he would not simply disregard what he sees with his eyes in order to believe the TV campaigns of glorification and adulation while blood is being shed everywhere in his land.

The military supervisor, in my opinion, also emanates from another fact, namely that the Sinai District Organisation is not a grass roots or popular organisation that may be isolated or diminished by certain campaigns of demonisation or exaggeration. The organisation is isolated anyway and is not widespread. It relies on a pyramid shaped organisation and is geographically biased. As far as it is concerned it should avoid turning into a populist phenomenon.

At the moment it is operational in the first degree. Therefore, shifting the attack and directing it against the Muslim Brotherhood and changing the national conscience vis-a-vis the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian issue is considered a very effective process. Both organisations are populist and both of them rely principally on populist means for support and existence. Therefore, a media onslaught on the Sinai is not of much use whereas the attack on the Brotherhood and Hamas is much more useful.

The last important fact is that the exportation of the concept of the “Sinai Peninsula” may imply dissension and separation. It does also add a new player to the arena in parallel with the regional Islamic State (ISIS) phobia. Introducing the new player to the simple citizen by means of the Egyptian media will mean more fear and anxiety which, in turn, will be a recipe for failure. Consequently, it has been decided to marginalise it in favour of the traditional enemies invented by the region. This is seen as a better alternative to bringing ISIS into Egypt. The media has been scaring the people of the possibility that we might end up in the same situation as Syria and Iraq. It would seem that we have already reached that situation.

Translated from Arabi21, 1 February 2015

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