Friday
March 29, 2024
The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has had significant political, economic and security repercussions for Egypt, which borders Gaza and Israel.
Cairo is struggling to keep its economy afloat while grappling with the socio-economic implications of the war in Gaza, such as disruptions to tourism and trade.
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The country is also bracing for a possible influx of refugees on the occasion of an Israeli army offensive on the border with the city of Rafah, and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry recently called on the United States and its allies to increase pressure on Israel to deter such an attack.
For Cairo, balancing its defense of the Palestinian cause with its national interests remains a complicated task.
In Cairo, the Palestinian flag is everywhere. It can be seen hoisted on flagpoles, on cars, on the streets, and on windows. The visibility of the flag is an issue for the country’s predominantly pro-Palestinian public opinion.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have been held in Egypt, a country where spontaneous or biological protests are increasingly met with violent dispersal through President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi’s security forces, and critics accuse the government of staging controlled protests to exploit pro-Palestinian supporters. amid skyrocketing inflation and rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.
Cairo is very careful to distinguish between its stance on the tide of pro-Palestinian sentiment in the country and its stance toward the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and others. of their allies.
Hamas has its roots in the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, whose presidential candidate, Mohamed Morsi, came to the fore at the height of the Arab Spring protests in 2013. Morsi’s force was interrupted by a coup led by the then leader of the army, General El-El-Hawaii.
In 2013, Egypt designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. The Egyptian government also briefly designated Hamas as a terrorist organization in 2015, but that resolution was overturned in Egyptian courts.
Egypt softened its tone toward Hamas in 2017, after the organization announced it was cutting ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. There has also been limited cooperation between Egypt and Hamas, with indirect contributions from Israel, to fight the Wilayat Sinai branch of the Islamic State (IS) organization. , founded in the north of the Sinai Peninsula.
Tourism is a source of income for Egypt, accounting for 12% of the country’s GDP. Since 2010, Egypt’s tourism industry has been affected by the 2011 revolution, the 2013 coup, the ISIS insurgency, and the Covid-19 pandemic. And now, the war in Gaza threatens one of Egypt’s most important sources of revenue.
According to Tourism Minister Ahmed Issa, tourism declined in the last quarter of 2023 due to the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. Some 3. 6 million tourists visited Egypt between October and December 2023, 600,000 fewer than the 4. 2 million expected for that period. But the numbers rebounded in the first two months of 2024, amid a slowdown in Israeli army operations in Gaza.
Iranian-backed Yemen-based Houthi rebels are attacking the Red Sea shipping lanes, disrupting global industry and causing ships to be diverted from the Suez Canal, a major source of foreign currency for Egypt. Egypt’s revenue from the Suez Canal is reported to have failed. 40% in October compared to last year.
In addition, Egypt’s liquefied vegetable fuel (LNG) exports declined by more than a part in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Egypt is home to one of two vegetable fuel liquefaction plants in the region, which supplies vegetable fuels and exports LNG abroad, and European countries are among the top due to the EU’s distance from Russian hydrocarbon resources following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Israel has approved an imaginable attack on Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city on the border with Egypt. Before the October 7 attack, Rafah was home to 280,000 people, but today more than a million Palestinians are believed to have sought safe haven in the border city.
Pro-Palestinian voices, human rights activists, and foreign organizations have warned that an imaginable Israeli offensive on the city would result in numerous civilian casualties and could simply cause a refugee crisis in Egypt.
An imaginable Israeli advance toward Rafah could also threaten the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Cairo has already threatened to cancel it if Israeli troops attack Rafah, which would lead to an increased military presence on both sides of the Egyptian-Israeli border.
Egypt is reportedly building a buffer zone in Gaza’s border territory, perhaps in anticipation of a possible influx of refugees if Israel makes the decision to defeat Typhoon Rafah. Satellite imagery shows that more than 16 square kilometers have been cleared across the border, but the Egyptian government has denied those claims, saying “no provisions are being made” for displaced Palestinians and that the domain is meant to serve as a “logistical hub” for aid.
Egypt’s Rafah border crossing is the main address for the delivery of life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza. But despite facilitating foreign aid through Rafah, President Sisi and his government have been criticized for failing to open Egypt’s borders to Palestinian refugees.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, warned against any mass displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in February about an exodus of Gazans to Egypt, he said: “That would ruin the option of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. “
For his part, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel had no goal of expelling the Palestinians to Egypt, while Foreign Minister Israel Katz promised to coordinate with Egypt so that Cairo’s interests were taken into account.
From the early days of the conflict, Egyptian President Sisi warned that Israel could simply relocate Palestinian refugees to the Negev desert in southern Israel.
The war has already claimed tens of thousands of lives in Gaza and 1,200 in Israel (including those who suffered the October 7 attacks). Most of Gaza’s 2. 2 million citizens have been displaced.
The consequences of the war are greater beyond Gaza’s borders and affect all nations in the region. And Egypt finds itself in the midst of regional instability.
Egypt has already organized rounds of talks between representatives of Israel and Hamas in Cairo with the aim of ending the fighting. The most recent round, which also involved U. S. and Qatari officials, failed to result in a lasting ceasefire ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
It is not known what the post-Hamas leadership in Gaza will look like.
However, Egypt’s role as mediator will be to seek a solution to the conflict, despite Israel’s resolution not to send delegates to the Cairo talks.
Stskill in the Middle East depends on Israel’s ability to find common ground and engage in constructive talks with neighboring Arab states.
Volkan Isbasaran is a freelancer who deals with Turkish politics, global affairs, armed conflicts, ethnic and religious minorities, and the history of the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the Middle East. In the past, he was a journalist for GercekNews.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of EUobserver and not EUobserver.
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