Critics accuse Egypt of being complicit Israel's operation, citing such evidence that Olmert met with Mubarak about a week before the first bombs hit. Rumors have been flying that Olmert told Mubarak in advance of the strike, something that is entirely believable. Jordan's King Hussien warned Golda Meir about Egypt and Syria's coming strike in the days before the Yum Kippur 73 war.
What I don't understand is what people think Egypt could really have done about this. It seems that all the anger over the Arab World's historic inactivity when it comes to actually helping the Palestinian people is being directed at Cairo.
I think the blockade of Gaza is a travesty, the conditions for residents in the territory are deplorable and it is completely immoral for Israel to have instituted this policy. It would seem like the next logical step would be to hold Egypt equally culpable for its role in sealing off the southern border. In reality however, I don't feel Egypt has a choice in the matter. While other voices may argue that Egypt should open the gates, I don't think it's realistic to expect Cairo to take such an action. Voicing solidarity with your fellow Arabs is one thing, but I can understand why a government would not feel letting 1.5 million refugees flood into its country is in its national interest. It's easy for Nassrallah to tell Egypt what to do, but he's not the one who would have to manage the situation that would result form lifting the blockage. I would like to see Egypt bring more supplies into Gaza, but seeing as the government can't even feed and take care of its own people, I wouldn't expect it to go out of its way to help others.
Pressure is on Egypt and Jordan to break their ties to Israel, I think this might be the reason why the emergency meeting of the Arab League was pushed back several days. Maybe Cairo thought that a few days to cool off would lessen the calls for them to sever their links.
Surprisingly, I've found that many Egyptians actually agree with my position. Don't get me wrong – people are pretty upset over Israel here, but they always were. The same goes for Mubarak's regime. I've just got the sense that the average person really doesn't want to have to deal with the entanglements of their neighbors. I was curious as to whether the small conversations that I had reflected at all what the general population thought, when I came across this article in the Egypt Daily News, describing the diversity in opinion about the conflict in Gaza. Surprisingly, many people seem pretty open about their opposition to Hamas. This is a far cry from 2006 when Hezbollah was widely praised by the population. This quote from the article seemed to sum up a sense that I've noticed:
"Hamas is acting against the Palestinians," said Mohamed Kamal, also a central Cairo shopkeeper, and one of a dozen Cairo residents interviewed by Reuters this week. "There is no reason for firing rockets. What are they hitting anyway?" he said.
The Western media likes to portray the "Arab Street" as a sort of monolithic bloc of angry peasants, who are constantly at war with their own governments. The Arab media with all of its slants and biases doesn't do much to counter this. Despite this however, public opinion can be very fractured, with significant portions of the population holding views that we don't think they would. I keep reading in the Western media about massive protests throughout the Arab World, and in other countries that may be true, but in Cairo, there's no "angry street" or massive mobs. Yes there were some large protests organized by the Muslim Brotherhood, but that’s to be expected. For most Egyptians, it's been a perfunctory comment against Israel, and then a sigh as if they just feel like giving up on ever seeing anything change. I know how they feel.
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