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Dateline: Middle East
Volume 25 • Winter 2008
Published by The Student Coalition for a Just Peace in the Middle East

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: THE MUBARAK REGIME AND OPERATION CAST LEAD
Jonathan Katz

II don’t normally support the Brotherhood and don’t actually like it that much but in this situation… I will
support [it] and its continuous actions against the government and Israel.” These words, from a self-proclaimed Egyptian liberal activist during an anti-regime demonstration in Cairo, should be a cause of great concern to Israel as it assesses its strategic position in the wake of last month’s Gaza campaign. Indeed, from the first days of Operation Cast Lead, Egypt witnessed daily protests, which often began as expressions of hostility towards Israel only to morph into anti-regime demonstrations. The ire of the Egyptian street was directed at a Mubarak regime that was allegedly complicit in Israeli actions.

In addition to revealing the Muslim Brotherhood’s ability to mobilize thousands of protesters on a whim, the recent unrest in Egypt is unsettling because it exposed the public’s willingness to take to the streets in defiance of Mubarak’s strict restrictions on free speech and assembly.

More troubling is the fact that Egypt’s demonstrations have brought together an otherwise fragmented opposition of Islamists, socialists and liberals, all of whom share a common disdain for Israel and the Mubarak regime.

The recent unrest could not have come at a worse time for the Egyptian President. Indeed, the global economic downturn has already weakened his unpopular government. In recent months, Egypt has seen widespread labour strikes, rising commodity prices and an unemployment rate above 30 percent. Columnist Thomas Barnett, writing for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, drew frightening parallels between Cairo’s unemployed, disenfranchised youth and the similar demographics that existed in Iran before the Islamic Revolution.

As Jefrey Azarva of the American Enterprise Institute wrote, “with more than 40 percent of the population living below the poverty line and a government increasingly unresponsive to its citizens’ most basic needs, Egypt [was already] sinking into turmoil” before Israel’s Gaza campaign.

It is conceivable that this turmoil, intensified by anger over Egypt’s reaction to Operation Cast Lead, might disrupt an imminent leadership succession in the country, as the aging Mubarak, 83, hands over the reigns of his governing National Democratic Party to his son Gamal, before multi-party elections scheduled for 2011.

The younger Mubarak already faces the formidable challenge of earning the confidence of his country’s military elite. Indeed, Gamal would be Egypt’s first civilian president since the 1952 Revolution and his claim to the Presidency may not be wellreceived by an officer class that could prevent his accession and seize the reigns of power under the pretence of national security, explains Azarva.

In this troubling context, Palestinian factions have descended on Cairo to negotiate a prospective Palestinian national unity government. Paradoxically, however, the mediators of the Cairo talks may have more to lose from the negotiations than either aggrieved Palestinian party.

Indeed, unlike Hamas and Fatah, the Mubarak regime desperately needs the negotiations to bear fruits. Arguably, by bringing together the warring factions Mubarak can salvage his credibility by portraying
himself as a great Palestinian unifier.

Regardless of the outcome of the present negotiations, however, Israel and the new administration in Washington must tailor their military, economic and diplomatic engagements in the region to the delicate situation in Egypt, lest Cairo 2009 descend into the abyss of Tehran 1979.

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