Caution: Potentially fatal initiative ahead

Egypt's attempts to play the mediator will only serve the Israelis.

4 min read

Wael Kandil

15 Jul, 2014

Sisi and Abbas meet in Cairo in September 2014

Egypt has mediated between Israel and the Palestinians [Anadolu/Getty]

The so-called Egyptian initiative for a ceasefire in Gaza would have been treated as a bone fide diplomatic endeavour had it been launched a week ago.

Egypt needed to play a role from the start of the assault on the Strip.

Even the occupying Israeli authorities asked Egypt to intervene as early as 2 July. But the military regime in Cairo refused to directly contact Hamas. Instead, it engaged in a shameful collusion with the Israelis. Leaks to the media about contact between the two sides was confirmed when an Israeli radio station reported that Egypt’s chief of intelligence had visited Tel Aviv, exposing what can only be described as coordination between the administration of President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi and Israel, aimed at disciplining armed Palestinian groups, as represented by Hamas.

Egyptian officials have been wallowing through a deluge of accusations that they have been inciting citizens against the Palestinian people. Television presenters working for the deep military state announced what looked like a general mobilisation of the Egyptian people against the Palestinians. The authorities’ silence on the matter was interpreted as its tacit approval.

It is worth mentioning that Egypt’s president did not attempt to quash previous claims made by a member of Israel’s media - that Sisi, Egypt’s ruling general, consults him before taking any decisions.

Why, then, have Egyptian authorities suddenly decided to focus on a ceasefire?

There has been a lot of talk about this Egyptian move

The military administration's political position is nothing new... the Palestinians have no option but to reject the deal

being driven by the desire to steal the limelight from other potential players, especially because the Palestinian-Israeli situation has been the Egyptian regime’s only card to play with the US - and in the global political game - since the days of Hosni Mubarak being in power. That Egypt reacted strongly when other actors started to make moves in the area could well have been anticipated.

However, what lies beyond this angry Egyptian leap – which may well block out any other initiative from seeing the light of day – carries serious risks that make it more of a cunningly placed ambush than a ceasefire attempt. The military administration’s political position is nothing new - creating an initiative with impossible conditions so that its opponents - the Palestinians - have no option but to reject the deal, making it look as if they are the ones obstructing peace, and justifying further attacks against them. It used the same method in August 2013 to provide political cover for the massacre of as many as 1,000 protesters at Rabaa al-Adaweya.

Designed to be rejected

Two days before the Rabba massacre, the military propaganda machine promoted what it called “the Sheikh al-Azhar Initiative” to stop the escalation of protests by Morsi supporters against the military coup. At the time, I warned that the announcement coincided with declarations to raid and disperse the Rabaa al-Adaweya and al-Nahda sit-ins by force. I fear that the so-called “al-Azhar Initiative” was no more than another political ploy designed to be rejected by Morsi’s supporters to make them appear as if they had obstructed peaceful solutions. In this respect, no one outside the immediate political environment could object to force being used to disperse sit-ins – as such a ploy weaves a false shroud of “legitimacy” to allow the military regime to commit new massacres.

Indeed, the method used to disperse the Rabba al-Adaweya and al-Nahda sit-ins was an ambush and not a legitimate initiative. Therefore, we need to look at what exactly the Egyptian administration is trying to do in Gaza under the cover of a “ceasefire initiative”. This initiative was specifically made to be rejected, and to provide “Egyptian” cover for Israel’s war crimes on a larger scale, where Cairo’s opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas is being used to help justify Israel’s war on Gaza.

The real meaning of the initiative shows that Egypt’s standing has fallen below rock bottom. It speaks of “violent acts” from the Gaza Strip against Israel, while gratifying Israel’s war crimes and reducing them to mere “violent acts.” I argue that this choice of words is biased against the fundamentals of history, geography, religion and morality - and does not even live up to the words used in European Union or United Nations initiatives.

Caution: the initiative, or rather the military regime’s gift to the occupying Israeli authority, is potentially fatal.

This article is an edited translation from our Arabic edition.

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the original author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Al Araby Al Jadeed, its editorial board or staff.