Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad (AP)
In the long history of Egyptian-Palestinian relations and in particular the relationship between Egypt and Gaza, there has been nothing to rival the current crisis in Gaza for intensity and for the implications it holds for future stability in the area. While it is too early to tell whether a fundamentally different relationship will develop between Egypt and Palestinians over Gaza, it is certain that Egyptian policy choices in the period ahead will be fraught with contradictory impulses. In the end, Egyptian decision-makers may not be able to decide what to do.
At least four vital national security interests come into play within Egyptian decision-making related to Gaza. For a political system in Egypt beset by its own internal and external challenges, the crisis in Gaza could not have come at a worse time. For example, there is no vice president and thus no constitutionally-sanctioned successor in line; the political system is sclerotic and subject to increasing pressures from within; and Saudi diplomacy has been more agile and deft than Egyptian diplomacy resulting in Saudi Arabia all but displacing Egypt as the locus of moderate Arab decision-making. Access the full article>>