Law, Power, and Justice

Israel’s offensive will pit Sisi against his own people.
— Read on www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/egypt-cauldron-gaza

Turmoil in Gaza is not entirely a bad thing for the regime of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. In many respects, his government would be happy to see Israel eliminate Hamas, 

As the Egyptian economy flounders, Sisi may also see an opportunity to squeeze debt relief and other concessions from Western countries and international institutions in exchange for agreeing to humanitarian aid corridors and facilitating the departure from Gaza of foreign nationals.

The Egyptian public is outraged by the ongoing Israeli bombardment of Gaza and the potential ground offensive. Government-sanctioned protests on behalf of the Palestinians have, in the past, served as opportunities to express ordinarily stifled dissent against the Egyptian government itself—and they could do so again. U.S. policymakers have long conflated regime and national interests in their dealings with countries in the Middle East, but the two are in fact separate. Like most of its counterparts across the region, the Egyptian government is an autocracy. It is neither representative nor popular at home, prizing stability over domestic accountability. And yet that lack of accountability may now undermine Sisi’s rule, as angry Egyptians grow increasingly disenchanted with a government that both impoverishes them and fails to address the desperate plight of their neighbors.

For both Sisi and his Gulf patrons, Israel’s threat to destroy Hamas can only be welcomed: Israel will be doing them a favor for which they will be genuinely, if discreetly, grateful

Western powers have spent the past decade making quiet accommodation with a slew of Arab autocracies, including Egypt. Popular discontent is growing. Hamas may be distasteful to most Egyptians—who rue the unhappy tenure of Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood—and indeed to most Arabs who are appalled by Hamas’s brutality, reminiscent of ISIS’s notorious cruelty. But in its spectacular claim on the world’s attention in the face of Israeli repression and global neglect, the militant group also evokes the popular uprisings of 2011