Egyptian paternalistic activism with Hamas serves to gain domestic and foreign consensus

The impression that Egyptian mediation has had a positive effect on the confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians of Hamas appears to have had a positive effect for the Cairo regime. In reality, the Egyptian contribution, which was nevertheless present, only partially contributed to stopping the Israeli bombing, which had lasted for 11 days, and the launches of rockets from the Gaza Strip; nevertheless President Al Sisi received the public appreciation of the American president, met the French president and the Egyptian foreign minister was able to receive the compliments of Germany and the European Union. The Egyptian regime must be given a certain ability, more than anything else, to know how to use a contingent situation to its advantage, which can allow it to claim its diplomatic relevance in the region, trying to fix a calendar for the question of peace. This is a unique opportunity to get out of a state of isolation caused by the application of increasingly repressive practices within one’s own territory. The Egyptian goal is to coordinate, through its diplomacy, the management of the current peace, through increasingly frequent meetings with Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority to maintain the ceasefire thanks to a lasting truce and promote Palestinian reconciliation. , as a first point to proceed to a possible dialogue with Tel Aviv. Egypt has financially committed itself to the reconstruction in the Gaza Strip with an investment of 500 million dollars, thus becoming the main interlocutor for Hamas, also thanks to the maintenance of the only access not controlled by Israel, through which to deliver aid humanitarians, including from third countries. It is clear that this whole strategy is functional to a sort of cleansing of the image of the regime, which, however, is proving to exceed in its paternalistic rhetoric, almost replicating the attitude taken in practice, which is moreover typical of authoritarian regimes. The history of the relationship between Al Sisi and Hamas has recorded moments of crisis precisely with the Egyptian dictator’s seizure of power due to the repression of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, particularly close to Hamas, however Cairo needs Gaza and Gaza needs de Cairo, and the link between the two sides appears to be obligatory, even if several people who collaborated with Hamas itself continue to be imprisoned in Egyptian prisons. On this contradiction, the Palestinian Islamic movement for the moment must postpone for reasons of obvious necessity, but it is legitimate to think that in the long term this cause can only be a reason for conflict. Egypt, however, is the strong partner of the alliance and can conduct relations by reason of its support for Hamas, with the primary objective of making this link and its effects functional, as a guarantee for the sustainability of the dictatorship, especially on the internal front, but not disdaining the positive implications that can also be gained from the outside. Logic is part of a classic scheme that is always valid for dictatorships: gaining international consent, even partial, through a diplomatic action worthy of a democracy: a factor that allows you to hide internal misdeeds and assume almost essential positions, especially if in certain contexts there is no they are alternative international actors who can and want to guarantee their commitment, as the recent clash between Israel and Palestine has shown. On the other hand, the humanitarian aspect is a factor that arouses a lot of sensitivity in democracies, especially in Western ones: if the amount of aid is undeniable, the methods, strongly exhibited, through banners advertising the president’s gift to Palestinians Egyptian, did not arouse particular enthusiasm in the population, who still remember the work of destruction, carried out by the Egyptians, of the Palestinian tunnels in 2013. Each part, therefore, makes a virtue of necessity, but the meaning of this collaboration is that the Palestinians cannot reject it because they are in dire need, while for Egypt it can mean one of the last possibilities to try to improve its image towards the outside, not realizing that it is playing a role that should have been a task of the United Nations and Western democracies, who, ultimately, are using Cairo by paying it back with a little appreciation, which is, in reality, a real and proper fiction. ia.