Egypt, Not The Islamic World As A Whole, Failed To Stop Israel’s Killing Of The Palestinians

The fact of the matter is that Egypt’s position towards this conflict was pivotal in determining its dynamics and the arguably genocidal consequences in the present. Its leadership’s hatred of Hamas is entirely responsible for why this country didn’t play a greater role in trying to alleviate the Palestinians’ suffering.

Turkish President Erdogan blamed the Islamic World as a whole for failing to stop Israel’s killing of the Palestinians in a speech that he gave on Saturday. According to him, “Unfortunately, the Islamic world, with its population of nearly 2 billion people, has failed to properly fulfill its brotherly duty to the Palestinians…[The war] has shown us that the Islamic world still has very significant shortcomings, especially in terms of acting in unity” for pressuring Israel to stop its killings.

In reality, there’s very little that most majority-Muslim states could have done, with the notable exception being Israel’s Egyptian neighbor. Cairo keeps its border closed to fleeing refugees to this day on national security pretexts in violation of international law, which it justifies on claims of not wanting to facilitate Israel’s ethnic cleansing. The consequence, however, is that Egypt tacitly allows Israel to genocide the Palestinians instead. Here are three background briefings:

* 12 October: “Egypt’s Dilemma: Facilitate Ethnic Cleansing Or Allow Possible Genocide”

* 2 November: “Egypt Is Playing An Extremely High-Stakes Game In Gaza That Could End In Genocide”

* 22 January: “Egypt Is Saber-Rattling Against Ethiopia To Distract From Its Betrayal Of The Palestinians”

To be sure, Egypt is in a very difficult position due to its diplomatic relations with Israel and the nuclear asymmetry between them, so it was always unlikely that it would conventionally intervene in the Palestinians’ support. Furthermore, Cairo detests the Muslim Brotherhood from which Hamas emerged, so it never planned to send troops to Gaza who’d then protect this group or be targeted by it. What it could have done, however, is assist others’ efforts in this respect if any of them had the political will.

The early stages of the latest Israeli-Hamas war were difficult for the IDF so a “coalition of the willing” from Muslim countries could have taken advantage of that to assemble in Egypt ahead of launching a humanitarian intervention in at least the southern part of Gaza where Israel pushed the Palestinians. Those Muslim-majority countries like Jordan, Turkiye, and the UAE might have participated in this mission, but none showed any interest, nor did Egypt ever signal that it would allow them to anyhow.

If at least one side had done so, however, then they could have pressured the other or at least then discredited them in the world’s eyes as punishment for not complying with their request. Egypt deserves much more blame than anyone else though since it’s the only access point to Gaza outside of Israeli control. Even though no large-scale intervention would have been likely due to Israel’s predictable nuclear saber-rattling, it could have at least changed the dynamics of this conflict.

The US might have at least superficially tempered its support of Israel a lot earlier than it’s recently begun to do for domestic electoral considerations, and it also can’t be taken for granted that Israel would have really resorted to nuclear weapons if faced with the scenario of an intervention in Southern Gaza. In fact, if properly conducted, it could have complemented Israel’s anti-Hamas aims if the coalition successfully disarmed those fighters who fled south under the cover of being refugees.

Of course, they’d have done so at risk to their own troops, and potential participants like Turkiye couldn’t be relied upon to carry out this particular task due to its leadership’s ideological alignment with Hamas’ Muslim Brotherhood patrons, but it might have still saved thousands of lives if carried out early on. Alas, one can only speculate about this scenario’s successes, but the point is that it was never even considered due to Egypt’s hatred of Hamas.

If President Sisi won’t even open the border for fleeing women and children, some of whom literally traveled 25 miles from the north by foot in the hopes of saving themselves from Israel’s collective punishment, then there was never any chance that he’d authorize sending anyone’s troops into Gaza. Egypt couldn’t prevent this war nor stop Israel’s targeting of civilians, but it could have helped alleviate the latter’s suffering, though it never did anything other than let just a trickle of aid through to this day.

Blaming the Islamic World as a whole like President Erdogan did is therefore unfair since the dynamics of this conflict could have been different had Egypt signaled any interest in hosting a multinational majority-Muslim “coalition of the willing” for launching a humanitarian intervention in Southern Gaza. This doesn’t mean that anything tangible would have automatically come out of such efforts, but they could have served to shift Israel and just as importantly the US’ positions in a comparatively positive way.

For instance, Israel announced in early November that it had divided Gaza in half by then, thus proving that the focus of its initial thrust into that enclave was to establish control over the north. CNN also reported last week that Israel is building a road to physically entrench this division, which suggests that Tel Aviv might not have been against a friendly Muslim coalition “demilitarizing” the south in principle. Nobody will ever know for sure though since Egypt was against anything of the sort from the get-go.

Whichever way one looks at it, the fact of the matter is that Egypt’s position towards this conflict was pivotal in determining its dynamics and the arguably genocidal consequences in the present. Its leadership’s hatred of Hamas is entirely responsible for why this country didn’t play a greater role in trying to alleviate the Palestinians’ suffering. In a sense, it can therefore be said that Egypt is also collectively punishing the Palestinians, albeit indirectly unlike the direct way in which Israel is doing this.