Author : Nicola Pedde,

Instant Studies

EGYPT ON THE EVE OF THE ELECTIONS, AND THE ISRAELI PERCEPTION OF ISLAMIC THREAT

 By Nicola Pedde

 The Composite Matrix of the Egyptian Political Mosaic

In the hot pre-election climate, in Egypt, new parties are constituted, alliances are consolidated, and, above all, there is an intense and continuous search for credible candidates to be inserted in the lists before the deadline of the administrative terms in September.

As indicated by the military authorities and by the provisional government, elections should be held in the month of November, with the closure of the lists and applications in the month of September.

Two coalitions have already been formed. The first is the "Democratic Coalition for Egypt", initially composed by 30 parties - including the new "Party for Freedom and Justice", linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and the salafist party Nour – but recently abandoned by the Tagammu party. It is part of the coalition also the Al Wafd, which, however, is suffering a process of deep internal crisis, risking to split into two entities even before the elections. Within the Democratic Coalition for Egypt a double principle of general cohesion had been initially established: the first is represented by the concept of freedom as the basis concept of politics, and the second is to recognize Islam as the primary source of law. This second aspect, however, determined dissents with some parties, such as the Tagammu, which had left the coalition.

The second coalition, recently formed, is the "Egyptian Block". It is constituted by the Tagammu and other 14 parties of liberal, democrat, progressive and religious inspiration, and some Sufi oriented groups. Also in this coalition a general principle had been established and accepted by the members, based on the secular and civil concept of the State, and on the rationalist inspiration of the law. Although explicitly oriented at a separation between politics and religion, the parties in the coalition have decided not to make this principle a political slogan in order not to hurt the Islamic component of their electorate. And as well not to stand as an alternative to the Islamic parties.

Within the “Block”, the main issue for debate - and often clutch - focuses on the electoral law, that the left-wing parties intend to change, considering it as instrumental to the interests of large political conglomerates.

Although each of the two coalitions is composed by both secular and religious parties, the Democratic Coalition for Egypt is popularly considered as the most religious because of the inclusion in its ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood’s party and of the salafist Nour.

In both the coalitions, the main obstacles to be solved are the definition of a consensus position on the electoral law - which is not easy to be solved, considering that this will be the first really democratic electoral law - the political program to be presented, and the guidelines of the new Constitution. In addition, a relevant problem within the coalitions is also the desire of every party to emerge to the leadership of the entire group, sometimes using their “numbers”, sometimes the charisma of their "strong" candidates. Creating an intense and very hot pre-electoral debate.

Within the Democratic Coalition for Egypt, however, there is a further, serious, problem. The initial agreement among parties included the prohibition to use slogans and religious symbols during the election campaign. On July 29^th, however, a considerable crowd of Muslim voters, including many supporters of Muslim Brotherhood, met in Tahrir Square, in Cairo, asking for the establishment of an Islamic State. The Al Wafd party had then asked for a clarification, but both the religious parties have deserted the meeting, leading to a further and dangerous outbreak of crisis.

The Spectre of Islamic Victory and of the Muslim Brotherhood

Not only in Egypt, but in the entire Arab world, there is a great interest to understand what will be the role, and especially the “weight”, of the religious parties in the forthcoming elections.

Many, especially in the West and in Israel, fear that these elections will be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and by the components of more radical Islamic political organizations, negatively speculating on the future of the country and its position vis-à-vis Europe, the USA and Israel.

Although strong and widespread, both at political and social level, however, the structures and the capacities of the religious organizations in Egypt had been perceived through an excessively islamophobic vision. And, above all, it has been attributed to these organizations a compactness, a cohesion and a consensus of visions that, in reality, it is very difficult to find.

On the contrary, the political and social system connected with the Islamic organizations in Egypt, as explained also by Karim Mezran and Massimo Campanini in a recent book[1], is quite heterogeneous and factional. The Muslim Brotherhood, certainly in a position to represent an enormous number of potential voters, is internally divided into a myriad of sub-organizations, which lead to three main different concepts and positions on politics and religion. There are the pragmatics, whose desire is to start a powerful process of growth and are characterized by a very moderate vision of religion, representing the majority of the younger religious electorate. Then there are the purists, not liking the interplay between politics and religion, and willing to orient the movement in the direction of the spiritual activities and of the original social vocation. And then there are the fundamentalists, with a radical idea of politics and of the role of religion, suggesting the adoption of the Sharia Law, but which are at the same time poorly representative in terms of voters.

An overall picture, that of the Muslim Brotherhood, not so insidious as often perceived in the West, and essentially disconnected by radical salafi groups, toward which, indeed, is often hostile.

This does not means that it doesn’t exist a political spectrum near the salafist system, as in the case of the Nour party, but they do not seem today having any chance to gain great political and social spaces. Probably surviving in the future only in the orbit of a galaxy which will be dominated by a Parliament divided between moderate Muslims and progressive and secular forces.

There is also the suspicion – and even more than a suspicion – that the Egyptian military system, which is bearing a huge component of the economic balance of the State - through the direct control of a massive industrial and productive machine - has already, in fact, defined the margins of an agreement with the moderate component of the Muslim Brotherhood. With the aim on the one hand to avoid a political and institutional trauma, and on the other hand to secure the continuous control of the huge industrial heritage of the Defense.

If this were true - the military themselves are impatient to see the results of the elections in November, in order to verify the solidity of the commitments that have been negotiated with the various political forces - the Egyptian political landscape following the first free elections, will be dominated by a majority of votes for the parties of Islamic heritage, but with a coalition government that would see an alliance of the secular, social-democrat, and moderate progressive Islamist. With the marginalization of the radical forces, and those of the extreme left, which should be push as a minority at the extreme of the parliament.

It must be added also, in an already intricate framework, the variable of the presidential candidates. The Muslim Brotherhood had not expressed one - although one of his former members, Aboul Fatouh, is running as an independent - and it appears quite likely today that the candidate with the greatest probability of victory will be the popular former foreign minister of Mubarak, and as well former secretary of the Arab League, Amr Moussa.

Moussa is a skilful politician, pleasing to the laity, and seen by Muslims as a good compromise for the first round of the free elections of the country. He enjoys a strong credibility and esteem in the West, and represents a guarantee even for the military component and the narrow, but very powerful, circle of the industrialists.

A relatively positive and encouraging framework. If confirmed by the ballot box.

The Fears of Israel and the Difficulty of Tel Aviv to Understand the Demands of the "Arab streets"

The evolutionary dynamics of the political and social situation in Egypt significantly concern the Israeli government. This is a fact, but it is appropriate to clarify some fundamental aspects.

A good summary of how the current Israeli government see today's Egypt was formulated by Ethan Bronner, in the New York Times[2], while an interesting self-criticism of Gideon Levy in a recent article published on the Hareetz[3], proposes the point of view of the political opposition to the Netanyahu government.

For the Israeli government, actually expression of the conservative side of the local electorate, the country had simply entered in a dead end. Concessions have been made to the Palestinians, a pragmatically attitude with the neighbours had been adopted, it had been moderated the interventionist push in order not to react to the constant provocations. Nevertheless, the security of Israel is increasingly at risk, and now also Egypt is hostile, where the Muslim Brotherhood dominates the streets, burning the Israeli flags, and where the same streets held the military in hostage. There is no alternative to the attacks of any kind and size. Israelis must quickly react if they do not want to be cancelled by the maps.

On the contrary, the local opposition complains about the failure of a political strategy which is not consistent with the nature of the problems that afflict Israel, and the simultaneous lack of a vision that can capitalize from the mistakes made with the Arab neighbours, building a new and really satisfactory negotiating process for all the parties involved. "Occupation, and the exaggerated demonstration of strength of Israel in response to the terrorist attacks, are now being put to the test of the judgment of the people, not only by their leaders," says Levy, suggesting the adoption of a new strategy to abandon the logic of retaliation in favour of a courageous dialog.

Although each of the positions contain understandable opinions, the true limit in the interpretation of Egypt’s events - and the Arabs more in general - lies however in the constant difficulty of Israel to be able to investigate the underlying causes of the riots that led to the fall of President Mubarak’s regime.

The persistent suspect that the Muslim Brotherhood should hide behind every political and social change, is the result of a vision which is now antiquated and linked to the "old guard’s" stereotypes. Because of their geographical location, Israeli experts are convinced to be able to understand more and better than anyone else the regional political dynamics, but its is clearly evident a lack of capacity to understand the great pressures that have moved and motivated a large number of Arabs during the last year.

The Arab masses, in particular, are still seen in Israel as supine and devoid of any autonomous capacity. If it moves, therefore, it is because someone has moved it. And that someone may not be other if not the Muslim Brotherhood.

A so short-sighted and still so widespread vision, however, impeded Israel to understand how much the threat has changed, bringing to the forefront a stereotype of the Muslim Brotherhood nowadays not appropriate and real. And indeed preventing Israel to focus on the new and more insidious forms of radicalism that may endanger the safety of the country. It had been underestimated the threat of salafit groups, and poor attention had been dedicated to the profound evolution in the structure of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, as well as to the secular positions of a huge portion of the population. Reducing once again the stereotype to the generic and abused "Islamic threat".

There had been a practical demonstration on the occasion of the recent attack near the town of Eilat, last August 18^th.

The commando who carried out the attack, according to leaks coming from the Israeli Defence and cited by Ethan Bronner in the New York Times, penetrated in Israel from the Gaza Strip, was not in any way an emanation of Hamas and had planned and organized the action entirely in Gaza. Nevertheless, the Israeli press and part of the government has commented the events of Eilat as the first tangible sign of the change of regime in Egypt. On the contrary, the Israeli Defence have unofficially confirmed that Egypt is maintaining an excellent operational level with their military forces deployed in the Sinai region, not attributing to Cairo any responsibility for the events in Eilat. The problem, therefore, has a different nature.

In an attempt to chase and neutralize the terrorists escaping from the place of the attack, the Israeli security forces - it is not clear if the land or the air forces - opened fire across the Egyptian border, mistakenly killing three border guards. This, as denounced and also certified by the MFO, is an open violation of the Camp David agreement.

Later, a crowd of Egyptians - which was not even that large - met under the Israeli embassy to protest against the events, and a demonstrator climbed the wall to burn the flag of the embassy. Shocked by the events, Israel refused to accept the more simple and linear explanations of the facts, not accepting to believe that the crowd was furious because of the border incident, and even more for the Israeli refusal to deliver official apologies. On the contrary, the protest had been presented by many in Israel as an anti-Zionist event, with a religious matrix, and as an expression of the new political course in Egypt. By refusing to accept the idea that the Egyptian society could desire to emancipate and express a nationalist feeling.

Until Israel will remove the stereotype of Egypt as an inert and defenceless society, capable only of moving from a military to a religious regime, it will not be able to build a satisfactory cooperation strategy for its security needs. At the same time, Israel risks to neglect the role and the threat of new and much more dangerous cells of the Islamic radicalism, unintentionally favouring their role and capacity of action.

Endnotes

(Uploaded on 28 September, 2011)