CFR News Update: Egypt Defends Gaza as Violence Escalates

Daily News Brief November 16, 2012

Top of the Agenda: Egypt Defends Gaza as Violence Escalates

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi pledged to support (BBC) Gaza against Israeli attacks as fierce fighting escalated for a third day, condemning what he called Israel's "blatant aggression" hours after his prime minister visited Gaza. Cairo recalled its ambassador in protest and dispatched Prime Minister Hesham Kandil to the Palestinian territory Friday in a show of solidarity (Reuters) with Hamas, while Israel indicated it was considering an invasion of Gaza by mobilizing reserve troops (NBC). The latest upsurge in the violence came Wednesday when Israel killed Ahmed Jabari, Hamas's military chief, in an airstrike, and began shelling Gaza, following an upsurge in rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza.

Analysis

"Faced with an area in which they lack authority and an issue on which there is a consensus of public support − to oppose the military operation in the Gaza Strip would be political suicide – [Netanyahu election opponents] Yacimovich and Lapid have jumped on the Barak-Netanyahu bandwagon. They will ride it out, shouting their enthusiastic support while waiting for the national agenda and the election season to return to the issues they hold dear," writes Yossi Verter for Haaretz.

"Perhaps more importantly it will also answer angry demands from Mr Mursi's own supporters for stronger action against Israel than the country has taken in the past. And that, of course, is a reminder that it is going to be much harder for an Egypt which is democratising to maintain its working relationship with Israel than it was for an authoritarian Egypt where the leaders did not have to worry too much about what their own people thought," writes Kevin Connolly for the BBC.

"Israel's exclusive rights to the term 'self-defence' and institutionalised habit of inverting logic have resulted in the construction of a narrative according to which the fatal bulldozing of American peace activists in Gaza and the murder in international waters of Gaza-bound humanitarian workers armed with construction tools, marbles and a metal pail are excused as defensive manoeuvers," writes Belen Fernandez for Al Jazeera.

"The choice is largely that of Hamas. Its leaders deliberately provoked this conflict, once again treating Gazan civilians as nothing more than useful victims. Israel would prefer to avoid entering Gaza in the ground, and would prefer to end this round of exchanges. So far, it seems Hamas's leaders want to keep it going," writes CFR's Elliott Abrams on his blog Pressure Points.