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Gaza Strikes Reverberate in Egypt
Protesters in Alexandria, Egypt, call on the president to open the Gaza border, which he has done only for the most serious Palestinian casualties and to allow some aid through.
(By Tarek Fawzy -- Associated Press)
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"We have to act politically, not only in the health sector," Mohammed al-Beltagy, a Muslim Brotherhood official, declared from the lectern.
Hossam Zaki, Egypt's chief Foreign Ministry spokesman, described the attacks on Mubarak as the latest manifestation of a rift in the Middle East -- one that has widened since the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon -- between groups that favor violent resistance to solve Arab-Israeli conflicts and those, led by Egypt, who favor political settlement.
"They are after Egypt's credibility. They are after Egypt's role as a stabilizer," Zaki said. "They know that if they can undermine us, it would be much easier to go ahead with their agenda.
"We don't want the Arab street to identify more and more with issues promoted by the Islamist movements," Zaki said. "This is extremely dangerous, and it has serious consequences."
Mubarak's supporters say he is a pragmatist who understands that Israeli-Palestinian tensions cannot be stopped through emotion alone. Many are rallying around Mubarak out of patriotism, angered by the Arab world's attacks on their nation's credentials as a supporter of Palestinian self-determination.
Sarah Abd al-Fattah, 24, an accounting student at Cairo University, questioned why Persian Gulf governments have not threatened to withdraw assets from the United States.
"Why is all the talk about Hosni Mubarak? We have our own large population to worry about. Our economy is in crisis. Mubarak is under a lot of pressure from outside and inside Egypt," she said. "We need to talk about the Gulf states. Financial power brings real power. They should be supporting us, not standing against us."
Her classmate Mahmoud Ahmed, 20, nodded. "I feel Egypt is doing what it can. If we do anything else, Egypt becomes a party to war. Nobody wants that," he said.
Ahmed Yousry, another student, said he cared passionately about the Palestinian people. But he has grown disgusted with fractures between Hamas and Fatah, which runs the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
"At the end of the day, they have to rely on themselves," said Yousry, 21. "They have to take their rights with their own hands."
The trio said they had no plans to demonstrate for Palestinians. "It won't achieve anything," Yousry said. The three said they didn't want the Rafah crossing opened up, fearing the prospect of tens of thousands of Palestinians flowing into Egypt.
"We are already overpopulated," Abd al-Fattah said.
"And," Ahmed said, "there will be no one left to fight for Palestine."
