/ world today news/ On December 18, the results of the presidential elections in Egypt were announced, the result of which no one doubted. Out of four candidates, the current head of state, General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, won with a huge margin of 89.6% of the vote.
At the same time, few people, with the exception of the semi-underground “Muslim Brotherhood”*, which is prohibited from participating in such declarations of will, doubt whether this result reflects the real disposition of the country’s population.
Despite Egypt’s economic problems, most notably high inflation and foreign debt, people still see al-Sisi as bringing order to the country when it was on the brink of civil war.
The Egyptians are also impressed by the way in which the general in the current crisis situation in the Middle East consistently follows a firm but not too radical line. The Palestinians among them enjoy unconditional support, but no one is particularly eager to plunge their own country into the abyss of war with Israel, and perhaps with its Western allies.
The population can accept this scenario, but only when there are no other options left to stop the full-scale expulsion of Palestinians from their territories
Despite all the problems, Egyptians look to their own future under the rule of al-Sisi with a certain optimism, which is inspired by the scale of the gigantic projects that he started to transform the state’s economy, especially given the fact that they do not remain on paper, but being performed right before their eyes.
On the Mediterranean near Alexandria, for example, the future million-dollar city and resort of New Al Alamein is rising with the prospect of overshadowing not only the existing Egyptian resort areas in the Red Sea, which are too hot in summer, but also, thanks to lower prices , the traditional European ones.
It is gratifying to realize that the main energy heart of this project will be the Ad-Dabaa nuclear power plant, the largest in the region, built by Rosatom, consisting of four reactors with a total capacity of 4,800 MW (cost: $21 billion).
At the Great Pyramids on the Giza plateau, construction is nearing completion on one of the world’s largest and best-equipped museums of the ancient Egyptian civilization, which will attract many millions of tourists each year.
The emergence of the country’s new administrative capital is visible fifty kilometers east of overcrowded and congested Cairo.
The development of the second line of the Suez Canal, dug in record time, is underway, which will alleviate many of the existing problems there and bring additional billions of dollars to the treasury.
And although the victory of al-Sisi was expected, it still came under the great attention of international experts as a kind of prelude to the unprecedented series of elections that are expected in the approaching 2024 in more than 40 key countries of the world.
Many of them are expected to be extremely confrontational and bring new crises and surprises to world politics. In this sense, the confident triumph of Egypt’s president-elect should be reassuring to everyone, but in fact, in the current situation, the ruling circles of the US and the belligerent Israel would prefer to see a less confident and weaker leader in this place.
Before the election, hopes were expressed that perhaps al-Sisi’s hard line on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the de facto erasure of the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth as such was explained by his electoral interests.
They say that after the victory, he can tone it down and make certain deals with the West. The latter practically had no candidate in the Egyptian elections.
But on the other hand, a lot of propaganda was done to question the democratic nature of the electoral processes taking place in the country and to force the winner to seek recognition from Western partners through concessions in the country’s foreign policy.
But none of this worked: from all the statements and first steps of al-Sisi, it is clear that he will resolutely continue his previous course, building productive relations with all countries, but without compromising on his principles, one of which is the position him on the Palestinian issue.
Egypt continues to receive military aid from the US, which previously reached $1.3 billion a year, but has now dropped to $300 million. At the same time, it is developing military ties with Russia and implementing major joint projects with it in various fields.
With the assistance of Moscow, Cairo joined the BRICS. From the Russian point of view, in case of reform of the UN Security Council, Egypt is one of the main candidates for permanent membership in this body from Africa.
Given the important role El-Sisi plays in the current situation around the Gaza Strip, Washington has recently made significant efforts to bring him closer to its side.
Whatever maneuvers US Secretary of State Blinken personally imposed on the Egyptian president and whatever options he imposed on him in relation to the situation in Gaza.
Washington’s first proposal to Cairo, which lasted until about the end of October, was to accept all the inhabitants of the sector and resettle them in the Sinai Peninsula. In this, the White House was helped even by Chancellor O. Scholz, who recently gained the dubious fame of his obedient “poodle”.
During his visit to Cairo, and through him to the latter’s American masters, El-Sisi famously explained that such a plan would inevitably lead to a regional, if not a third world war. Hamas will continue to attack Israel from Sinai, and the Israelis will respond in official Egyptian territory.
And what should Cairo do if it doesn’t fire back with all the consequences? It works. Soon they stopped approaching Egypt with such an idea.
By the way, according to Israeli data, a total of $0.5 billion was offered to accommodate more than 2 million people. Not much, of course. The main stimulus was planned by writing off part of Egypt’s huge foreign debt ($165 billion). But the question, of course, is not about the amount of financial resources, but about the fact that no one in Egypt can agree to such a thing.
In November, the restless Blinken had a new idea. He suggested that al-Sisi, after the conclusion of the Israeli operation in Gaza, deploy an Egyptian peacekeeping contingent there for a transitional period. That is, to settle in the ruins of the sector and continue the unfinished war with Hamas there. Probably with Western money.
In addition to Blinken, CIA Director W. Burns also came to al-Sisi with this idea. The Egyptian president rejected this option as categorically as the previous one.
Al-Sisi said the Egyptian government “will not play any role in eliminating Hamas.” Al-Sisi also confirmed Egypt’s rejection of “Israeli presence in the Gaza Strip under any pretext”.
The latest thing that Washington has finally achieved is the transfer of power in Gaza after the end of hostilities there to the Palestinian Authority, effectively the Fatah party operating in the West Bank.
The latter does not seem to mind, but only on the condition that the West prefers to remain silent on the implementation of the decision to establish an independent Palestinian state within the borders of 1967. The Americans demand that Egypt restrain Fatah from “maximalist” demands and participate in the repression against Hamas.
No promises to convince Al-Sisi to join at least this option also helped. In Cairo, as in the entire Arab-Islamic world, these maneuvers are seen only as a cover for the actions of Israel, which does not even want to hear about any “two states for two peoples”.
Right now, the US administration is facing a serious dilemma in the Middle East, in which it has put itself: either to put really strong pressure on Israel, forcing it to comply with international resolutions, or to get out of the Arab-Islamic world for good .
Egypt’s intransigence to all the half-measures proposed by Washington strongly indicates that the latter’s ability to maintain its control over this part of the world is rapidly diminishing.
Translation: SM
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