Until Egypt is restored onto the path towards democracy, fanatic armed groups can never really be defeated. Military solutions of such conflicts cannot suffice without a political settlement
An attack against the Egyptian military in the Sinai peninsula on Friday resulted in the death of 31 soldiers. No group has yet claimed responsibility, but reports suggest that the deadly assault was likely carried out by al-Qaida-inspired groups in the area.
The military regime wasted no time taking advantage of the situation to tighten its grip on power. Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, the military-officer-in-a-suit who came to power on the back of July 2013's military coup against the elected government, declared a state of emergency.
And in a "presidential" decree Monday, he outlined further measures which will make it easier for the military to stamp out its opponents under the guise of fighting a broadly-defined "terrorism".
All state facilities, including universities, roads, bridges and power stations, are now defined as military. This means that military trials for civilians are back, despite the regime's solemn promises to democratise.
While a regime official told The Guardian's Patrick Kingsley that the law was aimed only at "terrorists committing serious crimes against the military and police," in fact it is broadly defined, allowing military trials against civilian opponents of the regime. The same anonymous official tellingly said: "Do you really think that the government will apply those military trials [to] activists without justification?"
The re-defining of areas of the country as "military zones" is closely reminiscent of Israeli tactics against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank. Any time Palestinians mount a protest against the various forms of Israeli occupation (be it the apartheid wall, the settlements or the checkpoints) Israeli soldiers instantly declare the area a "closed military zone". Daring to violate these "zones" is an offence that can result in imprisonment, serious injury or death at the hands of Israeli army thugs.
This is only one of the many parallels, and shared strategies and tactics between the Israeli occupation regime and the Egyptian military regime. This should come as no surprise; both are part of the regional order imposed by US imperial hegemony. Both regimes are generously funded with billions of dollars in US tax payers' money.
Soon after the Sinai attack, Sisi reportedly said that Egypt was fighting "a war of existence". This is another propaganda theme long beloved of Israeli army officers and politicians (who are quite often the same people). Any sign of Palestinian resistance, armed or unarmed, political or diplomatic, is declared as a threat to the very existence of the Israeli entity. Such intense paranoia is a sign that the Israeli project for the region does not have much of a shelf-life.
Reports on Tuesday stated that Egypt has already begun demolishing Egyptian homes in Rafah, near to the Gaza Strip, in order to create a 500m-wide "buffer zone" to protect against the "threat" of weapons smuggling.
Some 580 homes are said to be under threat of destruction. And again: Israel has done the same, in the very same area. During the second intifada, Israeli bulldozers in Gaza cleared out huge areas in the Palestinian town of Rafah (close to Egyptian Rafah, but on the other side of the Egypt-Gaza boundary line). Countless Palestinian homes and livelihoods were destroyed and levelled to the ground, all the name of "fighting terror". The American activist Rachel Corrie, crushed to death by one of these army bulldozers, was only one of the many to die at the hands of the Israelis during that period.
Egypt's military regime has made it a mainstay of their propaganda to agitate against Palestinians in Gaza, scaremongering against them using compliant state media, which frequently indulges in outlandish conspiracy theories. Palestinians in Gaza in general, and Hamas in particular were said to be behind all sorts of ills to befall Egypt since the 2011 democratic uprising that overthrew previous military dictator Hosni Mubarak. This is another parallel with Israel, since anti-Palestinian agitation is the very lifeblood of Israeli politics.
While al-Qaida-like groups in the area are a genuine threat, it can easily be argued that theEgyptian regime's brutal tactics in the region, as well as its enthusiasm for doing Israel's dirty work there have opened the door for these groups.
Until Egypt is restored onto the path towards democracy, fanatic armed groups can never really be defeated. Military solutions of such conflicts cannot suffice without a political settlement.
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