Summary
Author of Chapter 22 of From the River to the Sea, “Bread, freedom and an Arab Palestine” (11 December 2023), on Egypt, Palestine and debt as discipline (From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, lines 1683-1757).
Details
- Egypt today has been neutralized as a threat to Israel by debt, import dependence and reliance on Israel for natural gas, yet its population remains pro-Palestine and millions protested the proposed displacement of Gaza’s Palestinians into Sinai (lines 1693-1697).
- Palestine’s liberation was at the heart of pan-Arabism and Nasser’s legitimacy; after the 1967 Naksa the Palestine Liberation Organization stepped out of Nasser’s shadow and became a truly Palestinian entity (lines 1703-1713).
- Debt is discipline: in 1991 the US and its allies forgave half of Egypt’s external debt, 20.2 billion, in exchange for Egypt’s participation in the anti-Iraq coalition in the first Gulf War (lines 1719-1725).
- The demand that Rafah be opened indefinitely is a demand for Egyptian sovereignty, not for the displacement of Palestinians: “Egypt shares this border with Palestine outside of Israel’s direct control.” (lines 1747-1749)
Related pages
From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, Camp David Accords, Palestine Liberation Organization, Rafah Crossing, Ghassan Kanafani