Egypt Holds Key For Peace Process
Updated: 11:31pm UK, Wednesday 21 November 2012
By Sam Kiley, Middle East Correspondent
The cycle of violence that has gripped the Israelis and the Palestinians for more than 60 years is often bloody, horrific and for many in the outside world, interminably boring.
A common reaction is to say "a plague on both their houses".
That would be fine, but people - living, loving, breathing, laughing people with children - live in those houses.
If a basic humanity was not enough to prompt interest and efforts to end the violent illness caused by occupation, terror and religious hatred, a more compelling case can be made for seeing peace on the Gaza Strip.
If Israel's ground invasion had gone ahead, as many in Benyamin Netanyahu's Cabinet and the Israeli Knesset had argued it should, the foundations of regional peace risked being shaken loose.
This is a new danger.
It follows the uprisings in the Islamic world that swept Mohammed Morsi to power in Egypt and have threatened the throne in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
Both countries have peace treaties with Israel.
Both are heavily influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood, which in Egypt controls the presidency and which in Jordan has called for the abdication of Abdullah II and fomented street protests against his rule.
Hamas to a great extent is a "child" of the Brotherhood.
This gave Egypt's new president, a member of the Brotherhood, enormous influence over Hamas.
His predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, was seen as little more than an American puppet.
America is seen on the Arab street as part of a Zionist conspiracy in which Israel's interests come above all others – especially when it comes to the Palestinians.
Mubarak treated the Palestinians with something approaching contempt.
Hamas' links to the Muslim Brotherhood lumped them into an opposition movement he wanted to jail not empathise with.
The influence that Morsi has over Hamas has meant that he had to be taken seriously as the chief negotiating partner in ending the latest bout of violence - especially by Israel.
That he was sympathetic to the Hamas cause, and will hold Israel to its commitments, helped Hamas to climb down from a defiant militarism which, if the Israeli invasion had gone ahead, could have been suicidal.
Egypt's new leadership has emerged as a maturing force in the region.
There may now be great hopes that Egypt will be able to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
After all, if it doesn't then the cycle of violence will return.
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