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Egypt
L
ocated on Africa’s Mediterranean coast, Egypt currently receives a great deal of international attention. Egypt has been a member of the United Na- tions since 1945 and an Egyptian, Boutros Boutros Ghali, served the United Nations as a recent secretary general (1992–1997). Egypt maintains official diplomatic ties with the United States, and its govern- ment policies since the Suez War (1956) suggest a generally friendly attitude to- ward the United States.
History of Relations with the United States Part of the Ottoman Empire since 1517, Egypt became a British protectorate in 1914. In 1922 it became an independent consti- tutional monarchy; in 1952 that monarchy was overthrown in a coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser (1918–1970), who took over di- rect control of Egypt in 1954 as prime minister. In 1956 he made himself president.
Relations during the Nasser Presidency (1956–1970) Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in 1956, an action that alienated colonial powers Great Britain and France, which then negotiated agreements with Israel to invade Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. John Foster Dulles, U.S. secretary of state under president Dwight Eisenhower, broke with fellow U.N. Security Council members Britain and France to support the majority of members of the General Assembly, who opposed the invasion. Dulles told the Assembly, “the Israeli-French-British invasion is a grave error inconsistent with the principles and purposes of [the UN] char- ter” (quoted in Leininger 1996). The General Assembly called on Great Britain, France, and Israel to enact an immediate cease-fire and withdraw. Relations between Egypt and the United States took a turn for the worse in the subsequent years, under the administra- tions of presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. Even though the United States extended civilian assistance to Egypt under the Point Four program, and some military assistance, it was strictly limited. Egyptian authorities wanted spectacular results
to show that Nasser’s revolution could raise average Egyptians’ standard of living, while the United States wanted strictly budgeted projects that could expand gradually. When the United States withdrew its support from the As- wan High Dam project in 1956, Egypt turned to the United States’ enemy in the Cold War—the Soviet Union. Built with Soviet equipment at an estimated cost of $1 billion, the dam was completed in 1970.
Relations during the Sadat Presidency (1970–1981) In July 1972, faced with the high costs of na- tional modernization and the “war of attrition” at the height of the Cold War, Egypt’s president Anwar Sadat (1918–1981) ordered the immediate withdrawal of the Soviet Union’s five thousand military advisers. In October 1973, Egypt joined with Syria in a surprise attack on their mutual enemy, Israel, in an attempt to take back the terri- tory lost to Israel during the 1967 war. With the help of the United States Israel was able to repel the attack, but Israel was forced to return some of its previous conquests as part of negotiations to end the conflict. The U.S. president Richard Nixon was offered a hero’s reception when he visited Cairo in June 1974 although in just two months he would be forced to resign the presidency. The irony of a national leader, disgraced in the United States but welcomed as a guest by Arab regimes, did not escape the poet and popular singer Sheikh Imam, who was in Egyptian state custody for the duration of Nixon’s visit. Sheikh Imam’s satirical song, “Sharafaat ya Nixon baba” [“You honor us, Nixon, you chump”] remains widely known. During Sadat’s presidency, the state of Egypt took a turn toward Israel and the United States that other Arab states—and many Egyptian citizens—did not take until later. Sadat visited Is- rael’s Knesset (parliament) in Jerusalem in November 1977. In 1979, after negotiations carried out with the aid of the United States, Egypt, alone of the nation-states in the Arab League, concluded a peace agreement (the Camp David Accords) with Israel. Since that time, Egypt has received assistance equaling t wo-thirds of any new aid the United States gives Israel. However, although Sadat and his Israeli counterpart, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an Arab League summit held in Iraq condemned the Camp David Accords and ostracized
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Egypt for ten years (1979–1989). Many Arabs believed that only a unified Arab stance would persuade Israel to satisfy Palestinian demands for a homeland, and therefore they felt that the Arab threat of force evaporated without Egypt’s military power. Sadat was assassinated in Cairo in October 1981 by Muslim fundamental- ists while he was reviewing a military parade commemorating the 1973 war. He was succeeded by Hosni Mubarak (b. 1928).
Relations during the Mubarak Presidency (1981–present) In 1991, when Iraq invaded and annexed Kuwait, the Arab league responded by voting to send Egyptian, Syrian, and Moroccan troops to join the U.S.-led coalition of nation-states for Opera- tion Desert Storm, the Persian Gulf War. Egypt contributed forty thousand troops, including two armored divisions and five thousand special forces paratroopers to the combined Arab forces under the command of Lieutenant General Khalid bin Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz of Saudi Arabia. The situation was very different in 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq. Egypt did not join the United States and Great Britain in that operation.
Perspectives on the United States Many Arabs, including Egyptian Arabs, feel betrayed and dis- mayed because the Palestinian issue—central to the Arab-Israeli
c onflict—remains unaddressed and continues to destabilize the region. This sense of betrayal and dismay affects perspectives on the United States. Egyptians have found peace with Israel to be a mixed bless- ing, and their opinions regarding Israel spill over onto their per- spectives on the United States. Despite the signing of the Camp David Accords with Israel, the Egyptian Writers’ Union (which was founded after Egypt’s defeat in the Six Days’ War with Israel in 1967) continues to observe a boycott on travel to Israel, and Is- rael remains unrepresented at the Cairo International Book Fair to this day.
Economic Perspectives A founding member of both the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank (1945), Egypt has been a member of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) since 1970, with the understanding that these institutions offered the promise of a new world financial order which would, with U.S. support, nudge out neocolonial Bank of England sovereignty over mem- bers’ exchange rates. But ever since Egypt became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in June 1995, the United States has pressured Egypt to privatize its economy. Egyptians have mixed feelings about privatization, and their opinions on economic restructuring affect their perspectives on the United States. Egyptian manufacturers have found that their products have lost their price advantage and must now compete with a flood of imports, and workers have experienced market
Statistical Snapshot of Egypt ❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙❙ Capital
Cairo
Area
1,001,450 sq km; slightly more than three times the size of the U.S. state of New Mexico
Government type
Population
Population below poverty line
Infant mortality rate Life expectancy at birth Unemployment rate Literacy
republic
Internet users; % of population
5 million (2005); 15%
78,887,007 (July 2006 est.)
Religions
Muslim (mostly Sunni) 90%, Coptic 9%, other Christian 1%
20% (2005 est.)
male: 32.04 deaths/1,000 live births; female: 30.58 deaths/1,000 live births (2006 est.) male: 68.77 years; female: 73.93 years (2006 est.) 9.5% (2005 est.)
male: 94%; female: 91% (2003 est.)
Languages
GDP—purchasing power parity (PPP)
Arabic (official), English and French widely understood by educated classes
$303.5 billion (2005 est.)
GDP—per capita (PPP)
$3,900 (2005 est.)
Oil consumption
566,000 bbl/day (2003 est.)
Military expenditures— % of GDP Roadways
3.4% (2004)
64,000 km
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U.S. Policy in the Near East The following is a statement made by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on 9 November 1955 in regard to hostilities between Israel and Egypt. All Americans have been following with deep concern the latest de- velopments in the Near East. The recent outbreak of hostilities has led to a sharp increase in tensions. These events inevitably retard our search for world peace. Insecurity in one region is bound to affect the world as a whole. While we continue [to be] willing to consider request for arms needed for legitimate self-defense, we do not intend to contribute to an arms competition in the Near East because we do not think such a race would be in the true interest of any of the participants. The policy which we believed would best promote the interests and the security of the peoples of the area was expressed in the Tripartite Declaration of May 25, 1950. This still remains our policy. I stated last year that our goal in the Near East as elsewhere is a just peace. Nothing has taken place since which invalidates our fun- damental policies, policies based on friendship for all of the peoples of the area.
pressures eroding their manufacturing jobs. Because Egypt had had a socialized economy, privatization has meant the large-scale relocation of Egypt’s productive assets built up during previous decades from the state sector to the market. A frequently cited successful case of U.S.-led privatization was the sale of the stateowned Al Ahram Beverages (ABC) to Heineken International in 2001. Since that sale, ABC’s employment has topped four thou- sand (25 percent higher than before divestment). However, many Egyptians find the cocktail of an Israel-friendly Egypt undergoing internationally led privatization in which many lose government jobs too heady for their sober, statist tastes.
Americanization The Egyptian government’s friendliness toward the United States remains contentious in some sectors of Egyptian society where globalization has come to mean Americanization. Many Egyptians feel that not only is their state-protected economy at stake, but even their cultural distinctiveness is at risk. For Egyp- tians, U.S. culture is perhaps best exemplified by Coca Cola (boy- cotted by Egyptians from 1968 to 1979), the American University in Cairo (with 5,146 undergraduate students in 2003), and Holly- wood films (according to data from Comtrade, the United Nations’ commodity trade statistics database, U.S. film exports to Egypt were worth $131,548 in 2002). For many Egyptians, U.S. culture is a prime repository of globalization’s ideology and symbols. Crit- ics argue that politicians, multinational corporations, and media
We believe that true security must be based upon a just and rea- sonable settlement. The Secretary of State outlined on August 26th the economic and security contributions which this country was prepared to make towards such a solution. On that occasion I authorized Mr. Dulles to state that, given a solution of the other related problems, I would recommend that the United States join in formal treaty engage- ments to prevent or thwart any effort by either side to alter by force the boundaries between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Recent developments have made it all the more imperative that a settlement be found. The United States will continue to play its full part and will support firmly the United Nations which has already contrib- uted so markedly to minimize violence in the area. I hope that other nations of the world will cooperate in this endeavor, thereby contribut- ing significantly to world peace. Source: Eisenhower statement on hostilities between Israel and Egypt. (1955, November 9). Retrieved September 27, 2006, from http://www. jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/ike110955.html
and satellite conglomerates use globalization in order to erode the international code that came into being with postcolonial nations’ entry into the U.N. General Assembly.
Human Rights and Democracy In the minds of many Egyptians, the United States is tarred with the Egyptian regime’s extralegal brush. In literary politics, the drama professor Mahmoud el-Lozy of the American University of Cairo has revived the play The Sultan’s Dilemma, by the famous Egyptian playwright Tawfiq a l-Hakim (1898–1987), using modern dress to cast the sultan and his entourage as a developing world military regime sporting civilian clothes. Those in the Sultan’s court play at obeying the law while getting rid of anyone who in- terferes with their game: In this play, autocratic rulers and their military regimes fail to seek legitimacy, either by submitting to the law, or by bowing to the will of the people. Gamal a l-Ghitany, novelist and former head of the Egyptian Writers’ Union, ob- served, “These systems [the dictatorships] are not democratic and they are anti-culture and art, and American influence exists in these dictatorships. So with this support, the U.S. is carrying a big part of the responsibility” (quoted in Nice 2002). Production of el-Lozy’s own Bay the Moon was cancelled due to the censor’s intervention in 2000. Egyptians’ perspectives on Saadeddin Ibrahim reveal a great deal about their feelings on the subjects of human rights and state coercion, which are linked to their feelings about the United
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States. Saadeddin Ibrahim is a human rights activist and a sociol- ogy professor at the American University in Cairo. He holds both Egyptian and U.S. passports. In June 2000 he was taken into cus- tody by Egypt’s State Security Intelligence officers (who refused to show arrest warrants) and interrogated for six weeks, then released on bail. Following Ibrahim’s announcement in September 2000 that the Ibn Khaldun Center, a nongovernmental organization he founded to support greater democracy in Egypt, planned to monitor Egypt’s forthcoming national elections, he was formally charged with conspiring to bribe public officials, accepting foreign funds without official authorization, conducting research that was defamatory to Egypt’s image, spreading false and harmful infor- mation about Egypt, and defrauding the European Union. When Ibrahim was taken into custody a second time, tried, and sentenced in 2002 to a seven-year prison sentence, the Court of Cassation (Egypt’s highest court of appeals) threw out the Supreme State Security Court conviction of Ibrahim and his co-defendants, and left him free to travel in search of medical treatment. In a 2003 article in the Washington Post, Ibrahim wrote that antidemocratic regimes “allege that any Arab voice that calls for regime change is supporting a nefarious American agenda in the Middle East. Then the allegation extends to those who call for greater freedoms in any sphere of life, labeling them ‘cultural agents’ of a hegemonic America” (Ibrahim 2003, B3).
September 11 and the U.S. War on Terror People in Egypt, like people elsewhere around the world, were stunned by the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. When the English-language edition of Egypt’s leading newspaper, Al-Ahram, polled 150 Egyptians randomly, 10 percent of the respondents were “angry at the culprits,” 24 percent were “afraid for the future,” and 35 percent felt “sympathy for the victims.” Laila, a sixty-year-old Muslim housewife, told reporters, “Whoever did this is not Mus- lim. These people with beards who want us to live in caves—they don’t understand the religion” (Atia 2002). Others, however, were less empathetic with the United States in its hour of difficulty. Khaled, an accountant, told a reporter that he thought the United States was getting more and more ar- rogant and cruel and that he was happy to see it suffer in the same way that it made others suffer. Given that the Al-Ahram survey sample slightly overrepresented those who could remember 1967 and overrepresented those most likely to benefit from globaliza- tion (namely, those who have at least a high-school education), the survey’s results are especially interesting. Of respondents, 52 percent said they thought the United State deserved what it got, 63 percent felt Arab and Islamic governments should oppose the war on terror, 68 percent viewed the war on terror as a way for the United States to assert its global dominance, and 93 percent
predicted that the war on terror would lead to increasing chaos and violence. Many Egyptians found the U.S. justification for a war on terror unpalatable. Among survey respondents, only 1 percent felt the war on terror would be successful in eradicating terrorism and lead to a more peaceful world, only 15 percent felt the war on terror was a justified response to the attacks, and only 19 percent held al-Qaeda or other Islamic militants responsible. Dawoud Abdel-Sayid, an Egyptian filmmaker, told Al-Ahram, “I am against the U.S. cru- sader war against terror, which is actually about politics and eco- nomics,” and Amr Moussa, the Arab League’s secretary general, commented, “Arabs were under attack. We were all accused simply
Camp David Accords The Camp David Accords are two agreements between Egypt and Israel negotiated at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in September 1978. U. S. President Jimmy Carter bro- kered the agreements, which were signed at the White House on 17 September. The two agreements were A Framework for Peace in the Middle East and A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel. The first agreement established a framework for negotiations over Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza and set forth principles to guide Arab-Israeli relations. The second led to the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty, which was signed in March, 1979. The negotiation process which led to the accords, and the ac- cords themselves, led to profound changes in Middle East politics and perceptions of the United States in the region. Egypt was harshly criticized by other Middle Eastern nations for negotiating and enter- ing into a treaty with Israel and also for not doing enough to support Palestinian self-determination. Egypt was expelled from the Arab League (for ten years), and Sadat was assassinated in 1981. At the same time, the successful negotiations showed that direct negotiations with Israel could be fruitful and led to other attempts, including the Oslo Accords in 1993 and the Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty in 1994, although neither was as successful. The Camp David Accords enhanced the U.S. image in the Middle East as a peacemaker and as perhaps a less biased supporter of Israel as had been thought. The substantial foreign aid given to both nations, which has continued since that time, has also made allies of both. At the same time, the United States was seen as less than fully supportive of Palestinian political goals, an image that persists and has deepened during the George W. Bush administration. Further Reading The Camp David Accords. (1978). Retrieved October 3, 2006, from www. jimmycarterlibrary.org/documents/campdavid/
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for being Arabs and Muslims. Arabs were projected as terrorists. We were guilty until proven innocent” (Al-Ahram 2002, “The intel- lectuals speak”). In the same vein, Gamal al-Ghitany remarked, “All we see on CNN are F-16s, cruise missiles, attacks on Iraq. It’s crazy—all the weapons are American! We never see anything good about American culture” (quoted in Nice 2002). And Egyptian perspectives on the United States are further clouded by the situation in Israel, with which the United States is inextricably linked. Al-Ahram quoted a cleaning lady in her late thirties who claimed never to have heard of September 11 but who is certain that the relationship between Egypt and the United States needs improvement. “America has always been a great provider of opportunities, she says, ‘giving us food, lots of good things.’ It’s a shame, then, that something has come between the friends: namely, the Israelis, who she says ‘kill the guilty and the innocent’” (Atia 2002). Elizabeth Bishop
Further Reading Ali, K. A. (2002). Planning the family in Egypt (Modern Middle East Series No. 21). Austin: University of Texas Press. Atia, T. (2002, 12–18 September). Looking for directions. Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line. Retrieved February 11, 2005, from http://weekly.ahram.org. eg/2002/603/sc43.htm
A domestic outlook on 9/11: Seeing through it all. (2002, 12–18 Septem- ber). Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line. Retrieved February 11, 2005, from http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2002/603/sc41.htm Ginsburg, F., & Rapp, R. (Eds.). (1995). Conceiving the new world order: The global politics of reproduction. Berkeley and Los Angeles : Univer- sity of California Press. Ibrahim, S. (2003, November 23). A dissident asks: Can Bush turn words into action? Washington Post, B3. The intellectuals speak. (2002, 12–18 September). Al-Ahram Weekly OnLine. Retrieved February 11, 2005, from http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/ 2002/603/sc44.htm Kassem, M. (1999). In the guise of democracy: Governance in contemporary Egypt. Reading, UK : Ithaca Press. Kunz, D. (1991). The economic diplomacy of the Suez crisis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Leininger, C. (1996). Suez 1956. Retrieved February 10, 2005, from http:// history.acusd.edu/gen/text/suez.html Louis, W. R., & Owen, R. (Eds.). (1989). Suez 1956: The crisis and its con- sequences. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Mitchell, T. (2002). Rule of experts: Egypt, techno-politics, modernity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Nice, P. (2002). Letter from Cairo: US Mideast policy bewilders Egyp- tian intellectuals. Aljadid, 8(38). Retrieved February 11, 2005, from http://www.aljadid.com/features/0838nice.html
