Egypt’s surprise decision to cancel its seven-year-old natural gas export agreement with Israel had officials on both sides scurrying to portray the affair as a business dispute with no political ramifications.
But analysts said there was little doubt that Egyptian domestic politics were at the heart of the decision as the country’s interim rulers, a group of generals known as the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), compete with Islamists for public support amid the country’s rocky transition to democracy.
“There is a commercial element to it … but it has political implications, too,” Omar Ashour, the director of the Middle East Studies Institute at Britain’s University of Exeter, told The Media Line. “It will increase the popularity of SCAF in the street. It will give them more ammo if they want to postpone the presidential election.”
The popularity of the decision, he noted, was in evidence on Sunday at Tahrir Square, where Islamist and opposition supporters were protesting what they say are SCAF’s delays holding presidential elections and approving a new constitution.
When news of the agreements termination was announced, protest leaders took credit, said Ashour, who witnessing the protest as part of his fieldwork. “That isn’t very accurate, but it shows how popular it is – everyone wants to take credit,” he added.
Officially a contract between two companies, the 2005 agreement constituted the lion’s share of bilateral trade and was regarded by both its supporters and its opponents as a symbol of the two countries’ commitment to peace and cooperation. As a result, analysts said, government officials have reason to discount its significance. Neither SCAF nor Israel – nor their senior ally, the U.S. – want the 32-year-old treaty between to unravel.
http://www.themedialine.org/news/news_detail.asp?NewsID=34987 [3]