The World Economic Forum Has Ended

It ended yesterday (30/1) so as far as Mubarak's concerned the Egyptians can finish their little tantrum now.

Unless you've been in a coma for the last week you can't help but notice that millions of Egyptians have been risking extreme violence by taking to the streets to call for the removal of their dictator, Hosni Mubarak. While tensions have been rising across the entire region for the last couple of months this Egyptian uprising has been driven by two main factors. Firstly there was the successful uprising in Tunisia or more specifically there have been Internet activists telling the Egyptians that because the Tunisians have done it they can do it too. Secondly there was the leaking of something called the Palestine Papers.

Much like the Wikileaks "Cablegate" this was the release of thousands of Palestinian diplomatic papers relating to the most recent round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). They reveal that the PA, led by Fatah, were prepared to all but surrender to the Israelis by giving them everything they wanted in terms of Jewish settlements, control of Jerusalem, and the Palestinian right to return without securing anything in return. They also implicate Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak and the, then, head of the Egyptian Intelligence Service, Omar Suleiman (now vice-President) in pressurising the PA to give Israel these favourable terms even if the Israelis decided that they wanted even more. So to say that the release of the Palestine Papers was explosive is a massive understatement because they destroyed the reputations of Mubarak and Fatah while seriously damaging the reputation of Israel and completely ending the current round of stalled middle east peace talks.

Initially the Palestine Papers were leaked to the Arabic news service, Al-Jazeera who realised that they were political dynamite so delayed publication until the authenticity of the documents could be verified and the political climate had cooled down. Then someone in Israel passed the Palestine Papers to Britain's Guardian newspaper who announced that they would publish them on January 24th. This forced Al-Jazeera's hand and the Palestine Paper's were published jointly on January 23rd - two days before Egypt's "Police Day" when the role that Mubarak's hated police force play in Egyptian society is officially celebrated. Suddenly January 25th turned into Egypt's first "day of rage" and the start of the uprising.

So hard as it may be to believe the driving force behind Egypt's current uprising is not the Muslim Brotherhood nor the USA but Israel and Mubarak himself. This rather strange move was made for two main reasons;

The Tunisian Uprising. Perhaps understandably Israel is incredibly paranoid about it's Arab neighbours being run by populist governments because in the past "populist" has too often meant "anti-Semitic." As a result they've supported and got their western allies to support some very unpleasant regimes across the region including Mubarak in Egypt, Ben Ali in Tunisia and even Saddam in Iraq until he started having ideas of his own. So when the Tunisians overthrew Ben Ali the Israelis started to worry that it would start a wave of uprising's that would overthrow dictators across the middle east. Or more specifically they began to worry that if Tunisia was able to replace Ben Ali with a secular democracy it would undermine the entire argument that Arab nations need to be ruled by dictators in order to guarantee Israel's security.
Therefore they set about eliminating any support the Tunisian uprising might have enjoyed from the rich, powerful and influential people who attend the World Economic Forum (WEF) by confusing it with a much more complicated example.

Quite apart from sharing a land border with Israel and controlling the Rafah crossing which is essential in maintaining the Israeli blockade of Gaza, Egypt is of massive strategic importance to most everybody in the World. Not only is it the most populous Arab nation with the world's 10th and Africa's largest army it is also home to the Suez Canal. Although only 120 miles (190km) long this tiny stretch of water is really what makes global trade possible. By linking the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea it allows Arabian oil and gas, Asian manufacturing and African minerals to flow into Europe and the Americas. If Egypt was to fall into chaos or see an Iran-style Islamic revolution that caused the Suez Canal to close the world as we know it would end. Therefore you will not find anyone at the WEF who would support any sort of major instability in Egypt. Tunisia on the other hand has some quite nice beaches.

Consolidate Mubarak's Power. Both domestically and internationally pressure has been growing on Hosni Mubarak to step down especially after November 2010's Parliamentary election which Mubarak's party won with something like 110% of the vote. Before the uprising Mubarak was scheduled to face a Presidential election in September 2011. What was expected to happen was that Hosni Mubarak would rig that election, jail any opposition candidates and install his son, Gamal Mubarak, as President. This would have created the perfect conditions for the people of Egypt to rise up, with or without foreign help, and replace the Mubaraks with an internationally recognised transitional government of national unity. By provoking the uprising early Mubarak has created the perfect reason to cancel this Presidential vote and forced his opponents to play their hands early putting themselves in the unenviable position of having to either keep this uprising going until then or face being broken, rounded up and murdered by Mubarak's vicious regime.

I'm sorry I didn't mention any of this earlier but I'm certainly not going to be the person to tell the Egyptians to stop. While I can't, in good conscience, support Egypt being taken over by the Muslim Brotherhood or another, more extreme, Islamist group I know that the world will be a much better place without Hosni Mubarak in it. In his 30 year dictatorship he's managed to turn the birthplace of the Pharaohs into the poorest nation in the Arab League where half the population are forced to survive on less then US$2 per day. In fact the only growth industry in the country is stirring up trouble in the middle east and then getting America to pay to sort it out.