Israelis take cover in a concrete pipe Thursday in Kiryat Malachi, Israel, after Gaza miliants launched a rocket toward the town. One rocket Thursday hit an apartment building in Kiryat Malachi, killing three. (Uriel Sinai, Getty Images)
CAIRO?? The Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi, has fired back at Israel from the arsenal of diplomacy as Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip confront him with a wrenching test of loyalties, to Hamas and to Egypt's landmark peace treaty with Israel.
In two days, Morsi has recalled Egypt's ambassador to Tel Aviv, dispatched his prime minister on a solidarity mission to Gaza, and called President Barack Obama, the European Union, the United Nations and the Arab League for support.
He has even publicly instructed top generals to inspect air bases and prepare land defenses near the Gaza border. He has stepped up to the very limits of Egypt's obligations to Israel ? without stepping over.
But as the Israeli assault continues, Morsi's own quandary will only deepen, squeezed between a public that recalls with resentment how former President Hosni Mubarak did virtually nothing to aid the Palestinians during the Israeli assault in 2009, and the need to preserve the stability of the cold peace with Israel in order to secure Western aid and jumpstart his moribund economy.
Both sides in the conflict appear to be testing Egypt's leader. Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, is wondering how much support it might draw from its ideological cousins now that the Brotherhood controls the Egyptian state, while Israel's hawkish leadership seems to probe the depth of Morsi's stated commitment to the peace treaty as well.
For Morsi the test is forcing him to reconcile conflicting elements of his own persona: as the Islamist firebrand who has denounced Israelis as "vampires" for killing Palestinian civilians and lauded Hamas for resisting an illegal occupation, but also as the newly elected president promising stability, economic revival and friendly relations with Israel's Western allies.
In his public statements at least, Morsi has so far vowed full backing for Hamas and the Palestinians, winning praise at home.
"The Egyptian people, the Egyptian leadership, Egyptian government and all of Egypt is standing with all its resources to stop this assault, to prevent the killing and bloodshed of the Palestinians," Morsi said Thursday in a televised address.
In Egypt's domestic politics, the crisis has rallied a sense of national unity behind the president. Opposition to Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories and treatment of their residents might be the only unifying cause binding together Islamists, their secular critics and even the leadership of the Coptic Christian church.
Even Morsi's rivals and detractors have cheered the vigor and alacrity of his response, said Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University of Cairo, arguing that Morsi's swift action would enable him to hold at bay the inevitable calls for Egypt to go further.
"He is doing everything he can within the legal obligations of Egypt's relationship with Israel," Shahin said.
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