Egyptian people feel sympathy for their fellow-Arabs in Israel, the West Bank and especially Gaza, where the population have been besieged and starved with the connivance of the Mubarak regime. They would undoubtedly protest at any continuation of collaboration with Israel
Historical precedents are crucial as a key to understanding events as they unfold. However, we need to be careful to avoid artificially grafting living processes on to preconceived templates. The Russian revolution is rich in lessons for understanding the processes in subsequent revolutions, but it too had its own particular characteristics which gave it its own special character and tempo.
The slogans around which the Russian revolution mobilised were Bread, Peace and Land. Two and a half million soldiers were killed in the world war, and countless more mutilated. Insubordination was punished with flogging, and desertion with the death penalty. The endless slaughter on the front gave the revolution extreme added urgency. It was this intense pressure, and also the existence of a revolutionary workers' party, that enormously accelerated the processes of the Russian revolution.
The Egyptian people feel sympathy for their fellow-Arabs in Israel, the West Bank and especially Gaza, where the population have been besieged and starved with the connivance of the Mubarak regime. They would undoubtedly protest at any continuation of collaboration with Israel. However, it seems to me utterly disproportionate to equate opposition to the war in Russia with opposition to the peace in Egypt. Abrogating the peace treaty with Israel would immediately pose the likelihood of war and a conflagration which would engulf the entire region. That prospect may perhaps be coming anyway; but it is to say the least fanciful to expect mass pressure for war in Egypt on a scale comparable to the mass pressure for peace in Russia. by Roger Silverman
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