In the Middle East region, Israel has for decades been the biggest recipient of US foreign aid, but less commonly known is that Egypt has long held the number two spot.
This ultimately goes back to the Camp David Accords signed in 1978 which led to the formalizing of a permanent state of peace between Egypt and Israel. Since then, the $1.3 billion given to Egypt annually at American taxpayers’ expense largely goes towards maintaining the military and national security bureaucracy.
Bottom line is that it all goes toward securing the regional order on Washington’s terms, with Israel’s security as the number one priority.
While Washington might talk about “spreading democracy” – any such talk is largely an illusion in Egypt, which has long been known for violently suppressing protests, horrendous political prisons, and torture. People regularly get “disappeared” in Egypt and the US hardly bats an eye.
US politicians and media pundits like to mock as “banana republics” nations it doesn’t like (or those targeted for regime change: Libya, Syria, Russia, etc.), but the reality is that America long ago purchased its own banana republic in Egypt, and ever since it’s been a Western media game of pretending there’s a true “Egyptian democracy”.
Below, are details of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s having just won nearly 90% of the vote, via The Cradle [emphasis ZH]…
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Egypt’s election authority announced on Monday that President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has secured a third six-year term leading the North African nation.
Sisi won another term with 89.6 percent of the vote, the National Elections Authority said. Over 39 million Egyptians voted for the former army chief, who has ruled the nation for over a decade.
This will be Sisi’s final term in office as the Egyptian constitution only allows a president to sit for three terms. He was first sworn into office in 2014 after the overthrow of the country’s first popularly elected president, Mohammed Morsi, and was reelected in 2018, both times winning with over 90 percent of the vote.
Egypt’s election took place as the nation is struggling with a slow-burning economic crisis and keeping a long-standing position as a mediator between Palestine and Israel.
Furthermore, the Egyptian economy has worsened to the point where the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said they’re “seriously considering” increasing its loans to Egypt.
“The conflict is devastating Gaza’s population and economy and has severe impacts on the West Bank’s economy and is also posing difficulties for neighboring countries Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan through the loss of tourism and higher energy costs,” IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva had previously said.
Egypt’s economic struggles can only potentially worsen amid Yemen’s Ansarallah attacks on the Red Sea, forcing ships to take the long route around Africa instead of the Suez Canal – a significant source of income for Egypt. Cairo has also been dealing with Israel’s plan of displacing Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert, with Sisi threatening Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of rupturing diplomatic ties.
Amazing.
Dictator Sisi wins… election. https://t.co/xN2nog2RpC pic.twitter.com/h38KJtOWvY
— J.M. Hamilton (@jmhamiltonblog) December 18, 2023
Israeli sources told Axios, “The Egyptians expressed anxiety that a crisis on their border with Gaza would result in thousands of Palestinian refugees crossing the border barrier and trying to find shelter in the Sinai.”
“Displacing Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Sinai means transferring the conflict and the killings from Gaza to Sinai, where Sinai becomes a base for launching operations against Israel, and in this case, Israel will have the right to defend itself, so it directs its strikes against Egyptian territory,” Sisi previously said.
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