Amr Adly, Amr Hamzawy & Oraib Al-Rantawi: EGYPT AND JORDAN IN THE LIGHT OF THE GAZA WAR - ARAB POSITIONS FOR THE WAY FORWARD

Gudrun Harrer in conversation with Amir Adly, Amr Hamzawy and Oraib Al-Rantawi

EGYPT AND JORDAN IN THE LIGHT OF THE GAZA WAR: ARAB POSITIONS FOR THE WAY FORWARD

Egypt and Jordan are the most affected Arab states by the war in Gaza which followed the attack by Hamas on Israel on 7th October 2023. Immediate neighbours of the Gaza Strip and the Westbank respectively, they suffer dramatic direct economic, political and social impact which is adding to pre-existing vulnerabilities.

Jordan has a majority population of Palestinian origin, Egypt has a deep historic relationship with the Gaza Strip which was under the administration of Cairo until the Israeli occupation in 1967. Among other economic woes, Egypt is confronted with a steep reduction of income from the Suez Canal due to the Yemeni Houthi’s war against commercial shipping in the Red Sea in the name of assistance to Hamas.

Furthermore, Cairo and Amman were worried by US president Donald Trump’s remarks who seemed to favour Palestinian migration from the Gaza Strip to other countries, especially Egypt and Jordan. In the beginning of March, Egypt presented her own Gaza reconstruction plan, endorsed by the League of the Arab States. Support came recently from French President Emmanuel Macron at a summit with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan in Cairo.

The panel will discuss the effect and impact of the Gaza war on the MENA region, Egypt and Jordan in particular, and the possible Arab path forward. What role for Europe in this scenario?

Amr Adly is an associate professor in the department of political science at The American University in Cairo (AUC). He worked as a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center, where his research centered on political economy, development studies, and economic sociology of the Middle East, with a focus on Egypt.  Adly has taught political economy at AUC and Stanford University. He is the author of cleft capitalism: the social origins of failed market-making in Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2020) and state reform and development in the Middle East: the cases of Turkey and Egypt (Routledge, 2012). He has been published in several peer-reviewed journals, including Geoforum, Business and Politics, the journal of Turkish Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies. Adly is also a frequent contributor to print and online news sources, including Bloomberg, Jadaliyya, and al-Manasa. (Online participation)

Amr Hamzawy is a senior fellow and the director of the Carnegie Middle East Program. He was previously an associate professor of political science at Cairo University and a public policy professor of the practice at the American University in Cairo.
Hamzawy is a former member of the People’s Assembly after being elected in the first Parliamentary elections in Egypt after the January 25, 2011 revolution. He is also a former member of the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights. Hamzawy contributes a weekly op-ed to the Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi.

Oraib Al-Rantawi is the founder and director general of the Amman-based Al Quds Center for Political Studies and an established writer and columnist. He has authored and edited several strategic studies and organized and participated in seminars and conferences in Jordan and internationally. He is also a frequent commentator and analyst on television and has produced his own show “Qadaya wa Ahdath” (Issues and Events.)

Gudrun Harrer, Senior Editor, Der Standard; Lecturer in Modern History and Politics of the Middle East at the University of Vienna and the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna