With a history as one of the world’s oldest and greatest civilizations, modern Egypt continues to redefine itself as a political and cultural leader in the region. While the remnants of pharoanic culture–including the great pyramids–mostly serve tourist purposes, the state is defined by its Muslim and Arab identities, and by increasingly advanced technological developments. The result is often a paradoxical pairing of old and new, traditional and ultra-modern.

 

Egypt is a powerful regional leader, with a military funded generously by the U.S. After its own wars with Israel in the 1960s and 1970s, Egypt took on the role of broker in the several generations of power struggles and peace negotiations that have shaped regional relations.

 

Historically a staunch U.S. ally and, with Israel, one of the U.S.’s biggest aid recipients, Egypt continues to receive funding from the U.S., but appears less and less responsive to its criticisms over human rights violations and undemocratic practices.

 

Egypt continues to undergo intensive economic liberalization reforms meant to develop industry and business. However, these reform practices, coupled with rampant corruption and a heavily stratified society, have left the majority of the country’s 80 million people living in poverty, and without even a glimpse of advancement or relief.

 

Lay of the Land: Egypt is largely a dry, windswept desert in the northeast corner of Africa, but also includes the Sinai Peninsula in Asia. There are four main regions: the Nile Valley and Delta, where almost 99% of the people live on 4% of the land (most living in flat-roofed, sun-baked mud houses and farming the broad regions of the delta and the narrow depressions following the 950-mile course of the Nile through Egypt); the barren Western Desert, occupying two thirds of Egypt; the Eastern Desert, rising from the Nile Valley and becoming mountains along the Red Sea; and the Sinai Peninsula, a mountainous desert with few oases.

Population: 81.7 Million (2008)

Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world and the second-most populous in Africa. The majority of its inhabitants are concentrated in densely populated areas around the Nile River, mostly in the capital, Cairo, or to the north in Alexandria, a city lying on the Mediterranean Sea.

 

In a few decades, Cairo has grown from a city of a few million to almost 20 million, making it the most populous city in Africa. In recent years, the population crunch (resulting in part from rural-urban migration) has spawned a new generation of modern housing developments on the outskirts of Cairo, and increasingly into the Western Desert.

 

Religions: Islam (Sunni) 90%, Christianity (Coptic Orthodox) 9%

 

Ethnic Groups: Egyptians, Bedouins, Siwis

 

Languages: Modern Standard Arabic is the “official language” of news media but never spoken. Egyptian Colloquial Arabic is what everyone speaks and is the national dialect. The Saidis in Upper Egypt have a slightly different twist on Egyptian Colloquial.

Settlement of Egypt’s Nile Valley began as early as 7,000 B.C. Around 3,000 B.C., Phaoronic Egypt became the world’s first undisputed nation-state when the kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were united. The Great Pyramids were constructed around 2,500 B.C. as monuments to Egypt’s dead kings.

 

Through thousands of years of native-rule, and thousands more of conquest and colonization, Egypt boasts the longest continuous, known history of any single, unified state. An insular, protective geography allowed Egypt to prosper as a self-governing entity during Pharoanic rule, benefiting from the rich natural resources and agriculture provided by the Nile in an otherwise barren landscape, until Greek conquest around 330 B.C.

 

Egypt remained under foreign rule for 2,400 years, conquered and controlled by Nubians, Assyrians, Persians, Arabs, Macedonians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, British and French. Under Ptoelmic, Ikshidid, Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk rule, and during the Muhammad Ali period, Egypt was independently governed, but “native Egyptians” did not actually regain power until the late modern period. Islamicization and Arabization, ushered in with the Arab conquest of 642 A.D., largely shaped subsequent Egyptian history and culture.

 

Cairo was established in 960 A.D. After Mamluk and Ottoman rule, Napoleonic, British and Turkish forces vied for control of Egypt at the end of the 18th century.

 

British forces took control of Egypt in 1882 and made it a protectorate in 1914. In 1922, an Egyptian monarchy was established, the country declared independence, but remained under British influence and administrative infrastructure. In 1952, Gamal Abdel Nasser came to power in a nationalist military coup, instituted a proto-Socialist regime and propagated grand visions of pan-Arabism (which would essentially die with him in 1970). In 1954, British troops finally left Egypt. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal two years later to build the Aswan Dam, after the U.S. and the World Bank denied his government funding. Britain (which had leased and operated the Suez Canal since mid-19th Century), France and Israel attacked in response.

 

The Six-Day War of 1967 saw Egypt (as well as Jordan and Syria) lose to Israel in a crushing defeat. The Jewish State took control of the Sinai, the Golan Heights in Syria, and the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the present-day Occupied Territories of Palestine/Israel. Egypt won back the Sinai in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 (and subsequent negotiations) under President Anwar el-Sadat’s leadership. With the Camp David accords, Sadat instituted a more accommodating approach to peace negotiations and openly courted U.S. friendship.

 

Sadat’s reign was marked by both an open-door economic policy that welcomed foreign investment and capitalist development, and an inclusive approach to an increasingly powerful religious faction that had previously been repressed under Nasser. Economic reforms focused on rolling back social safety nets and making the transition from public to private sector. Sadat was assassinated by members of this Islamic Jihad in 1981, and succeeded by President Hosni Mubarak, who remains in power to this day.

 

The Mubarak administration fought what amounted to a civil war with religious fundamentalists, which the government was mostly successful in putting down by the late 1990s. After several years of high-profile terrorist attacks, Mubarak’s police state has increased its grip on society and taken a hard-line approach to religious militarism. The Mubarak dictatorship is notorious for anti-democratic practices, including torture, internal espionage, vote-rigging, bribes, political persecution and censorship.

 

 

 

Egypt is a secular state, but religion holds an incredibly powerful sway over the lives of everyday people. Most Islamic leaders would like to see the Constitution modified or replaced by a system of Shariah (Islamic jurisprudence). As a powerful faction of society with solid support both from the masses and among influential leaders, the conservative religious movement has gained ground in recent decades, establishing itself at the level of social infrastructure, if not yet official political presence. When Sadat rolled back Nasser’s socialist programs in the 1970s, fundamentalist groups moved in quickly to provide services like education, healthcare and other assistance for impoverished Egyptians. The debate over Islam and secularism is one that continues to define modern Egyptian history, and is played out at every level of Egyptian society.

 

At the political level, the militant Islamist movement, as all other opposition movements, has been suppressed by the Mubarak regime. In 2005 the banned Muslim Brotherhood (candidates run on independent platforms) won 20% of total available seats (in an imperfect election), forming the largest opposition bloc. The party, illegal but tolerated, is the country’s most powerful non-governmental organization. While a force in pro-democratic reform and persecuted, the party advances controversial platforms like a prohibition against women and Christians in government and an outright denial of the Holocaust. Brotherhood links to terrorism are suspected and denied.

 

Does the Muslim Brotherhood Have Ties to Terrorism? (by Mary Crane, Council on Foreign Relations)

Egypt targets Muslim Brotherhood Moderates (by Liam Stack, Christian Science Monitor)

Egypt Islamists' wait for power (by Yolande Knell, BBC News)

Egypt’s Mohamed Kamal: Islamists Should be Integrated into Egypt’s Political Debate (Council on Foreign Relations)

Historically, relations between the U.S. and Egypt have fluctuated according to global and regional power struggles: namely, the Cold War, petro-politics and the state of Israel.

 

Under U.S. pressure, Nasser’s socialist-leaning government tried to remain non-aligned during the Cold War, but relations with the U.S. soured when he turned to the Soviets for weapons (after being denied by the U.S.).

 

By contrast, Sadat actively aligned himself with U.S. policy, kicked out the Soviets, and managed to get Egypt to the top of the U.S. foreign-aid bill.

 

Mubarak continued Sadat’s pro-U.S. policy, making Egypt one of America’s strongest allies in the region. Perceived as a moderate regional power, Egypt often plays broker in the struggles over Israel, providing an accessible, pro-Western state for the U.S. to deal with. Egypt remains one of the biggest recipients of U.S. foreign direct aid and USAID assistance, and economic relations between the two countries have accelerated in recent years.

 

The U.S. has periodically criticized the Mubarak dictatorship for its anti-democratic stranglehold and human rights abuses. However, these minor castigations have less and less effect, especially given the U.S.’s tarnished reputation in the region under the Bush administration, and Egypt’s increasing economic prowess and strategic regional influence.

 

Noted Egyptian-Americans

Fayez Sarofim is a billionaire with an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion who founded the Houston-based investment firm, Fayez Sarofim & Co. Sarofim, the son of a wealthy Egyptian agriculturist, migrated to the U.S. in 1946 and earned degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard Business School. Fayez ranks in the Forbes list of 500 richest people in the world and is well known for his philanthropic contributions to the Houston Ballet, the Museum of Fine Arts, and other performing arts centers.

 

Dina Habib Powell is Director of Global Corporate Engagement for Goldman Sachs. She was also Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs during the Bush Administration. Powell was born in Cairo, Egypt and was raised in Dallas, Texas from the age of four.

 

Warm bilateral relations between the two countries are massaged by massive US economic and military aid to the Arab country. The U.S. sees Egypt as a strategic ally in the region, especially given the hostility of many surrounding countries toward both the U.S. and its ally, Israel. Egypt has been instrumental in the many arduous peace processes, and will often be the one to talk a reluctant Arab nation to the table with Israel.

 

U.S.-Egypt ties: Cool or cordial? (by Karima Saifullah, Aljazeera Magazine)

As Bush visits, U.S., Egypt grow farther apart (by Will Rasmussen, Reuters)

Enduring Relationship Withstands Conflict ( Washington Times) See Controversy Section.

 

In international law, “rendition” is known as the practice of seizing or handing over a suspect from one country to another where there is a warrant for his/her arrest. In “extraordinary rendition,” a suspect is seized and secretly transported to another country for interrogation – without a warrant, without due process, and generally, without being charged with a crime.

 

In 1995, President Clinton signed a Presidential Directive in support of rendition practices, building on a (still-classified) National Security Directed issued by the first President George Bush.

Since September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has engaged in an aggressive use of extraordinary rendition as part of its global “War on Terror” campaign.

 

While Clinton’s Directive suggested that suspects may be apprehended without the consent of host governments where they are found, George W. Bush has expanded the extraordinary rendition program in increasingly bold (and illegal) abductions that have elicited protest from governments, groups and citizens across the globe.

 

Because these interrogations blatantly violate U.S. and international laws, the Bush administration has developed a network of “black sites” or secret prisons throughout the world where suspects are interrogated, tortured and often held for extended periods without any rights, away from the scrutiny of the international community. In some cases, U.S. agents carry out the interrogations; in others, they are interrogated and tortured by foreign government agents.

 

Egypt is not only a suspected black site, but a popular one. The Mubarak government is marked by consistent and brutal human rights violations, notably torture and interrogation of suspects at the hands of police and government officials. Cooperation between the two allies has been a natural fit, with Egypt supplying a professional apparatus and invisible location for the C.I.A. to carry out these clandestine missions.

 

In fact, Egypt has a particular reputation. According to former CIA agent Robert Baer, “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear–never to see them again–you send them to Egypt.”

 

142,832 Egyptian Americans live in the United States, concentrated in hot arid states and urban centers like New Jersey, New York, California, Illinois, Florida, and Texas. 27,129 Egyptians visited the U.S. in 2006, a 12.8% increase from 2005.

 

228,183 Americans visited Egypt in 2006, an increase of 16.5% from 2005. This increase is consistent with a major upward trend in visits to Egypt, up from 117,396 in 2002.

 

Egypt has strategic value as an ally in the region that supplies the oil-dependent U.S.’s economy. As such, U.S. corporations operating in the oil sector have a major stake in trade policy between the two countries. Other industries typically involved in developing economies, big agribusiness and pharmaceutical exporters, are also stakeholders in relations with Egypt.

 

The U.S. is Egypt’s largest single trade partner ($7.7 billion or 6% of Egypt’s G.D.P. in 2007) and U.S. exports to Egypt are the fourth largest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

 

According to the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, bilateral trade is on the up. The U.S. is touting a “from aid to trade” policy shift, and pushing for a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) as the next step in Egypt’s aggressive economic liberalization program.

 

In 2004, the Bush administration implemented Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZs) in Egypt, allowing U.S. companies to import products from Egypt duty-free, contingent upon a percentage of source trade activity with Israel. This new business model with Israel is an historic and controversial one (See FTA in Controversy Section)

 

Among the largest import products from Egypt are natural gas and other petroleum exports (around $1 billion annually since 2005, more than triple 2004 value). The most important non-petroleum imports in 2007 were cotton (clothing), fertilizers and rugs. To a lesser extent, raw materials like cement and aluminum, as well as collectibles, are exported to the U.S.

With an entire nation subsisting on government-subsidized bread, wheat continues to be the biggest U.S. export (by price) to Egypt. Military, drilling and oilfield equipment follow, along with other agricultural and food products (corn, soy), civilian aircraft, chemicals and industry materials (like plastic- and steel-making materials).

 

Trade numbers on both sides have generally risen in the last several years.

 

Along with Israel, Egypt is the biggest recipient of U.S. aid. From 1975 through 2007, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has provided economic assistance to Egypt totaling $28 billion. An additional $415 million is budgeted for 2008. USAID program areas focus on social and economic development at the community and grass roots levels (education, health, nutrition, infrastructure), but on a macro level are also concerned with regional stability and counterterrorism efforts.

The U.S. also provides about $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt each year–about 80% of Egypt’s military budget.

All told, the U.S. provided about $50 billion in combined economic and military aid between 1975 and 2004.

 

US, Egypt trade surges 19% in first quarter (Business Intelligence-Middle East)

U.S. Foreign Operations in Egypt (pages 483-486) (PDF)

 

U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey’s remarks regarding the Egyptian government’s sentencing of democracy advocate Saad Eddin Ibrahim (“It’s a shame”) caught fire in the local press when translated into Arabic as “shameful” or “disgraceful.” The incident elicited harsh reactions, with some editors calling for the diplomat’s expulsion.

 

The U.S. State Department issued a strong statement condemning the decision and what it saw as an affront to free speech and due process.

 

Ever sensitive about its right to mistreat political prisoners and critics, the Mubarak government defended the matter as strictly internal, a “none of your business” attitude toward rapprochement from the U.S. that has become more common in recent years.

 

Ibrahim was charged with “tarnishing Egypt’s reputation” after he echoed the U.S. Congress in urging the U.S. to make new aid delivery to Egypt contingent upon a number of human rights reforms. (Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice waived the Congressional hold on $100 million, citing “national security” reasons).

 

Ibrahim, who has dual U.S. and Egyptian citizenship, was sentenced to two years in prison or fine of 10,000 EGP (about $2,000).

 

Student 'Twitters' his way out of Egyptian jail (by Mallory Simon, CNN)

 

In 2006 the Egyptian government ousted two NGOs operating in Egypt for suspected espionage and security threats.

Two to go (by Gihan Shahine, Al-Ahram)

 

Drug prices are an issue of contention among foreign biotech companies based in Egypt, which maintains price controls on medication for poor recipients. Foreign companies complain that the government doesn’t combat generic production. The American pharmaceutical lobby and the U.S. government seek stricter enforcement of Egyptian and international laws to prevent competition from generics, which cost a fraction of the price and can therefore treat and save an exponentially greater number of people.

 

In the negotiations for an FTA, groups like the pharmaceutical lobby can be a powerful force in dissuading the U.S. from entering bilateral agreements or in imposing regulations that benefit U.S. interests at the expense of Egyptian citizens.

PhRMA statement on US-Egypt free trade agreement (Bilaterals.org)

 

Nour Case Strains US-Egypt Ties (by William Fisher Anti-War.com)

 

As reported by Al Ahram (State-supported newspaper), scholars at Al-Azhar (central Islamic authority) weighed in on a 19th Century biography of the Prophet Muhammed written by a distant ancestor of President George W. Bush.

Bush book incites controversy (by Gihan Shahine, Al-Ahram)

The Life of Mohammed: Founder of the Religion of Islam, and of the Empire of the Saracens (by Goerge Bush)

 

Negotiations for a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the U.S. and Egypt have caused controversy, largely due to the contention over Qualifying Industrial Zones (QIZs) and Egypt’s collaboration with Israel. The government’s economic reform plan is criticized for being too pro-U.S., at the expense of its own policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Egypt-Israel textile ties spark controversy (by Malcolm Brabant, BBC News)

 

Egypt is a police state, ruled by a dictator under draconian emergency laws and a comprehensive program of repression. The country has an extremely poor human rights record, notably in areas of political oppression; freedoms of speech, expression and assembly; democratic mechanisms; government checks and balances; violence and discrimination against women, sex and gender issues; extrajudicial detention, interrogation, torture and killings.

Among the problematic areas noted by the U.S. State Department in its 2008 Human Rights Country Report on Egypt are: arbitrary and unlawful killings, disappearance and torture; prison and detention conditions, arbitrary arrest and detention and denial of fair public trial (many suspects are tried in closed military tribunals to circumvent existing laws) and political prisoners. There is little transparency or accountability in government operations, and corruption is rampant. With nearly all opposition banned or imprisoned, elections are far from democratic. Freedom of religion is also marginally problematic, with discrimination and persecution of religious minorities, notably the Baha’i, and an established double standard for Egypt’s Coptic minority. Also, Egypt’s treatment of refugees has come under criticism. Adding to a poor record of mistreatment of Sudanese refugees, was the 2005 police massacre in which some 27 refugees, including many children, were brutally murdered when police broke up an encampment on the UNHCR premises in Cairo. Recently, Egypt has been criticized for failing to adhere to its obligations under international refugee law with regard to refugees caught at the Egyptian-Israeli border. Although economic reforms have provided opportunities for some women, in general, women are treated as second-class citizens in Egypt.            

 

Police and special forces make informants out of everyone, and have come down especially hard in recent years on religious groups and suspected terrorists – as well as any and all opposition of the regime.

 

Government apologists are usually either in government, dependent on government, or terrified of government. The pro- argument goes something like this: Egypt is a wild, lawless place, full of terrorists and crime, and needs to be governed with an iron fist.

 

On the other side of the debate, human rights advocates and the international community condemn the government’s treatment of prisoners, political and otherwise. “Informants” are interrogated, beaten and tortured, thrown in jail without a fair trial. In recent years, bloggers have sparked heated debates by posting police torture videos.

EgyptInternet video sharpens torture debate (by Cynthia Johnson, Reuters)

Egyptianbloggers expose horror of policetorture (by Steven Stanek, San Francisco Chronicle)

Egypt's Torture Video Sparks Outrage (by Amany Radwan, Time)

 

Although the practice has long been condemned by the international community, banned by the Egyptian government since 1996 (with an exception for “emergency cases”), and renounced by the country’s most powerful Muslim and Christian leaders – it continues largely unabated in rural areas, where the tradition proves very difficult to break. Many local religious leaders who support the practice hold enormous sway over people in communities where the practice is believed necessary to ensure a female’s chastity and family honor.

Female circumcision focus of ferocious debate in Egypt (by Michael Slackman, International Herald Tribune)

 

There are those in Washington who want to see some improvement in human rights conditions before sending more aid to Egypt. There was a row in 2008 when Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice overturned a Congressional block on $100 million in aid for the country, pending certain reforms. Citing “national security” reasons, the Bush Administration ignored Congress. On the other side, critics claim that the US Congress, heavily influenced by a pro-Israel lobby, withheld the aid due to a perceived failure on Egypt’s part to prevent weapons smuggling in to Gaza.

 

Proponents of continued development and military aid to Egypt maintain that such funding is necessary to keep a balance of power in the region, and for national security reasons (i.e., anti-terrorist efforts).

 

Critics of U.S. aid policy to Egypt contend that the U.S. government supports the dictatorship’s worst human rights practices by turning a blind eye to them. Under Bush, the pro-democracy foreign policy agenda is married to an anti-terrorism agenda—but, critics claim, massive support for countries that systematically repress the development of real democracy is counterproductive and hypocritical.

 

Egypt says Israel incited U.S. Congress on aid (Reuters)

Threat To Cut U.S. Aid Opens Rift With Egypt (by Nathan Guttman, Jewish Forward)

EGYPT: U.S. Congress Conditions Aid on Border Containment (by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani, Inter Press Service)

H.R. 2977: Egyptian Counterterrorism and Political Reform Act (To withhold and commute military aid, 2007-2008)

Capitol Hill qualms (by David Dumke, Al-Ahram)