Plus ça change in Cairo

Don’t expect Cairo to become Kabul now that the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, Mohammed Mursi, has been sworn into power earlier today. There are real fears, of course, about the future of Egypt under an Islamist president and it’s foolish to whitewash Mursi as either moderate or benign. The Muslim Brotherhood is a deeply reactionary and dangerous group, but Mursi will find it extremely difficult to implement the more radical aspects of his agenda.  

Officially, the Brotherhood has said it will respect all existing treaties – a subtle attempt to placate fears about Egypt’s future relations with Israel. Yet, when Mursi’s candidature was announced one of the clerics invited to launch his campaign promised that ‘millions of martyrs’ would be marching to Jerusalem, and warned that jihadists would soon ‘banish the sleep from the eyes of all Jews’. Palestine was a cornerstone of the Brotherhood’s campaign and with strong institutional links to Hamas, it’s no surprise that since Mursi’s victory was confirmed last week more than 60 rockets have been fired into southern Israel from Gaza.