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