Mubarak’s fallen foreign policy

The staff at the Israeli embassy in Cairo must be feeling a little uncomfortable these days. In the heated atmosphere of post-revolutionary Egypt, few people in the city are willing to talk to them and diplomats sometimes have trouble even reaching the embassy building due to the frequent clashes outside between riot police and pro-Palestinian protesters. On top of their short-term logistical difficulties, the Israelis are facing the increasingly apparent medium-term reality of the Egyptian government abandoning the cozy arrangements that have prevailed on the border between Egypt and Gaza for the last several years — in many ways the operational centerpiece of the Israeli-Egyptian relationship. Former President Hosni Mubarak, who remains in hospital in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, worked closely with Israel and the United States to isolate Gaza and put pressure on the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas to accept Israeli conditions for peace talks.