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ANALYSIS / Egypt emerges as big winner from Gaza crisis
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: Israel News, Hamas, Gaza 

Egypt is the big winner, for the moment, from the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Despite fierce attacks against it of a magnitude not seen since the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty in 1979, it appears that the Egyptian gamble has again paid off: the heads of Hamas in Damascus are scheduled to arrive in Cairo to discuss the situation, in a move that signifies a bowing of the head toward Egypt, the most "stable island" in the camp of moderate Arab nations.
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In Europe, the United States and also Israel, it is understood that Egypt is the only source that can fill the role of pipeline of information to Hamas, both in regard to the organization's head in Egypt and its leaders in the Gaza Strip.

Unlike the Turks, Qataris and Saudis, the Egyptians ? and especially the head of the intelligence service Omar Suleiman - have intimate contact with the Hamas heads. Suleiman has had success with them in the past and can advance the dialogue toward a cease-fire, something Hamas grudgingly acknowledges.

In the last 10 days, the Egyptian government has faced a test of survival as heavy pressure has been applied from a number of direction. The attacks have come not just from commentators on television networks or in the newspapers, but also head-on attacks that are in nature fiercer than usual against the regime of Hosni Mubarak.

It is in this vein that Egyptian officials viewed statements by Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah, who called on millions of Egypt's citizens to take to the streets, and on the heads of the Egyptian armed forces to make demands of its regime.

This did not eventuate. The demonstrations that were organized were met with a heavy hand. This is also how the Egyptian officials interpret statements made by Hannibal Gadhafi, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, who attacked Egyptian policy live on Al-Jazeera television. Gadhafi also slammed what he views as Al-Jazeera's generous treatment of the Mubarak regime. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Egypt will certainly respond in its own way to everything its rivals in the Arab world did to it. It has countless ways of doing this, from orchestrated attacks in the newspapers to humiliating them diplomatically to spearheading initiatives against them. At the moment Egypt is preparing the diplomatic path, where it is tying and loosening the string so that nobody else can take its place.

And another word in regard to its relations with Israel. Egypt has not taken an unprecedented risk because of Israel's "beautiful eyes,", but because of an interest in limiting the strength of Hamas and the consequences on its domestic front. Presumably, once the fighting stops, smuggling via un-destroyed tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border will resume, something that will again cause a big headache in Jerusalem.

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