The Road to Jerusalem through Tahrir Square: Anti-Zionism and Palestine in the 2011 Egyptian Revolution

This article addresses an aspect of Egypt’s 2011 revolution almost entirely ignored in most Western media accounts: Israel and Palestine as prominent themes of protest. In reviewing Egyptian mobilization opposing normalization and in support of the Palestinian cause starting from Sadat’s peace initiative of the mid-1970s, the author shows how the anti-Mubarak movement that took off as of the mid-2000s built on the Palestine activism and networks already in place. While the trigger of the revolution and the focus of its first eighteen days was domestic change, the article shows how domestic and foreign policy issues (especially Israel and Palestine) were inextricably intertwined, with the leadership bodies of the revolution involved in both.

Reem Abou-El-Fadl is Jarvis Doctorow Junior Research Fellow in International Relations of the Middle East at St. Edmund Hall and the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. The author would like to thank Mezna Qato and anonymous readers for their insights and comments.