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Egypt Draws Red Line On U.S. Gaza Deal: GERD Dispute Takes Backseat To Homeland Security

By Editor on 27th July 2025 • ( 0 )

Egypt Draws Red Line On U.S. Gaza Deal: GERD Dispute Takes Backseat To Homeland Security

Preserving its perceived national interests vis-à-vis Gaza is seen as much more important of a priority.

It was concluded here in late July after Trump’s recent remarks on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that he has ulterior motives for supporting Egypt in this dispute. These suspicions were lent credence after Arab News reported that “high-level Egyptian diplomatic sources” told their sister site that Cairo rejected the price that it has to pay for “decisive (US) intervention”. They claim that Egypt must support Israel’s Gazan relocation plan and maybe even eventually host many, if not all, Gazans too.

That’s hitherto been a red line from the perspective of Egypt’s national security interests since it suspects that Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas militants might infiltrate into the country under the cover of refugees and thenceforth get to work trying to overthrow the government yet again. Nevertheless, it’s what the US considers to be the easiest solution to this humanitarian crisis, ergo why this demand was reportedly made of Egypt in exchange for “decisively intervening” in the GERD dispute.

The US also knows that this is a red line for Egypt as explained above; therefore, it’s trying to force Egypt into a dilemma over its perceived national security priorities. After all, Egypt has falsely claimed for years that GERD supposedly represents an existential threat while being careful not to openly describe the Gazans as such, yet it reportedly just rejected the US’ terms for taking its side over Ethiopia. Arab News’ “high-level Egyptian diplomatic sources” are thus inadvertently discrediting their country’s narrative.

Quite clearly, the potential hosting of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas militants who might infiltrate the country under the cover of refugees represents much more of an existential threat to Egypt than its officials ever claimed that GERD did, consequently accounting for their choice. Truth be told, it’s a wise one if they maintain it and don’t reverse course for whatever reason since there are limits to what the US can do to coerce Ethiopia into some kind of deal with Egypt, which will now be touched upon.

Contrary to Trump’s claims, GERD wasn’t financed by the US, so it has no plausible pretext for intervening in this dispute without Ethiopia’s permission. GERD has also already been built so there’s no realistic scenario where the US gets Ethiopia to suspend the project. Another point is that crippling sanctions and other forms of hybrid war pressure, such as supporting a potentially imminent Egyptian-backed Eritrean-TPLF offensive, could backfire against the US’ EU and Gulf allies.

Egypt might have thus wagered that it’s better to preserve its national security interests vis-à-vis the scenario of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Hamas militants infiltrating into the country under cover of refugees than to sacrifice this as the price for the US “decisively intervening” in the GERD dispute. As earlier mentioned, if Egypt maintains this choice, then it would be a wise one from their perspective but also beneficial for Ethiopia by averting the scenario of Egyptian-requested US pressure upon it.

In fact, Ethiopia might even flip the dynamics against Egypt at this pivotal moment if it agrees to host some displaced Gazans like Axios’ recent reported suggested that it’s considering, in which case the US might do Ethiopia a favour vis-à-vis Egypt by deterring it from backing any Eritrean-TPLF offensive. Should this come to pass, and it remains to be seen but can’t be discounted either, then Egypt might therefore come to deeply regret that it ever asked the US to take its side against Ethiopia in the GERD dispute.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.