Bobby Ghosh, Columnist

Gaza Is a Reminder of Egypt’s Relevance to the Middle East

Cairo will play the pivotal role in engineering a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

May 18, 2021 at 2:59 PM UTC

Bobby Ghosh is a senior editor in the digital weekend team. Previously, he was a columnist at Bloomberg Opinion, where he wrote mostly about international affairs and culture.

Explosions above buildings in Gaza City.
Photographer: Mahmud Hams/AFP

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In the second week of the war between Israel and Hamas, President Joe Biden “expressed his support for a cease-fire” in a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The president’s passive phraseology betrays his reluctance to engage in the process. He isn’t offering to broker a truce, or even proposing a road map toward one. He isn’t suggesting a cessation of hostilities, much less demanding it. No, he’s merely endorsing the idea.

What Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thought of Biden’s impuissant petition isn’t hard to guess. Hours after the two men spoke on Monday, Israeli air force jets carried out dozens of strikes against targets in Gaza. The leadership of Hamas ordered another volley of rockets into Israel.