In late July 2012, Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas prime minister in Gaza, paid a visit to Cairo. He was quite proud of himself and pleased to be there. Mohammed Morsi, or Haniyeh's “Brother,” as the Palestinian called him, had just been elected president of Egypt. Haniyeh, like all the other leaders of Hamas, and in fact, all the people of Gaza, thought that this would be the dawn of a new era in the troubled relationship between Gaza and Egypt. It was an egregious error on his part.
The conversation between Haniyeh and President Morsi was not an easy one. The standard tokens of mutual respect and traditional greetings and pleasantries quickly deteriorated into a scathing dialogue during which Haniyeh could only conclude that Gaza would not appear anywhere near the top of Morsi’s list of priorities. By the time he realized that Morsi was concerned first and foremost with the interests of Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood, and less with the problems of Gaza, it was too late.
