The Surrender of Tiran and Sanafir: “National Sovereignty” in Service of the Throne—Only

Statement by the Revolutionary Socialists

Sisi’s regime seems no longer even concerned with keeping its lies believable. By surrendering the islands of Tiran and Sanafir in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, the last fig leaf has fallen from the falsehood of so-called “national sovereignty.”

Sisi inherited this grand deception from his mentor—ousted dictator Mubarak—whom he has now surpassed. We have long witnessed the regime wielding this lie whenever it seeks to discredit revolutionaries and freedom fighters struggling for democracy, justice, and dignity—accusing them of treason, working for foreign agendas, receiving foreign funding to act against the country’s interests, and other such fabricated charges.

The regime has also brandished this falsehood against Palestinians fleeing war, death, and destruction—using it as a pretext to shut down the Rafah border crossing and tighten the siege on them, effectively aiding the Zionist enemy in their killing. This heroic Palestinian people, who stand resilient against the Zionist war machine and whose sons are martyred for the liberation of “all of Palestine,” are vilified by the Egyptian regime through the myth that “Palestinians sold their land,” an attempt to undermine solidarity with them. The Palestinian people never sold their land and never will. The true betrayers are those who safeguard the disgraceful Camp David Accords to protect their Zionist allies. The true betrayers have now surrendered Egypt’s Red Sea islands to their Gulf masters. That betrayer is none other than Sisi’s regime itself. No one deserves the charge of treason more than this regime.

What is new is that Sisi’s regime has now pulled out its tattered “national sovereignty” excuse to cover up the murder of Italian student Giulio Regeni. The Egyptian authorities rejected Italian investigators’ request for security camera footage from the al-Buhouth metro station—where Regeni was last seen before being abducted and tortured to death—claiming that “national sovereignty” prevents such interference. That sovereignty, of course, is only inviolable when the regime is not violating it. This comes after all of the regime’s fabricated accounts of Regeni’s murder collapsed, exposing it to relentless attacks in Western media and global forums.

Sisi’s surrender of the islands comes a year after Egyptian military forces participated in the Saudi-led “Operation Decisive Storm”—a humiliating submission to the Saudi king and a direct order from him. It also follows the drying up of Gulf financial aid to Sisi’s regime, which had previously received an estimated $30 billion in funding from Gulf states and Saudi Arabia. However, it appears that the Gulf’s financial well is no longer capable of rescuing Sisi from his deepening economic crisis—especially with the decline in oil prices, on which Gulf economies heavily depend, his reckless squandering of billions on useless vanity projects, and growing Gulf dissatisfaction with his policies.

Sisi’s regime would not have consolidated its grip on power without the massive support it received from Gulf states from the beginning—both during the lead-up to the military coup in July 2013 and afterward, once he seized power. Now, it is clear that the regime is desperately trying to appease Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, in hopes that they will resume their economic and political backing. This is especially crucial as the regime is already struggling to pay the interest on the enormous loans it has received from these countries. Surrendering the two islands is simply another step in securing its Gulf overlords’ approval. These states—Saudi Arabia chief among them—are the primary sponsors of counter-revolutions and oppressive authoritarian regimes across the region.

The surrender of the islands is not just a concession of national sovereignty—because there was never any absolute sovereignty to begin with, except when it was wielded as a weapon against opponents. The so-called sovereignty that Sisi and his media mouthpieces glorify is nothing more than the sovereignty of repression, murder, and torture—the sovereignty of forcibly imposing austerity and impoverishment on Egypt’s workers and poor. Organizing resistance against this regime and its policies is now the primary task for all those fighting for freedom and social justice.

Down with the sovereignty of repression and impoverishment… Down with Sisi and his regime