Egyptian President Sisi handed over two Red Sea islands, Sanafir and Tiran, to Saudi Arabia in return for a $16 billion Saudi Egyptian investment fund and the building of a bridge between Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
There have been ongoing arguments about whether or not the islands actually belong to the Egyptian or the Saudi territory.
The two islands were under Egypt's control since 1950, then were ruled by Israel in 1967 until Egypt signed the Camp David agreement in 1982 and claimed it back to its territory. The two islands are also taught in the Egyptian national school curriculum as part of Egypt, known for fishing and diving. Meanwhile, the authorities, of course, insisted that the islands belonged to Saudi Arabia to justify the action of the president.
Let's hypothetically say the islands didn't for sure belong to Egypt, (although all evidence says they did), I can still question: If the islands are within Saudi Arabia's territory, why did Mr. Sisi get money in return? Why didn't Saudi Arabia claim or demand them back years ago?
But then I realized that the problem itself lies, not on whether they belonged to Egypt or not, but in a president who claims to be patriotic and all about the country and the people, while thinking he has the sole ownership of Egypt.
Your highness, the supposedly-representative of Egypt, in case you've forgotten, your job is to serve us as citizens. So how dare you take an action as big as this without letting us know and without even giving us a clear explanation of why you did this?
I must say, the extensive outrage from Egyptians regarding this issue gave me hope that an opposition still exists. Tens of thousands of tweets have been posted about how Sisi sold his lands. Politicians, revolutionaries, and satirists have voiced their anger with this too.
Nonetheless, the crisis though is how some people are fine with this, not because they like the agreement or anything - I wish that was the case - but solely because they don't want to see their precious Sisi fallible.
We used to resent how the Muslim Brotherhood supporters blatantly followed and defended their leaders. To the supporters of Sisi in this incident, what are you defending? Not having any transparency? Not being able to find out the truth because the media is either biased or censored? Not having a direct speech from Sisi to clarify anything? Well, you basically just blatantly defended a man - before finding out the exact truth - over your country. Think about this. Let it linger in your head.
I wrote a letter before addressing Sisi as a failure. This time though, it's different. It's worse. The man gave lands - our lands, Egyptian lands - away to another country without an explanation, without a referendum, without anything that we can possibly put our voices into. And I honestly don't see how trusting him in office can be tolerable anymore. Because Egypt isn't his property. It never has. Never will.