PREVIEW HEADLINE: Egypt's Populist Stance vs. National Interest and the Red Sea Crisis GUEST NAME: Hussain Abdel-Hussain SUMMARY: John Batchelor speaks with Hussain Abdel-Hussain about Egypt as a problem for itself, standing by while the war continued. Dr
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2025
⏱️ 2 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Conversation with colleague Hussein of the Foundation for Defense of Democracy. Identifying Egypt |
| 0:08.4 | as a problem for Egypt. Why did they allow the war to go on? Why didn't they open their borders |
| 0:15.0 | and let the Gossans flow into the Sinai and keep them safe and fed and secure. |
| 0:23.2 | Why didn't they force Hamas to surrender? |
| 0:27.5 | They certainly just stood there and watched the war go on for years. |
| 0:27.9 | Why? |
| 0:33.1 | And the saint also points out that in not doing anything, |
| 0:39.4 | they saw their income plunge because of the Red Sea shenanigans by the Houthis. |
| 0:41.1 | Why? |
| 0:44.1 | He brings an answer to the table. |
| 0:52.6 | Egypt is representative of other Arab states standing by, not commenting, blaming Israel, never, never solving it. |
| 0:53.8 | Why? More of this tonight. |
| 0:58.0 | Again, to my mind, |
| 1:00.0 | populism is at play. |
| 1:02.0 | To the Egyptian government, |
| 1:04.0 | it's much easier to say what |
| 1:07.0 | the imagined Arab Street would like to hear |
| 1:10.0 | than to actually tell the Arab street what should happen. |
| 1:15.0 | Mind you, John, the Egyptians are one of the biggest losers from this war. |
| 1:22.0 | When the Houthis of Yemen started targeting Israel |
| 1:24.7 | and targeting ships going through the Red Sea. |
| 1:28.2 | The income of Egypt was halved from the Suez Canal, I think from $10 billion a year down to $5 billion. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.