El-Hamalawy believes that relations between some leftist groups and the Muslim Brotherhood improved significantly from the 1990s, when the groups fought physically on university campuses, to 2005–2006, when leftists and Muslim Brothers coordinated street demonstrations together. He attributes this to the Revolutionary Socialist Organization and "a growing left-leaning human rights community" forming the core of a "new left in Egypt" and to the Second Palestinian Intifada, which "revived Egyptian street politics" and forced generational change in the "new left" and the Muslim Brotherhood. Following the revolution in 2011, el-Hamalawy levelled criticism against the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists for their collaboration with military, and later when Morsi was elected. He denounced the Rabaa Massacre and stood against the police crackdown on the Brotherhood.