There is a new mood out there, and those who ignore it do so at their peril. It should be clear, nevertheless, that the upheaval is only partly Palestine-focused. The Intifada did provide a backdrop to Egypt's 2000 parliamentary elections, and there is no doubt that in some instances voter behaviour was directly affected by the overwhelming feelings of solidarity it triggered among the Egyptian public. The Intifada's most significant effect has been much less direct, however. In dramatically underlining both the cruelty of oppression and the nobility of resistance, it has inspired.
People identify with both.
And it so happens that parliamentary elections are taking place in Egypt. Punishing the ruling party has been the one identifying feature of the 2000 poll. Big ruling party heads went rolling all over the country. This is all the more remarkable since the rules of the parliamentary game in Egypt remain firmly in place. The non-correspondence between civil society as it really exists and its ideal form as expressed in contemporary liberal dogma was not the only area where liberal ideologues received a beating in these elections, as indeed in every other test of the liberal credo.