Egypt is the crucial, if reluctant, intermediary between Israel and Hamas, which is no great friend of this moderate secular state.

From The New York Times:

Egypt has long been a leader of the Arab world, expected to be the one to stand up to Israel. In the wars of 1948-49, 1967 and 1973, it shed copious blood to try to defeat Israel in the name of Arab nationalism and a Palestinian state. But the former Egyptian president, Anwar el-Sadat, saw it in the country’s national interest for a peace agreement with Israel and was assassinated for that view by Islamic radicals. Those arrested afterward included Ayman al-Zawahri, who later became Osama bin Laden’s deputy.

Mr. Sadat’s successor, Mr. Mubarak, has successfully negotiated the complicated issues of regional security, solidifying a relationship with Washington, maintaining cool but correct ties with Israel and sharply suppressing Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.

Traditionally, Israel warns Cairo secretly before taking important military action in Gaza. So the pictures of Mr. Mubarak smiling and shaking hands with Ms. Livni have fueled popular speculation that Egypt was aware of the impending attack and even approved it, to deal a blow to Hamas.

The charge of complicity is made loudly by Iranian allies like Hamas and Hezbollah, and slightly less loudly by Syria. They accuse Egypt of bearing part of the responsibility for the Palestinian deaths because of its refusal to open up its border with Gaza.

Those demanding that Egypt open the Gaza border do not understand the dangers, said [an Egyptian citizen]. “If we opened it, we’d be the Iraq of the Palestinians,” he said. “There will be terrorism in the Sinai, and that’s our country.”