The shoes thrown by Muntadhar al-Zaydi at George W. Bush during the former president’s farewell tour of Iraq have added an icon to the international culture of protest. During Israel’s wintertime war on Gaza, which, according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health, killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and left over 5,300 injured and maimed, demonstrators in London threw shoes at 10 Downing Street. In February, a heckler in Sweden hurled footwear at the Israeli ambassador. Popular frustration at Operation Cast Lead was, of course, even more intense the closer one got to Gaza.

In Egypt, where President Husni Mubarak was exposed yet again as local enforcer of the long-standing international blockade of Gaza, nationwide protests spanning the political spectrum called the state to action. On January 9, al-Jazeera reported that nearly 100,000 people took to the streets of Alexandria for a “day of rage.” The same day, according to the independent newspaper al-Masri al-Yawm, some 200,000 Muslim Brothers staged over 90 demonstrations after Friday prayers. The most frequent demands were that the government abide by two Egyptian court rulings that natural gas exports to Israel be halted, open the border crossing at Rafah for humanitarian relief, and expel the Israeli envoy in Cairo. The Mubarak regime met these demands with silence, but not with stillness.

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