Revolt of the Suez Canal

Memory is implacable in Egypt's three major cities on the Suez Canal: Port Said in the north, Ismailia in the middle and Suez in the south. Vestigial rancor remains even from British colonial days; and the locals nurse a hardened sense of honor and neglect from being at the front lines of the wars with Israel in the 1960s and '70s. Those emotions have often turned inward, against Egypt itself and whoever rules from Cairo. The first martyrs in the January 2011 revolt against Hosni Mubarak were from the canal cities, and their blood fed a nationwide cry for vengeance. Now...