Would Israel and Egypt Fight Again?

Egyptian President AbdelFattah el-Sisi met with Israeli Prime number Government minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time in public on Tuesday.

The meeting came alee of the United nations Full general Assembly in New York, in what Egypt said was part of an endeavour to revive the Palestinian-Israeli diplomatic talks.

It has been well-nigh four decades since former Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat extended a hand of peace to Israel.

Although many Egyptians keep to regard State of israel equally a threat and sympathise with the Palestinian cause, the relationship between the two countries has become markedly explicit under Sisi.

"Egyptian-Israeli relations are today at their highest level in history," Nathan Thrall, a Jerusalem-based senior analyst for the International Crisis Group (ICG), a inquiry NGO, told Al Jazeera.

And it certainly appears so.

In 2016, Egyptian strange government minister, Sameh Shoukry, visited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a much-publicised meeting at the latter'southward home in Jerusalem. It was the first visit by any Egyptian FM in shut to a decade. Netanyahu said the two "made time to watch the Euro 2016 terminal" football game game together.

Egypt also reinstated an ambassador to Tel Aviv last yr, following Morsi's conclusion to pull out the envoy in protest confronting the 2012 Israeli assault on Gaza.

Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat shakes hands with former Israeli PM Menachem Begin later on addressing the Israeli government on Nov xx, 1977 [The Associated Press]

In 2015, the Israeli embassy in Cairo was reopened after a four-year closure, due to protests in forepart of the embassy over Israel'southward killing of several Egyptian law officers in the Sinai. And, in the aforementioned twelvemonth, Egypt voted in favour of Israel to get a member of a Un commission – the get-go time that Arab republic of egypt has voted for State of israel at the UN since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948.

Such examples are only a few of the many developments that signal a new chapter in this relationship, which Mohamed Soliman, a Cairo-based political analyst, characterises every bit a "full partnership, unbreakable brotherhood and diplomatic completion" between the two countries.

'Mutual enemies'

The alliance, analysts say, has been predicated on military and security cooperation, mainly with regard to the armed groups operating in the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and the Egyptian Sinai desert.

The two have worked together to boxing the Sinai insurgency, where allies of the Islamic State of Republic of iraq and the Levant (ISIL, as well known every bit ISIS), have gained momentum in recent years.

Thrall says Israel "has repeatedly allowed" Arab republic of egypt to bring forces and weapons into the Sinai across the scope of the peace treaty.

Israel's willingness to permit Egypt to deploy into areas that clearly defy the security appendix of the Camp David Accords demonstrates a "flexibility and coordination between Egypt and Israel [that came] early in Sisi's tenure," Soliman told Al Jazeera.

The relationship between the two countries has become and then lucid that there have been multiple, but unconfirmed, reports of Israel conveying out drone strikes in Sinai with Egypt'due south consent.

The common ground has likewise extended to a dislike of Hamas, the political and armed motility that governs two million Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip. Arab republic of egypt has accused Hamas of being linked to the Muslim Alliance, while Israel considers it a threat to its sovereignty.

Since Sisi's coming to power in 2014, Egyptian authorities take kept the Sinai border crossing with Gaza largely sealed. The movement has suffocated its residents, whose but other passage to the outside world is through Israel, which imposes an closed blockade.

Too keeping their borders shut, the ii countries cooperated in the near recent devastation and flooding of the vast Palestinian-congenital tunnel network between Gaza and the Sinai, analysts say. The tunnels, used for everything from smuggling people out and KFC in, are viewed as a threat to both Israel and Egypt. Both sides claim the tunnels were being used for weapon merchandise.

"Egypt and Israel view the tunnel economy between the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza as a clear and present danger. Cairo knows that the tunnel economic system enriches smugglers on the Sinai side – many of whom accept ties to the local Islamic Land branch – while Israel is well aware that it bolsters and arms Hamas in Gaza," Oren Kessler, deputy director of Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a DC-based call back-tank, told Al Jazeera.

"Egypt has taken an uncompromising approach to destroying the tunnels, and has worked with Israel to exercise then."

While cooperation over the flooding of the tunnels has not been announced publicly, Israel's energy government minister, Yuval Steinitz, stated that some flooding took place at Israel's request, simply he was reportedly forced to retract his claims.

Aside from military cooperation and common enemies, State of israel and Egypt have found mutually beneficial economic opportunities in gas, in a partnership that predates Sisi's arrival.

Until 2012, Arab republic of egypt had been selling natural gas to Israel as part of a 20-year deal that was cancelled. According to Bloomberg, the two countries are at present close to securing a new multibillion-dollar deal that would encounter State of israel export gas to Egypt.

 Egypt also flooded the Gaza tunnels in 2013 with sewage h2o, afterwards orders from old president Mohamed Morsi. Here, a Palestinian adult female is pictured clearing out one of the tunnels [AP]

Banker for peace?

In May 2016, Sisi committed Egypt as a middleman between the Israelis and Palestinians.During the UN General Assembly, he reiterated his interest in helping to push button for peace.

His FM'south visit to Jerusalem in July 2016 was also publicised as part of the Egyptian initiative.

Safa Joudeh, a Cairo-basedpolitical and security annotator, believes the calls for peace are merely a encompass aimed at distracting Egyptians. "Renewing peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis was largely a smoke screen for Egypt to pursue closer diplomatic ties with Israel, while fugitive public backfire," Joudeh told Al Jazeera.

The visit also took place at a time of local discontent over Egyptian foreign policy on bug that "are deemed more pressing" she said, which "raises the question of the timing [of Shoukry'south visit]."

"Although the rapprochement initiative is unpopular with the Egyptian public," said Joudeh, "at that place was no adverse reaction to Shoukry's visit equally information technology was largely overshadowed past all the other foreign policy debates within the public sphere," including the transfer of two Red Bounding main islands to Saudi Arabia and tension over Ethiopia storing Nile water backside its dam.

While in theory, the concept of closer Egyptian-Israeli ties is potential for pushing Palestinian-Israeli peace talks along, analysts say they are having an opposite event by creating intra-Palestinian division and diverting Israeli responsibleness to come to the negotiating table.

Israel has for years stalled and ignored US calls to halt illegal settlement building in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem.A French proposal to restart the talks in 2016 was also bluntly rejected by Israel, claiming it would merely agree to straight talks.

"Egyptian involvement could reduce international force per unit area on Israel over its lack of serious steps towards negotiating with the Palestinians," said Soliman. "Sisi's initiative does not cost Netanyahu anything other than more negotiations".

Renewing peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis was largely a smoke screen for Egypt to pursue closer diplomatic ties with State of israel while avoiding public backlash

past Safa Joudeh, Cairo-based political and security annotator

Elie Podeh, head of the Heart East studies department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, agrees. He says Israel "is indeed interested in diverting the Palestinian question by getting closer to the Arab states".

Simply crucially, he believes the Zionist state'southward standing with Arab countries, as a whole, will non improve if information technology does not move forwards on the peace procedure.

With Israel in a position of power, some believe it cannot be talked into making any concessions. For instance, Waleed al-Modallal, caput of political science at the Islamic University of Gaza, says that it is not articulate to him "how Egypt would be able to pressurise Israel into responding to the rights of the Palestinians.

"Information technology seems that it is the other fashion round – that Arab republic of egypt will pressurise Palestinians to relinquish more and more than for Israeli objectives," Modallal told Al Jazeera.

Instead, Modallal argues "the resistance move", particularly Hamas, has the most to lose in this new brotherhood.

And while Hamas on Sunday agreed to several conditions by the PA to move the reconciliation process along, Modallal says Egypt's role as an honest broker between the Israelis and Palestinians must be questioned, given its "negative attitudes towards the Palestinian crusade, whether in contributing to the connected siege on Gaza or turning a blind heart to the Israeli aggression on the strip in 2014".

Palestinians in Gaza waiting at the Rafah border crossing, hoping to cross into Egypt [Reuters]

"Egypt has failed at moving the Palestinian cause along at international forums. Given its failing status on the regional front and its preoccupation with internal issues, Egypt is non a candidate to play the function of solving the Palestinian cause."

In fact, equally State of israel and Egypt tighten the noose on Gaza, the rift between Hamas and Fatah, the ruling party of the Palestinian Authority in the Due west Bank, has chop-chop widened over the by decade.

"Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah move probable have serenity satisfaction in the fact that both countries take a difficult line confronting Fatah's archrival Hamas," Kessler says.

While the PA is "engaged in a concerted campaign to isolate Israel diplomatically, and is, therefore, disappointed to encounter its swain Arabs comprehend State of israel in whatsoever way," information technology likewise "charily welcomes whatever steps to rein in Hamas," Kessler connected.

Just at that place is a third dimension.

Regional implications

Playing on regional rifts in the Arab globe, with the dissever between the Gulf states and Islamic republic of iran, Israeli officials and analysts speak of an unofficial "moderate axis" of Arab countries that are purportedly working behind the scenes with the Israeli government.

In this "alliance", Western-backed countries including Egypt, Turkey, Kingdom of saudi arabia and several of the Gulf states, as well as Jordan and Kingdom of morocco, are said to be pitted against "common enemies" Syria, Iran, ISIL, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Kessler believes the tighter Egyptian-Israeli partnership is "being received with serenity approval by traditional US allies in the region, such equally the monarchies of the Gulf states and Jordan, who see those relations as useful in confronting shared adversaries.

"More broadly, those ties help shore up the campsite of those relatively pro-Western regimes against the 'resistance' military camp led by Iran and its proxies including the Syrian government and Hezbollah," he added.

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Modallal, however, says this strategy will only mean more divide and instability for the region.

"Israel'due south success in creating an 'axis of relatively moderate states' allows information technology to suffocate Iran by creating a basis for regional cooperation against it. This would fuel the conflict between the Arabs and Iran, in a way that would lead to the destruction of State of israel'south two foes at the aforementioned fourth dimension."

He says that given the lack of whatever Arab country that could challenge State of israel's strength, strengthening this divide volition allow Israel to reach its strategic goals, and secure its superiority, while Arab countries are mired in conflict.

Egypt's foreign policy towards Israel today is not much different from that of Mubarak's, who, like Sisi, was a old military man.

The main aspects of bilateral ties, explains Joudeh, have remained intact, as historically, the relationship with Israel has been handled past the Egyptian regular army.

Just the difference at present, she says, is that under Sisi and his armed forces-backed regime, "the lines between political conclusion-making and national security strategy have go blurred".

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Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/9/20/egypt-israel-relations-at-highest-level-in-history

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