by Efraim Karsh
A recent survey held by Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) shows a rather mixed picture.
Anwar Sadat in Jerusalem, screenshot of YouTube video, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 646, November 19, 2017
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Forty
years after Anwar Sadat’s historic visit to Jerusalem, most Israelis
view the attendant Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty as conducive to
Israel’s national security – yet they believe there are currently no
leaders of Sadat’s and Menachem Begin’s stature on either side of the
divide who are capable of effecting a similarly momentous breakthrough
toward Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Forty years ago this month, Egyptian president
Anwar Sadat landed at Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport for a two-day visit to
Jerusalem, at the official invitation of Israeli Prime Minister
Menachem Begin. The entire world held its breath. Here was the leader of
the largest and most populous Arab state, which had spearheaded
repeated pan-Arab attempts to destroy Israel, visiting the contested
capital of the Arab world’s foremost nemesis in an apparent acquiescence
in the legitimacy of the Jewish State’s existence and its right to
peaceful coexistence with its Arab neighbors. So profound was the
general disbelief that the Israeli chief-of-staff, Lt. Gen. Mordechai
Gur, warned the government that the visit was an Egyptian deceptive
ploy, on the heels of the Egyptian-Syrian surprise attack of October
1973.
The visit proved to be the most important single
political event in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, culminating
in the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of March 1979 and the attendant
shattering of the Arab world’s uniform rejection of Jewish statehood.
And while Sadat’s successor, Hosni Mubarak, held a far more restrictive
view of the agreement, the Israeli-Egyptian peace has successfully
weathered many regional crises (from the 1982 Lebanon war, to the
“al-Aqsa Intifada,” to the 2014 Gaza conflict), paving the road to the
October 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty and the yet-to-be-completed
Israeli-Palestinian peace process launched with the September 1993 Oslo
Accord.
But how do Israelis view this momentous event from
a forty-year vantage point? Do they appreciate its full historic
significance and the impact it has had on their lives? Do they consider
the price of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty worth paying?
A recent survey held by Bar-Ilan University’s
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) shows a rather mixed
picture. While 81% of respondents viewed the agreement as conducive to
Israel’s national security, 51% deemed the concessions made for its
attainment (notably the evacuation of the oil-rich Sinai Peninsula and
the demolition of the Yamit town) to have been excessive, compared to
46% of respondents who considered them commensurate with the agreement’s
mammoth gains.
This apparent contradiction seems to be a
corollary of Israelis’ keen awareness of Mubarak’s lukewarm perception
of peace. While one can only speculate about Sadat’s own ultimate
intentions – he was assassinated in October 1981 by an Islamist zealot –
for Mubarak, peace was of no value in and of itself but was rather the
price Cairo had to pay for such substantial benefits as US economic and
military aid. As a result, Mubarak reduced interaction with Israel to
the lowest possible level, while simultaneously transforming the
Egyptian army into a formidable modern force and fostering a culture of
virulent anti-Semitism in Egypt, a culture whose premises he himself
evidently shared.
Though President Abdel Fattah Sisi has taken a
different route, bringing Israeli-Egyptian relations to unprecedented
heights, most Israelis seem to acknowledge the instrumental nature of
the Egyptian perception of peace. Consequently, only 14% of the BESA
survey regarded Egypt’s attitude to Israel as friendly (of whom 37%
thought Israel “overpaid” for the agreement), while 68% viewed it as
lukewarm and another 18% as hostile (of whom 44% and 68% respectively
deemed the concessions made for the agreement as excessive).
Not surprisingly, perhaps, support for the
agreement was found to be strongest among center-left voters, though it
was actually the rightwing Likud Party that made this historic
breakthrough. Ninety-two percent of Hamahane Hatzioni and Yesh Atid
voters, as well as 88% of Meretz voters, believed the agreement to have
enhanced Israel’s national security as opposed to 82% of Likud voters,
82% of Habayit Hayehudi’s voters, and 67% of Israel Beitenu voters.
Support for the agreement within the ultraorthodox community was even
lower, with 64% of Shas voters and 68% of Yahadut Hatorah voters viewing
the agreement as conducive to Israel’s national security.
Likewise, the survey exposed the ambiguous
attitude of Israel’s Arab citizens to the agreement, or indeed to
possible Israeli reconciliation with the neighboring Arab states. While
only 68% of Israeli Arabs viewed the agreement as conducive to Israel’s
national security, compared to 83% of their Jewish compatriots, 17% of
them deemed the price paid for its attainment to have been too low
(compared to 1% of Israeli Jews). In other words, Israeli Arabs are more
inclined than their Jewish counterparts (with the salient exception of
Meretz voters) to have their state pay a higher price for a less
favorable international agreement affecting its national security. This
inclination is markedly higher among voters for the Joint Arab Party
(compared to those voting for Jewish parties), with 22% of them
considering the price too low.
The gap between Israeli Arabs and Jews
notwithstanding, both communities are equally skeptical about the
prospects for a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, with over 80% of
respondents agreeing that there are currently no leaders of Sadat’s and
Begin’s stature on either side of the divide who are capable of
effecting a similarly momentous breakthrough. Hardly a heart-warming
prognosis after nearly four decades of Egyptian-Israeli peace.
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israeli-attitudes-egypt/
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Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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