by Lazar Berman
Cairo, eager to see war end and economy back on track, is open about its frustrations, but its long-standing interests in preserving deal with Jerusalem have not changed
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| Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi attends a meeting with US
Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Al-Ittihadiya Palace, in Cairo,
February 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool) |
Based on frantic media coverage emanating from Cairo, the
long-standing ties between Israel and Egypt seemed like they were about
to unravel.
After Israeli troops finally embarked on the ground incursion into
the Rafah border area on May 7, Cairo’s public reaction was swift and
furious.
“Egypt warns Israel of ‘dire repercussions,’” read a CNN headline.
Unnamed Egyptian officials told reporters the Israeli offensive could
endanger the 1979 peace accord between the countries. Other officials
warned that diplomatic ties could be downgraded.
Then Egypt’s Foreign Ministry put out a statement that it would join
South Africa’s “genocide” case against Israel in the International Court
of Justice.
Egypt also halted coordination for aid trucks to pass from its
territory into Gaza, insisting that the other side of the Rafah Crossing
be under Palestinian control before it resumes deliveries.
An IDF tank crushing an “I love Gaza” sign
at the Gazan side of the Rafah-Egypt border crossing. (X screenshot;
used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)
“The current situation vis-a-vis Egypt is the worst it has been since
the war began,” one unnamed Israel official told the Haaretz daily
newspaper.
Then, the threats stopped.
More significantly, Egypt made no move to actually join the ICJ case.
It also hosted a senior Israeli delegation in an attempt to smooth tensions.
File: Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh
Shoukry attends a panel discussion during the World Economic Forum
Special Meeting in Riyadh on April 29, 2024. (Fayez Nureldine/AFP)
The angry declarations from Egypt were to be expected, and do not
signal an impending break in ties from a country that has long-standing
interests in a multi-faceted relationship with Israel.
But they do reflect deep concerns Egypt has about the persistence of
the war between Israel and Hamas, and what might come after.
Deep interests
Egypt’s behavior is driven by core interests — economic, security,
and regional — it intends to protect amid the fighting in Gaza.
Egypt is suffering deep economic fallout from the conflict. Even
before Hamas attacked on October 7, the Egyptian economy was in a steady
decline. Rising debt caused the country to slash social services and
basic subsidies over the past decade, and the Russian invasion of
Ukraine in 2022 cut off its main sources of wheat imports. Cairo had to
devalue the pound in order to receive a crucial loan from the
International Monetary Fund, and sky-high inflation continues to climb.
An Egyptian vendor carries a bread tray at a popular market in Cairo, Egypt, on Jan. 26, 2024 (AP Photo/Amr Nabil, File)
The fighting next door in Gaza has only made a bad situation worse.
One of Egypt’s main sources of foreign currency — which it needs in
order to repay almost $200 billion in foreign debt and to import key
commodities — is international shipping through the Suez Canal. That
traffic has dropped by 50% because of attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis
from Yemen on ships sailing through the Red Sea.
Tourism, another key source of foreign currency and a sector that
accounts for over 8% of GDP, is also in sharp decline because of the
war. (Some Egyptian pundits have surmised that the fact that the Giza
pyramids sound similar to Gaza has further deterred tourists.)
On top of those challenges, Egypt has also seen an influx of up to 100,000 Gazan refugees since the war started.
The situation at the Rafah Crossing doesn’t make the economic
situation easier for Egypt. With the El-Arish to Rafah corridor
providing a significant portion of aid flowing into Gaza, the government
was making money by charging processing fees on every shipment.
File: Egyptian trucks carrying humanitarian
aid bound for the Gaza Strip queue outside the Egyptian side of the
Rafah border crossing into the enclave, March 23, 2024. (Khaled
Desouki/AFP)
But it was Cairo that decided to halt aid shipments once Israel hoisted its flag on the Gaza side of the crossing.
The flag was seen in Egypt as a violation of the 2005 Agreement on
Movement and Access, which Israel signed with the Palestinian Authority
after pulling out of the Gaza Strip. It stipulates that the PA would
control the Gaza side of the crossing under European Union supervision.
The AMA was effectively suspended after the 2007 Hamas takeover of Gaza,
but Egypt wants to see the PA back in control on the border.
“Egypt’s reaction is meant to make clear to Israel that its presence
at the border crossings is illegitimate in Cairo’s eyes, and that
uncoordinated decisions will have a price – damage to bilateral ties,”
explained Ofir Winter, senior researcher at the Institute for National
Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Egypt has another important motivation for its refusal to accept Israel’s presence at the Rafah border.
A tank with an Israeli flag on it enters
the Gazan side of the Rafah Border Crossing on May 7, 2024. (Israel
Defense Forces via AP)
“It is also meant to signal to critics of the Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi
regime in Egypt and in the Arab world that Cairo is not cooperating with
Israel on the capturing of the Rafah Crossing,” said Winter.
“If conditions were different, they would prefer we were there all
the time,” said Haim Koren, a former Israeli envoy to Egypt and South
Sudan and researcher at the Mitvim think tank. “But they can’t say
anything like that in times like these.”
Since Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, the first
between Jerusalem and an Arab country, its rulers have been vulnerable
to criticism from anti-Western states and Muslim Brotherhood supporters
at home that it is a collaborator with the Zionist enemy.
That sensitivity is behind the call
from Egypt’s Sissi urging Egyptians to take to the streets to protest
against Israel before it even started the ground incursion in late
October.
Egyptian activists hold bread as they
participate in a pro-Palestinian protest outside the building of the
Journalist Syndicate in Cairo, Egypt, Wednesday, April 3, 2024. (AP
Photo/Mohamed El Raai)
“Muslim Brotherhood officials outside Egypt are trying to incite
protest and criticism against the Egyptian regime through messages on
satellite channels and social networks,” Winter said. “Although it is
likely that the majority of the Egyptian public is more concerned with
the economic hardship and the daily war of existence than with the war
in Gaza, public opinion considerations influence the conduct of the
regime.”
Hamas and the Brotherhood
That is not to say Sissi and the ruling elite have any sympathy for
Hamas. They see it as an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, an outlawed
political movement founded in Egypt.
Top police, prison and intelligence officials blame Hamas for participating in a mass prison break
in 2011 that released over 20,000 inmates, including jailed Hamas
members and criminals who fueled a massive crime wave. Among the Muslim
Brotherhood leaders freed in the coordinated attack was Mohammed Morsi,
the man Sissi overthrew as president then held in prison until his death
in 2019.
Egyptian protesters are surrounded by army
soldiers trying to lead them away from Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt,
February 13, 2011. (photo credit: AP/Tara Todras-Whitehill, File)
The regime also accused Hamas of being involved along with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 2016 killing of the country’s top prosecutor Hisham Barakat.
Sissi, who declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group when he came to
power in 2014, has been pursuing the organization vigorously, as it
represents the main threat to his rule.
In March, an Egyptian court sentenced to death by hanging eight
senior leaders of the movement, including two former supreme guides. The
Muslim Brotherhood continues to work to bring Sissi down from its
headquarters abroad, especially in Turkey and Qatar.
Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader
Mohammed Badie waves from a defendants cage in a makeshift courtroom at
the national police academy, in eastern Cairo, Egypt, May 16, 2015.
(Ahmed Omar/AP)
At the same time, there does seem to be some quiet sympathy for Hamas
— or at least a willingness to turn a blind eye for money — among
Egyptian officers. IDF forces in Rafah have found around 50 cross-border
tunnels, which could not have been dug without the knowledge of some
security forces on the other side.
Still, the regime wants to prevent a flood of Gazan refugees from
pouring across the border into the Sinai, adding hundreds of thousands
of mouths to feed and allowing Hamas fighters to link up with Salafi and
Muslim Brotherhood terrorists. Cairo remembers when Hamas set off
explosions along the border fence in 2008, enabling up to half of Gaza’s
population to cross unchecked into Egypt. It took almost a year for
Egypt to round up the last of the Gazans in northern Sinai and return
them to Gaza.
A golden opportunity
Amid all the pitfalls, if Sissi plays his cards right, the war in Gaza can recast Egypt’s regional standing.
“Egypt sees that this is a golden opportunity to take advantage of
the current crisis to find a solution for the Palestine issue,” said
Michael Barak, senior researcher at Reichman University’s International
Institute for Counterterrorism.
“Egypt is also trying to fortify its image in the Arab world,” he
continued, “meaning that Egypt is interested in signaling to the United
States that it is a very crucial ally in the region that it is able to
bring Israel and Hamas to the negotiating table, and to help reach a
ceasefire.”
From left to right: Syria’s President
Bashar Assad, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Egypt’s
President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi as they follow Saudi Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman (Front R) and Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi (Back
R) during an emergency summit of the Arab League and the Organisation of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Riyadh, November 11, 2023. (Handout /
Iranian Presidency / AFP)
It will go to significant lengths to try to shorten the war, even at the risk of straining ties with Washington. CNN reported
that Egyptian intelligence changed the terms of a hostage deal Israel
agreed to without the knowledge of the other mediators. That ham-fisted
attempt angered Qatar, the US, and Israel, and talks have been stalled
since.
Until it achieves that key aim, Cairo is seeking urgently from Israel
clarity over the future of the Gaza Strip and the management of the
Rafah Crossing before it agrees to work together on aid or the day after
Hamas.
Alongside the denunciations, Egypt has also sent ample signals that
it isn’t planning on doing anything too drastic against Israel.
IDF soldiers operate in the Rafah area of
the Gaza Strip in a photo cleared for publication on May 20, 2024.
(Israel Defense Forces)
“The peace agreement with Israel has been Egypt’s strategic choice
for 40 years, and it represents a main pillar of peace in the region to
achieve peace and stability,” Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on the same day his ministry announced it would join the ICJ suit.
After accusing Israel of evading ceasefire efforts, Sissi said
last week at the Arab League Summit that “despite the current gloomy
picture, Egypt still clings to the hope that the voices of reason,
justice and truth will ultimately prevail, saving the region from
endless waves of wars and bloodshed.”
Notably — unlike envoys from countries like the UAE — Egypt’s
ambassador continues his work from Tel Aviv, and Israel’s envoy does the
same in Cairo.
Security cooperation remains close, with delegations quietly going back and forth regularly.
None of this should come as a surprise. Egypt is a country with
consistent and deep interests, and decision-makers stay in power for
many years.
“They know how many shared interests they have with us,” Koren said.
Lazar Berman
Source: https:https://www.timesofisrael.com/despite-threats-egypt-is-not-about-to-tear-up-peace-with-israel/
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