When searching for a location to film part of his first Star Wars film, George Lucas visited areas in Morocco and Tunisia that were once home to major Jewish communities. Not only that, writes Matt Austerklein, but there is a striking physical resemblance between the bearded desert hermit Obi-Wan Kenobi and Rabbi Raphael Encaoua (1848-1935), “the great sage of the Jewish community of Salé in northwest Morocco.” Austerklein adds:

George Lucas’s immersion in this North African setting made its impression on the unfolding Star Wars story; it is said that Lucas based the Jedi master Obi-Wan on this local rabbinic legend. Luke Skywalker’s own home planet of Tatooine was further adapted from the name of another town in southern Tunisia—Tétouan—which once had a flourishing Sephardi community. As with so many Jewish communities following the founding of the state Israel in 1948, Arab pogroms and the threat of further violence led to the emigration of almost the entire community.

Other scenes were filmed on the island of Djerba, which is home to North Africa’s last intact Jewish community. In the same post, Austerklein reflects on how Jewish music passed on memories of both liberation and exile:

It is no mistake that the iconic musical scene in the Torah, [the song at the splitting of the Red Sea in] in Exodus 15—is the song-child of . . . the birth of the Jewish people into freedom. Moreover, it forms the archetypal Jewish experience of going out, in which we carry our melodies, like matzah, on our backs.

This phenomenon resounds across Jewish history. Sephardi Jews, following their expulsions from Spain (1492) and Portugal (1497), brought their melodies and Spanish romances all over the world, uniting them in their exile as a transnational community.

Concluded in 1979, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty ended nearly 30 years of intermittent warfare, and proved one of the most enduring and beneficial products of Middle East diplomacy. But Egypt may not have been upholding its end of the bargain, write Jonathan Schanzer and Mariam Wahba:

Article III, subsection two of the peace agreement’s preamble explicitly requires both parties “to ensure that that acts or threats of belligerency, hostility, or violence do not originate from and are not committed from within its territory.” This clause also mandates both parties to hold accountable any perpetrators of such acts.

Recent Israeli operations along the Philadelphi Corridor, the narrow strip of land bordering Egypt and Gaza, have uncovered multiple tunnels and access points used by Hamas—some in plain sight of Egyptian guard towers. While it could be argued that Egypt has lacked the capacity to tackle this problem, it is equally plausible that it lacks the will. Either way, it’s a serious problem.

Was Egypt motivated by money, amidst a steep and protracted economic decline in recent years? Did Cairo get paid off by Hamas, or its wealthy patron, Qatar? Did the Iranians play a role? Was Egypt threatened with violence and unrest by the Sinai’s Bedouin Union of Tribes, who are the primary profiteers of smuggling, if it did not allow the tunnels to operate? Or did the Sisi regime take part in this operation because of an ideological hatred of Israel?