Last Thursday, Barack Obama telephoned Benjamin Netanyahu to offer belated congratulations on his electoral victory and to upbraid him on remarks made prior to the election. The president, writes Elliott Abrams, seems to be misconstruing Netanyahu’s words deliberately, and worse:

[President] Obama’s lecturing Israel, the region’s only real democracy, two days after a totally free election, is quite amazing—considering that in June 2009, for example, he stayed dead silent while the ayatollahs crushed the Green Movement and its demands for democracy in Iran. . . .

The [President’s] lecture [addressed] Netanyahu’s opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state “today”—Netanyahu’s word—or during his premiership. Here’s what Obama said [in an interview following the conversation]: “We can’t just in perpetuity maintain the status quo, expand settlements— that’s not a recipe for stability in the region. . . . We take [Netanyahu] at his word that [a Palestinian state] wouldn’t happen during his prime-ministership, and so that’s why we’ve got to evaluate what other options are available to make sure that we don’t see a chaotic situation in the region.”

These comments are equally indefensible. First, we see here again the old, discredited idea that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—not terrorism, not the Iranian nuclear-weapons program, not war in Syria, not Islamic State—is central to the region’s problems. If there is no progress on this one front, Obama warns, we can be certain there will be “a chaotic situation in the region.” Why would that be? Because the status quo is “unsustainable,” I guess. That “status quo” has been sustained for a remarkable 48 years since the 1967 war, so exactly why it is all of a sudden unsustainable is mysterious. . . .

What’s happening here is not a reasonable U.S. reaction to what Netanyahu said, but an effort by Obama to find some excuse, any excuse, to change our policy toward Israel.

While the current Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, has never been friendly to Hamas, his government has objected strenuously to the Israeli campaign in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip. Haisam Hassanein explains why:

Cairo has long been playing a double game, holding Hamas terrorists near while simultaneously trying to appear helpful to the United States and Israel. Israel taking control of Rafah threatens Egypt’s ability to exploit the chaos in Gaza, both to generate profits for regime insiders and so Cairo can pose as an indispensable mediator and preserve access to U.S. money and arms.

Egyptian security officials have looked the other way while Hamas and other Palestinian militants dug tunnels on the Egyptian-Gaza border. That gave Cairo the ability to use the situation in Gaza as a tool for regional influence and to ensure Egypt’s role in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would not be eclipsed by regional competitors such as Qatar and Turkey.

Some elements close to the Sisi regime have benefited from Hamas control over Gaza and the Rafah crossing. Media reports indicate an Egyptian company run by one of Sisi’s close allies is making hundreds of millions of dollars by taxing Gazans fleeing the current conflict.

Moreover, writes Judith Miller, the Gaza war has been a godsend to the entire Egyptian economy, which was in dire straits last fall. Since October 7, the International Monetary Fund has given the country a much-needed injection of cash, since the U.S. and other Western countries believe it is a necessary intermediary and stabilizing force. Cairo therefore sees the continuation of the war, rather than an Israeli victory, as most desirable. Hassanein concludes:

Adding to its financial incentive, the Sisi regime views the Rafah crossing as a crucial card in preserving Cairo’s regional standing. Holding it increases Egypt’s relevance to countries that want to send aid to the Palestinians and ensures Washington stays quiet about Egypt’s gross human-rights violations so it can maintain a stable flow of U.S. assistance and weaponry. . . . No serious effort to turn the page on Hamas will yield the desired results without cutting this umbilical cord between the Sisi regime and Hamas.