Egypt Plays a Crucial Role in Israel’s Efforts against Hamas

During the intermittent rounds of fighting in the Gaza Strip since 2008, Cairo has served as an intermediary between the Hamas regime and Jerusalem, which naturally eschew direct contact with each other. Even under the pro-Hamas rule of Muhammad Morsi, and all the more so under the anti-Islamist rule of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt has been the sole power able to restrain the terrorist group somewhat. Eran Lerman argues that Israel benefits from having its southern neighbor in this position:

Today, the relationship [between Israel and Egypt] has reached new heights, due to their shared efforts against terror in Sinai, on one hand, and against Turkish subversion in the eastern Mediterranean, on the other hand. With a partnership in restoring calm in Gaza, and in an age of integration in the field of energy supply, there may even some change in the generally shrill anti-Israel atmosphere in the Egyptian public sphere. In this respect, the creation, in Cairo, of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EMGF)—bringing together Egypt, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Cyprus, Greece, and Italy—is another step in that direction.

At the same time, the mediation is of great importance for Egypt itself. . . . A severe deterioration of the situation in Gaza, and a level of distress that may lead to pressure to throw the border open, are viewed in Cairo as a nightmare. The last thing that Egypt needs are millions more mouths to feed. Beyond that, the growing grip by Egyptian intelligence on events in Gaza can serve to force the Palestinian terror groups to cease and desist from all aid to the “Sinai Province” of Islamic State and other subversive elements in the peninsula. . . . At present, Egypt seems to have achieved an effective deterrence against further Palestinian support for terror groups in Sinai. . . .

Over time, the combination of Israeli pressures, a deterrent effect (even if limited and fragile), and intense Egyptian engagement, all help to erode the myth of the jihadist “resistance” [on which Hamas stakes its legitimacy]. The Hamas leadership’s diplomatic and military efforts of the past year are overtly designed to extract material gains. As such, they also raise—in a certain sense—questions about the movement’s ideological commitment to jihad at all costs. Thus, the very reliance upon Egypt, at times of crisis and distress, may indicate that in the regional power struggle among ideological camps, the Islamists are not quite sure that they still have the upper hand.

Read more at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

More about: Egypt, Gaza Strip, General Sisi, Hamas, Israeli Security

 

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society