On Monday, Naftali Bennett visited Egypt to meet with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi—the first visit by an Israeli prime minister to the country since 2011. Efraim Inbar comments on the meeting’s significance.

Egypt broke the Arab taboo on relations with Israel when it signed a peace treaty in March 1979. Nevertheless, Egypt has been reluctant to implement “normalization” clauses in the peace treaty, maintaining a “cold peace” with Israel. Cairo has discouraged its citizens from interactions with Israelis. Until recently, when the government’s tone somewhat softened, it hardly changed the curriculum in the Egyptian education system regarding Israel. Government-controlled media has remained hostile and occasionally anti-Semitic. There has been some cooperation between the two countries in agriculture and energy, and for a while, Israeli tourists were welcome in Egypt. But the narrow bilateral ties primarily were conducted via military channels.

The fanfare around the Abraham Accords, as well as the fact that Israel has a new prime minister, probably made it easier for Cairo to invite Bennett. So did the cumulative impact of enhanced covert security cooperation in recent years between Egypt and Israel. The two countries share a burgeoning common strategic agenda. . . . Undoubtedly, Cairo and Jerusalem think alike about the Afghanistan debacle and the regional implications of American retreat from the Middle East: primarily the reinvigoration of Muslim extremists around the world.

To Inbar, the recent meeting may signal a move toward a warmer peace.

Early Friday morning, Israel attacked military installations near the Iranian cities of Isfahan and nearby Natanz, the latter being one of the hubs of the country’s nuclear program. Jerusalem is not taking credit for the attack, and none of the details are too certain, but it seems that the attack involved multiple drones, likely launched from within Iran, as well as one or more missiles fired from Syrian or Iraqi airspace. Strikes on Syrian radar systems shortly beforehand probably helped make the attack possible, and there were reportedly strikes on Iraq as well.

Iran itself is downplaying the attack, but the S-300 air-defense batteries in Isfahan appear to have been destroyed or damaged. This is a sophisticated Russian-made system positioned to protect the Natanz nuclear installation. In other words, Israel has demonstrated that Iran’s best technology can’t protect the country’s skies from the IDF. As Yossi Kuperwasser puts it, the attack, combined with the response to the assault on April 13,

clarified to the Iranians that whereas we [Israelis] are not as vulnerable as they thought, they are more vulnerable than they thought. They have difficulty hitting us, but we have no difficulty hitting them.

Nobody knows exactly how the operation was carried out. . . . It is good that a question mark hovers over . . . what exactly Israel did. Let’s keep them wondering. It is good for deniability and good for keeping the enemy uncertain.

The fact that we chose targets that were in the vicinity of a major nuclear facility but were linked to the Iranian missile and air forces was a good message. It communicated that we can reach other targets as well but, as we don’t want escalation, we chose targets nearby that were involved in the attack against Israel. I think it sends the message that if we want to, we can send a stronger message. Israel is not seeking escalation at the moment.