In the Face of Terror, Israel’s New Arab Allies Show Solidarity

March 29 2022

Yesterday and the day before, Israel hosted an unprecedented summit, attended by the foreign ministers of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, and Egypt, along with the U.S. secretary of state. But as the delegates gathered, two Islamic State-connected terrorists opened fire at passersby on the streets of the northern town of Hadera, killing two and injuring several others. While the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad hailed the attack as a “heroic response to the summit of humiliation and shame,” David Horovitz notes that, if anything, the shooting spree strengthened the resolve of Israel’s Arab allies:

One after another, in their public statements at the formal conclusion of their talks on Monday afternoon, Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and his four Arab counterparts condemned the latest instance of the deadly terrorism with which all of their countries grapple, and then swiftly moved on to stress their shared determination to build a unified front against extremism.

Three of the four Arab foreign ministers—Bahrain’s Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani, Egypt’s Sameh Shoukry, and Morocco’s Nasser Bourita—took a few moments in their brief speeches to highlight the need to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. [Only] the U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken went further, declaring that the Abraham Accords that brought these ministers together were no substitute for progress on the Palestinian front.

But this gathering, determinedly undeterred by terrorism, was a confident, unabashed display of normalization with Israel—of acceptance of Israel, legitimization of Israel—held adjacent to the final resting place of Israel’s first prime minister.

And just as Blinken appeared to be reading from a somewhat discordant script with his familiar comments about the Palestinian conflict, he was also the rather off-message participant when it came to confronting Iran. . . . The Negev summit, and the new, open alignment of these four Arab countries with Israel, is principally designed to facilitate better cooperation—practical, life-saving cooperation—to tackle the Iranian threat.

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: Abraham Accords, Antony Blinken, ISIS, Israel-Arab relations, Palestinian terror

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023