While Egypt was the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, much of its population remains hostile to its northern neighbor, an attitude frequently enforced by the state-sponsored media. Haisam Hassanein shows how the regime’s mixed messaging was manifest during commemorations of the Yom Kippur War, known to Egyptians as the “October War.”

On [one television program], the government-backed host offered pants with the blood of a deceased Israeli soldier to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a souvenir.

[T]he October War—and Israel’s role in that narrative as the enemy—is still a major feature of state messaging to the Egyptian public. [It seems] a segment of his regime is convinced that the Jewish state should be the prime target of domestic propaganda. [Officials with this view] believe that the Sisi regime cannot stay in power without a real enemy against which to mobilize the public.

After all, Israel is an easy target after its many wars with Egypt and the public consensus in Egypt that nobody can doubt Israel’s bad intentions. . . . So, even if not all Egyptian officials are convinced by the strategy of continuing to emphasize enmity against Israel, it makes for an easy story to sell to the public. This is especially the case when enemies of the regime are accusing the regime of being an agent of Israel. The officials’ strategy of encouraging public anti-Israel sentiment allows for a counter-narrative that Sisi’s opponents are actually Israeli agents, and this counternarrative helps insulate the regime against accusations of pro-Israel [sympathies].

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.