For jihadists, the holy month of Ramadan is a particularly propitious time for terrorism—a fact that might explain the recent rash of attacks. The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explains:

The month of Ramadan, a month of fasting, has a special status as a month of religious spirituality and devotion. However, in the Muslim tradition it is also perceived as a month of jihad and martyrdom, a month in which Allah grants military victories to believers. It was during Ramadan that Muslims triumphed in many of their battles, among them the battle of Badr in 624 between supporters of Muhammad and a merchant caravan of the Quraysh tribe; the conquest of Mecca in 630 and of Andalusia in 711; the battle of al-Zallaqa in 1086, in which Spanish Muslims defeated the Castilians near the city of Badajoz on today’s Portuguese border; and the Yom Kippur war.

Given the historic religious and military significance of Ramadan, Islamist and jihadist groups, and sometimes also mainstream Arab organizations and Arab media, escalate incitement to jihad and martyrdom during this month.

On June 3, an Egyptian policeman crossed the border into Israel and killed three soldiers. Jonathan Schanzer and Natalie Ecanow urge President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to respond by visiting the Jewish state as a show of goodwill:

Such a dramatic gesture is not without precedent: in 1997, a Jordanian soldier opened fire on a group of Israeli schoolgirls visiting the “Isle of Peace,” a parcel of farmland previously under Israeli jurisdiction that Jordan leased back to Israel as part of the Oslo peace process. In a remarkable display of humanity, King Hussein of Jordan, who had only three years earlier signed a peace agreement with Israel, traveled to the Jewish state to mourn with the families of the seven girls who died in the massacre.

That massacre unfolded as a diplomatic cold front descended on Jerusalem and Amman. . . . Yet a week later, Hussein flipped the script. “I feel as if I have lost a child of my own,” Hussein lamented. He told the parents of one of the victims that the tragedy “affects us all as members of one family.”

While security cooperation [between Cairo and Jerusalem] remains strong, the bilateral relationship is still rather frosty outside the military domain. True normalization between the two nations is elusive. A survey in 2021 found that only 8 percent of Egyptians support “business or sports contacts” with Israel. With a visit to Israel, Sisi can move beyond the cold pragmatism that largely defines Egyptian-Israeli relations and recast himself as a world figure ready to embrace his diplomatic partners as human beings. At a personal level, the Egyptian leader can win international acclaim for such a move rather than criticism for his country’s poor human-rights record.