Israel eyes Egypt with caution
As crisis gripped Egypt this week, with millions gathering to call for the resignation of the country’s President Mohammed Mursi, Jerusalem looked on with concern.
The Israeli government is not commenting on the rising tensions in its neighbour state, but it is clear that the prospect of the kind that exists in Syria over another of Israel’s borders is most unwelcome.
Jerusalem was nervous a year ago when Mursi, who has a background in the Muslim Brotherhood, took office. He is far from being a friend of Israel, but has maintained the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, and surprised observers by the success with which he negotiated the ceasefire in the latest round of Israel-Hamas fighting late last year.
Today, according to Hillel Frisch, an expert on Israel-Egypt tensions from Bar-Ilan University, when it comes to Mursi “the alternative is chaos”.
He told The AJN that any upheaval is likely to be bad for Israel, especially if the military is drawn in to a domestic conflict. “In terms of Israeli preferences the best is that Mursi finds some compromise with the opposition and Egypt remains a state afloat.”
While the current Egyptian dispute is domestic in nature, with the issue of relations with Israel hardly on the agenda, there are some concerns that Islamists and/or smugglers in Sinai could capitalise on unrest to carry out acts of violence in the Sinai Peninsula.
“Nobody can tell where and when they could try to hit next,” said Yoram Meital, chairman of Ben-Gurion University’s Chaim Herzog Centre for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy.
Meital commented to The AJN: “If we can learn something from the past two years the lesson is that they took advantage when the security situation in Egypt has deteriorated.”
Last August, terrorists killed 16 Egyptian soldiers stationed on the Egyptian-Israeli border, and then tried to kill Israelis by speeding in two vehicles, laden with explosives, towards Israeli civilian areas.
They appear to want to decrease the lifespan of Israeli-Egyptian peace by increasing Israeli alarm about the situation in Egyptian territory.
NATHAN JEFFAY
comments