I publish my article on Equilibri.net about the worsening relations between Israel and Egypt.
“Cold” is the most used adjective to define the current status of the peace between Egypt and Israel since the toppling f the Hosni Mubarak’s regime in February. Much of the press and analysts use it to describe the relations between the two countries which have became more and more difficult during the last months. However, it is wrong to pretend that this description fits only within the last year of Egyptian history.
The Camp David peace treaty, signed by the Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat and the Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin with the brokering of the US President Jimmy Carter in 1979, have always received a cold acceptance by the Egyptian public opinion. In fact, the Egyptians were happy for the official end of all the losses that their country had faced in human lives and economic expenditures through three decades of conflict against the Zionist state. On the other hand, in the years after the treaty’s signing they kept on criticizing Israeli violence against the Palestinians in the two Intifadas and the stall of the peace process no less than the rest of the Arab and Islamic world. Especially, a growing number of Egyptians started to be more and more critical about the passive stance of the Egyptian government toward the Palestinian issues.
The main difference between the last year and the previous ones is therefore the sudden increase in importance of the Egyptian public opinion after the topple of the Mubarak’s regime. In this totally new political scenario none of the parties and political movements can afford to ignore the deep discontent of the Egyptians about their country’s policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue like the previous regime was used to do. This is why, since the first weeks after Mubarak’s fall, it became more and more common in the new Egyptian political arena to hear several proposals about the modification or even the abrogation of the Camp David treaty.
The Aggression against the Israeli Embassy on September 9th
The already cold relations between Egypt and Israel had a further downfall on September 9th when a crowd of thousands of people surrounded the building of the Israeli embassy (that is located on the second floor) in the center of Cairo and pulled down the wall erected by the former president’s regime to protect the diplomatic offices from anti-Israeli rallies (a further evidence that the fear of anti-Israeli feelings in the public opinion is much older than the January Revolution). This episode occurred following the big wave of anger caused by the Israeli military action that on the 18th of August killed accidentally 8 Egyptian soldier on the Sinai’s border with the Gaza strip. Israel reacted to the assault against its embassy by withdrawing its diplomatic delegation from Egypt and opening talks both with the military rulers in Cairo and the US administration to solve the diplomatic crisis between the two countries and allow the return of the Israeli diplomats as soon as possible. Rumors about these talks were published on the Israeli press that claimed that Netanyahu’s government made pressure on its interlocutors to obtain a further delay of the Egyptian elections to a moment less difficult for the Israeli-Egyptian relations.
The Israeli government wants to avoid an electoral campaign too much focused on the revision of the Camp David treaty and the relations with Israel. On the Egyptian side, on the contrary, the transitional Egyptian prime minister Essam Shafar, few days after the anti-Israeli rally, during an interview with the Turkish television stated that the peace with Israel is not “sacred” and that can be modified respecting the feelings of the public opinion about the Israeli behavior toward the Palestinian rights and the peace process. This affirmation on the international scene is just an echo of tens of similar affirmations that have been repeated during the same days by several Egyptian political figures in the internal debate.
The internal political scene in Egypt and the Israeli Issue
It is possible to analyze the relation between the current Egyptian political scene and the Israeli issue from at least two point of views. On one hand, it is impossible to ignore, in a new democratic Egyptian system, the real feelings of the public opinion that, as we said before, are getting colder toward Israel since much longer before January. This does not necessarily mean that the majority of the Egyptians wants the revocation of the peace treaty or even a further war against Israel. It is not a case that most of the Egyptian political figures talking about the Camp David treaty, insisted on the verb “modify” and not “abrogate”.
There are many points inside the treaty that are seen as an humiliation and a submission to Israel by the public opinion, such as the selling of gas to Israel at undercut prices thought the pipelines in the Sinai (that in the last months were attacked several times by still not identified armed groups, some probably coming from the Gaza strip). In the bargain, the original text signed in 1979 contained several clauses about the Palestinian issue that were never attended by Israel. What the majority of Egyptian desires is in fact the reconsideration of those points that they see as a pointless humiliation for their country, and not another war.
On the other hand the Israeli issue is clearly being used to distract the public opinion from the hard social and political struggles that are making pressure on the ruling military council to perform major reforms in both the political and the economical frameworks. In particular the temporary Egyptian rulers are facing a growing wave of protest focused on the lack of progress in the issue of the expression liberties (especially leaded by young intellectual groups that promoted the January Revolution on the web) and a long chain of strikes and workers demonstrations in almost all the labour sectors, leaded and organized by a growing number of new independent workers unions.
Especially the labour movement is growing despite the law approved by the military council (with the support of the main political parties) to criminalize the labour strikes, officially in order to avoid “further damages to the social stability and the country’s economy”. After a short period of quietness immediately after the approval of the law, the strikes erupted again in the end of July and grew through the summer until reaching in September the capability to involve again hundreds of thousands of people like they did in the days of the January Revolution. The requests of the labour movement are applying strong pying ressure on the military council to approve real reforms in order to change the social and economical balances in the society and to start a serious campaign to eradicate corruption in the state system. It is not surprising, therefore, if the military council and its political allies (as the new National Democratic Party or the Muslim Brotherhood) try to use the Israeli issue to distract the public opinion and to convoy people’s anger and dissatisfaction toward the international scene.
The Israeli Government between real concern and political calculation
The two point of views we just analyzed on the Egyptian side have a sort of direct reflection on the Israeli one. In fact there is real concern in the Israeli society and its authorities for the possible future developments of the situation in Egypt and the growing anti-Israeli feelings they have been seeing erupting in the Egyptian public opinion since the January Revolution.
The Israeli leaders are concerned about a possible fully democratic Egypt mainly for two reasons. The first is that a democratically elected Egyptian government could be led by the pressure by its public opinion to assume a progressively harsher stand towards Israel, maybe reaching the point to abrogate the peace treaty. This scenario is especially feared by the military commands that would have to face again after 30 years the old Israeli nightmare of the military encirclement (with the boost of the needs for military expenditures).
The second reason is related to the new diplomatic strength that a fully democratic Egypt would be able to gain on the international scene. Israel, that until now presented itself especially in front of the western societies as the only democratic country in the region, may have its international standing deeply undermined by the diplomatic pressure of the biggest Arab country leaded by a newly democratic government (in a moment in which this international standing is already undermined by the harsh polemics with Turkey).
Concern is not, anyhow, the only factor we should keep in mind observing the reactions of the Israeli government toward the difficulties in the Israeli-Egyptian relations. In the past months, Netanyahu’s government has been strongly under pressure by the huge street protests that erupted in Tel Aviv against worsening social conditions (especially for the young generations) and the sharp rise of prices. The main objectives of the protesters are the huge state expenditures for the military sector and the build of new settlements that take away the resources needed to improve in the social welfare. The developments in Egypt, together with the alarm towards the Palestinian Authority’s intention to submit at the UN its application for a full state membership, and the fresh outbreak of terrorist attacks from the Gaza strip, are certainly being used by the government to downgrade the importance of social issues for Israeli public opinion.
Conclusion
On the one hand there are reasons to have genuine concern about the developments in the Israeli-Egyptian relations. There is no doubt that the months after the January Revolution have seen a worsening of the situation. The current status of the relations has been especially caused by the new importance that the Egyptian public opinion gained when less than two months are left to the hopefully first free and real democratic elections in the country. Both old and new political parties cannot ignore anymore, as Mubarak was used to do, the opinion of the majority of the Egyptians toward the Camp David peace treaty and Palestinian issues.
It is anyhow unlikely that this will lead to a total revocation of the treaty. It much more possible that the new democratically elected Egyptian government will pretend to modify it in its advantage and will try to use its renovated international standing to propose itself as a new strong and much more pro Palestinian-oriented broker for the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
On the other hand, it must be stressed that a big part of the alarmism that we have observed in both the countries can be motivated by internal political calculations. Especially it may be used as a distraction instrument to convoy the attention and the anger of the population away from the difficult social struggles that are still going on in both the countries.
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