Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt urges end to 'normalisation' with Israel
This should not really surprise anyone. Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, the best organized political party in the country, is urging an end to 'normalisation' with Israel and a full review of the peace treaty. “We should now raise our voice to ask for: an end to normalisation [with Israel] which has given our enemy stability; an end to [Egyptian] efforts to secure from infiltrators the borders of the Zionists; the abolition of all [joint] economic interests such as the Qualified Industrial Zones agreement and the export of Egyptian gas to Israel,” said Mohamed Badie, the Brotherhood’s leader.It requires a lot less than a state of war for Israel to lose many of the benefits of its cold peace with Egypt. It's not the natural gas sales - Qatar may be willing to replace Egyptian gas, at least until Israel's own natural gas wells come online. The problem - according to our intelligence services and the IDF - is that for the last 30 years, Israel has not worried about the Egyptian border. Now, we would have to start, and that would necessitate a much larger IDF.
The QIZ agreement allows Egypt to export manufactured goods to the US duty-free as long as they have Israeli inputs to a value of 10 per cent.
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Moves such as the export of Egyptian gas to Israel have always been unpopular and activists tried to stop them through the courts before the fall of Mr Mubarak. Sameh Fahmy, the former oil minister, and seven of his aides have been detained since the fall of Mr Mubarak in connection with the exports, which are alleged to have been sold at less than the market value.
Analysts say Egypt is now charting a more independent foreign policy. The Mubarak regime was seen by many Egyptians to be closely aligned with US and Israeli interests, especially in its later years.
Egyptian public opinion has always been wary of any normalisation of relations with Israel despite more than 30 years of formal peace. But analysts caution that this does not mean a majority would want a return to the state of war.
I'm not sure why we have not worried about the Egyptian border for the last 30 years. After all, Egypt's war exercises were always directed at Israel and not at any of its other neighbors. But apparently that didn't phase the IDF or the intelligence services too much. Now, they appear to at least deem it necessary to devote the resources to countering Egypt.
Labels: Egyptian regime change, Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Muslim Brotherhood, natural gas, Qatar
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:45 PM
4 Comments:
I bet the IDF has figured the US would keep Egypt from attacking. No longer valid under this President, who's doing his bit to promote the Caliphate.
Egypt may not go to war against Israel for the foreseeable future. But it will no longer act as a restraint against radicalism in the region. Israel can only expect things to get worse and this precisely why Israel should not worsen its strategic position for a non-existent peace with its neighbors.
With them deciding to open Rafah border who knows what and who will be going back and forth. War is coming.
It is just a well that Egypt may be in a process of re-alignment (now that reliable old Hosni was tossed away by US) before nuclearization of Iran is completed for several reasons. For one thing it is not absolutely certain the Brotherhood will prevail although it may be the better wager, and Israel may get some breathing room to re-orient strategies that include almost complete encirclement by more hostile regimes (how much worse can it get?). There is a new world coming and with it a new shift in alliances - Chinese Korea Pakistan Iran and their militant and overly armed surrogates, Hezbollah and Hamas (israel's first strategic blunder was to allow the North Koreanization of southern Lebanon - ask Seoul how it feels to have 1000s of missiles pointed at it).. Add to this the burgeoning Turkish Islamic re-awaiting as it rediscovers old Ottoman neighbors from the past and new Persian temptors. Perhaps Egypt may even resurrect its old habit of playing off these alliances against the West (Don't you long for the stability of the Soviet days?).
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