Israel Matzav

Why Egypt might start a war with Israel and what can be done to stop it

Evelyn Gordon worries that Egypt may seek to distract its population from its economic woes by making war with Israel, thinking that it has nothing to lose because the West will demand that Israel return any territory that Egypt loses anyway.

The revolution left Egypt an economic basket case. Tourism, the country's second-largest revenue source, was down 35 percent in the first nine months of last year, while third-quarter unemployment stood at 12 percent, up from 9 percent a year earlier. Foreign exchange reserves plunged 50 percent in 2011 - a disaster for a country that imports half its food - and last month, a government bond issue flopped, with investors buying less than a third despite yields of almost 16 percent. The chances that Egypt's new government can produce the economic miracle needed to reverse this decline seem slim, and if it doesn't, demonstrators are likely to return to Tahrir Square to demand its ouster, just as they did with Hosni Mubarak.

Hence Egypt's new rulers may soon find themselves in desperate need of something to distract the public from its economic distress. And in a country where 90% of the population views Israel as an "enemy" and a "threat," they might well see war with Israel as the ideal distraction.

This makes it vital for Western leaders to make it clear that Egypt does have something irreversible to lose by starting another war - namely, that if it loses Sinai to Israel again, the West won't back Egyptian demands for its full return. But there's no way to make such a threat credible while the West is simultaneously demanding that Israel return every inch of land captured in an earlier defensive war: Egypt's leaders will know they just have to wait a few years for the furor to die down, and the West will similarly demand 100 percent restitution for them.

It's therefore high time for Western leaders to send the following message to both Syria and the Palestinians: You went to war, you lost, and you refused to make peace for 45 years; our patience is exhausted. We will no longer back your demands for restoring the status quo ante; aggression and intransigence have a price.

Of course, Evelyn is right. But we all know that there's not a chance in hell that the Obama-led US - let alone the anti-Semitic Europeans - are going to make a statement like that to the Syrians and the 'Palestinians.'

Read it all. What could go wrong?

Labels: Egyptian economy, Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Palestinian Authority, Syria, UN Security Council Resolution 242

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:41 PM