Why Egypt is Unlikely to Go to War with Israel Anytime Soon

Oded Granot explains here why Israel need not, for now, be concerned with a threat from Egypt: “Fear and loathing in Sinai: Is Egypt a threat to Israel?: It’s true that in any future conflict with Egypt, if one were ever to erupt, the IDF will have to contend with a massive army equipped with modern, sophisticated weapons. At the current juncture, however, the clear and present dangers to Israel are from the north, not the south.” This article appeared in Israel Hayom on October 24, 2021:

When assessing a military threat, however, it isn’t enough to point only at capability. One must also point at intent. And the Egyptian president is not only bolstering security cooperation with Israel, he has also taken several cautious steps recently – perhaps influenced by Israel’s peace treaties with the Gulf states – to normalize other aspects of the relationship. He publicly met Prime Minister Naftali Bennett in Cairo, an Egyptair flight landed in Israel, and surprisingly, he publicly called on other Arab states to follow in the footsteps of Anwar Sadat and make peace with Israel.

El-Sissi has recognized the value of security cooperation with Israel, which has shared its intelligence on Jihadis in the Sinai with Egypt, and has allowed El-Sissi to move his troops right up to the border with Gaza, which under the Camp David Accords could not be done. El-Sissi has been warming up that “cold peace” with Israel, in his own way emulating the Arab countries that belong to the Abraham Accords, as he starts to “normalize ties” with the Jewish state.

Among the signs of this “warming” peace was El-Sissi’s very public meeting with Naftali Bennett in Sharm el-Sheikh in mid-September. Bennett afterwards told the press that “we laid the foundation for deep ties.” Another sign of the warming was the Egyptair flight that landed in Israel, inaugurating a new service between the two countries.. El-Sissi also addressed a wider audience, calling on other Arab states to make peace with Israel just as Egypt had done. There was no mention of the Palestinians in the Bennett-Sissi meeting, save for a phrase alluding to the ongoing negotiations with Hamas over a prisoner swap. Most of the discussion seemed to be about the Iranian threat.

It’s true that in any future conflict with Egypt, if one were ever to erupt, the IDF will have to contend with a massive army equipped with modern, sophisticated weapons. At this current juncture, however, the clear and present dangers to Israel are from the north, not the south.

Oded Granot believes that there is no reason for Israelis to worry about Egypt. El-Sissi’s army is intent on erasing the jihadi threat from the Sinai, and regards Israel as its key security ally in this effort. Israel shares its own intelligence with Egypt; it has even, with Egypt’s permission, bombed Jihadists in the northern Sinai. Egypt’s enemies are the same as Israel’s: Iran and its proxies, the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood, known in Gaza as Hamas. Egypt long ago obtained all the territory it wanted of Israel – the return of the entire Sinai, which was completed in 1981 – and has no further territorial demands.

And Egypt has cooled considerably on the Palestinians, that to many Egyptians appear ungrateful for all that Egypt has done for them. Egypt, after all, fought three wars against Israel, in 1948, 1967, and 1973, and suffered great losses in men, money, and materiel for the “Palestinian cause.” It feels it has thus done more for the Palestinians than any other Arab state, and received no gratitude in return from the Palestinians. Egypt is also keenly aware that the terror group Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and is potentially as much a threat to Egypt as it is to Israel. Finally, Egypt is aware of the economic benefits that the Abraham Accords have brought to its Arab members. Israel has already signed $675 million worth of deals with the U.A.E. in just the first year of the Accords. Egyptian leaders know their country can benefit from the many advances made by Israel in many different areas that are especially important to Egypt’s economy. The Jewish state is a world leader in water resources.

Egypt would like greater economic cooperation with Israel, and its advanced high-tech economy that earned it the title of Start-Up Nation. It is aware that Israel is a world leader in many areas of particular interest to Egypt: water supplies, obtained through waste water management, desalination, recycling, and producing water from air; solar energy; drones for civilian and military use; cybersecurity, and so many other areas of great importance to Egypt. Under El-Sissi, Egypt wants to promote its own national interests, and not be held back by the Palestinians, who want Egypt to forgo the economic benefits that would result from closer ties with the Jewish state, and instead think only of promoting the Palestinian cause. The Palestinians have clearly lost that argument, in the U.A.E., Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco, and now in Egypt. In Cairo, the Egypt-First nationalists have won the policy argument.

And unless the Muslim Brotherhood were somehow to come to power again in Egypt, it’s impossible to imagine a scenario where Egypt would allow itself to again go to war with Israel the very country whose security assistance, and sharing of economic advances, Egypt so sorely needs.

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