(The Editors) Dr. David Wurmser - Egypt's behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the smuggling of weapons, money, and material to Hamas built the problem that exploded on Oct. 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability. After Oct. 7, for Israel to allow Palestinian agency so close to its heart became too dangerous, a threat to Israel's existence. Resurrecting the status quo, even dressed in some modification, was no longer feasible. Egypt began to reinforce its border - not to stop smuggling, but to stop the potential outflow of Palestinians. Cairo recently began to deploy armor and troops nearby, in violation of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The demilitarization of Sinai is the essence of the treaty. The Arab world's proclivity to export its problems outward for someone else to deal with rather than directly resolve or erase them consistently comes home to roost. So, the Palestinian/Gaza problem returns to haunt Egypt. Egypt's policy of appeasing the Palestinians under the assumption it is Israel's problem has finally come home for Egypt itself. The writer is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington and at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs in Israel.
2025-02-16 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive