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What the UAE Taught Egypt about Doing Business with Israel
(Ha'aretz) David Rosenberg - It took more than 40 years, but Egypt is waking up to the potential of economic ties with Israel. Signs abound that President al-Sissi wants to strengthen economic ties beyond the $15 billion natural gas deal the two countries reached four years ago. Last October, state-owned EgyptAir began flying to Tel Aviv under its own name rather than through its unflagged Air Sinai affiliate, and in April the first direct flights between Ben-Gurion Airport and the Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh took place. Earlier in the year, the leader of Egypt's Coptic Church gave official imprimatur to pilgrimages to Jerusalem. "The government of Egypt and the elite now realize that economic ties with Israel are a net positive. They have seen the success of the UAE and Israel, and they think they should jump on board," says Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington. At the same time, "Within Egypt, public sentiment against Israel is very high - that's not going to change in the foreseeable future, as much as Sissi would like to make the change," says Gabriel Mitchell, of the University of Notre Dame's Tantur Center in Jerusalem. The powerful professional syndicates, which organize doctors, lawyers and even artists, are a major source of anti-Israel feelings. Anyone doing anything that smacks of normalization with Israel is likely to be called out.