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Israel Needs to Reach a Warmer Peace with Egypt
(1945) Haisam Hassanein - Last week, both Cairo's elite and its Muslim Brotherhood critics cheered for Egyptian border guard Mohamed Salah who murdered three Israeli soldiers and wounded another two. They hailed him as a martyr and defender of Palestine, even though Egypt has been at peace with the Jewish state since 1979. The Egyptian government prohibited a public funeral for Salah. Nevertheless, Alaa Mubarak, the son of former President Hosni Mubarak, saluted Salah on Twitter, while former Maj.-Gen. Samir Farag repeatedly called Salah a hero. There has been no sustained investment in making the Egyptian public understand that Israel and the Jews are no longer enemies. Egypt's Embassy in Tel Aviv does little to promote a warmer peace. To encourage a change, American and Israeli officials must communicate to their Egyptian counterparts that keeping their relationship with Israel secret is the wrong approach. The writer is an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.