bitterlemons-international.org

The Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty has withstood tough tests throughout its three decades. Two wars in Lebanon and two Palestinian intifadas caused neither its cancellation nor its suspension. Yet the treaty has never reached the level of an Israeli-Egyptian strategic alliance.

Such an alliance is objectively justified; it emerges from the confluence of the two countries' existential interests. The stability of Egypt's secular regime is a supreme Israeli interest. Israel is not and will never be an Arab country. Despite its military power and per capita economic production that is ten times that of Egypt, Israel does not contest Egypt's preeminent status in the Arab world. It neither seeks nor is able to replace Egypt in its regional role.

Thus there is room here for a partnership without competition. As each of the partners is strengthened economically and militarily, it would strengthen its counterpart. Sadly, though, the Egyptian establishment is not interested in such an alliance. Why?

The Egyptian political, military and intellectual establishment has yet to internalize the change that is taking place in the region. This establishment lives and breathes the old fault line, the one that separated Israel on one side from all the Arab states on the other. Yet this line ceased to exist years ago. It has been replaced by a new fault line: on one side Iran and its proxies and on the other the rest of the countries in the region.

The refusal to recognize the fact that Israel and Egypt are on the same side of the regional divide has deep emotional roots, particularly in the Egyptian intellectual establishment that was cultivated by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian president who believed in pan-Arabism and led the Arab world's war on Israel. Yet this is not the only emotional factor preventing important senior Egyptians from confronting the objective imperative for a strategic alliance with Israel.

There are some in Egypt who believe if there is even the shadow of a confrontation hovering permanently over the region, Egypt can maintain its preeminence better than when there is no longer a trace of Arab-Israel confrontation. Egypt's military power (built up over the past three decades with generous American help) is more necessary and significant in a tense region than in one where states are tested primarily on the basis of their economic prowess. This distorted approach holds that Israel's strategic capabilities detract from Egypt's regional Arab preeminence: that Israel is a competitor.

There is no other way to explain the obsessive struggle led by Egypt, inspired personally by former Foreign Minister Amr Moussa, against Israel's nuclear capabilities. That Israel's opaque nuclear policy deters Egypt's enemies as well as Israel's is extremely difficult for the Egyptian political and diplomatic establishment to internalize.

Here we must note--a reality no Israeli can ignore--that the continued existence of the Israel-Arab conflict and our control over the Palestinian people in the West Bank provide an effective excuse for the Egyptian opponents of rapprochement with Israel. Yet I am not certain that even if we do what we should do and reach agreement with the Palestinians, the stand of those hostile toward us in Egypt would change for the better.

When Hamas took over Gaza in June 2007, I thought this would trigger a reversal of the Egyptian position. I reasoned that the precedent of Muslim Brotherhood rule (in the guise of the Palestinian Hamas) on Egypt's border would constitute a kind of wake-up call and catalyze change in the Egyptian approach.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. In the course of the ensuing two years, Egypt has not acted to eliminate Hamas rule in Gaza as its shared interest with the Palestinian Authority and Israel would appear to dictate. Instead, Egypt has made every effort to conciliate between the Hamas leadership in Gaza and the rest of the world. Egypt has mediated between Hamas and Israel and in particular has tried energetically to reconcile Hamas with Fateh. Were this ever accomplished, it would completely eliminate any chance of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. From the standpoint of Egypt's real interests, Hamas-Fateh reconciliation would invigorate the rule of extremist Islam in Gaza, not eliminate it.

Some 1,400 tunnels currently link Egypt with Gaza. Everything finds its way through them--not just Iranian funds for Hamas. Yet in recent months, something has begun to happen, something that could finally have a positive effect on Egyptian-Israeli relations. The capture of Hizballah's anti-Egyptian espionage and sabotage network may have shaken the Egyptian government by demonstrating exactly where the regional fault line lies and against which shared enemy we need to join hands.

The immediate order of the day is to formulate a strategy shared by Egypt, the Palestinians and Israel for ending Hamas rule in Gaza. It was Palestinian incompetence, Egyptian negligence and Israeli indifference that enabled the Hamas takeover in the first place. Now the three parties responsible for this disaster must cooperate in order to eliminate the Iranian outpost on the Israeli-Egyptian border and bring freedom and economic salvation to 1.5 million Gazans.

It is from this joint effort that a future Israeli-Egyptian strategic alliance might possibly emerge.