Egypt and Israel: Dangerous Liaisons
Ports of Call
Go to Hell: First the slogan was aimed at the Egyptian president, now it’s being recalibrated for the next door neighbour. But Israel is unlikely to just slip off into the shadows
Hosni Mubarak had still not resigned on that hot February afternoon in Cairo when I caught sight of Montasser az-Zayyat striding confidently towards Tahrir Square. The Muslim Brotherhood heavyweight was surrounded by a group of admirers congratulating him and his organization’s volunteers for fighting off a full-scale attempt by pro-regime supporters to retake the square a few nights before.
It was clear that the regime was on its last legs. With everyone speculating about the morning after, I thrust myself to the front of the scrum and asked az-Zayyat whether a Muslim Brotherhood government would maintain Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel.
“We will respect our treaty commitments towards our neighboring country,” az-Zayyat replied in frosty boilerplate rhetoric that declined even to mention Israel by name.
“But in the event of Israel invading Gaza again, would you stand by while it bombarded your Palestinian neighbours?” I pressed on.
Az-Zayyat gave me a thoroughly annoyed look and turned his back on me, signaling to his supporters to mob me with aggressive rhetoric while he walked away. I had pestered him with uncomfortable questions best left for later.
Eight months on and it’s now officially later. In the intervening period, the Egyptian-Israeli relationship has precariously unraveled. First the army reopened its border with Gaza, ending the blockade that Mubarak assisted the Israelis in maintaining. Then, Mubarak was put on trial, accused among other things of selling Egypt’s natural gas to Israel at heavily-discounted rates. Now, the area in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo has become the new Tahrir Square where liberals, Islamists and Marxists stand united in a common demand: the abrogation of their country’s peace treaty with Israel.
Things are so tense, it’s reminiscent of the leadup to the 1967 war. Then, another revolutionary leader, Gamal Abd al-Nasser, upped the rhetorical ante until he was caught in an unbreakable vortex of escalation that became one of the Cold War’s defining confrontations.
Today, the Cold War is no more but the region is in revolutionary turmoil, Israel is wracked by the largest protest demonstrations in its history and Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv last week in retaliation for a United Nations report on the deadly 2010 Israeli assault on a flotilla headed towards Gaza. We are caught in treacherous environment where multiple actors and an overcharged political atmosphere can abruptly froth over into unintended conflict.
Not a good time, then, for the Israelis to shoot dead five Egyptian policemen. The attack followed unidentified men launching a rocket attack that killed seven Israelis. Egypt threatened to withdraw its ambassador from Tel Aviv and angry crowds cheered outside the Israeli Embassy in Cairo as an unknown man – now a national hero – scaled the 21 storey building to swap the Egyptian for the Israeli flags. The Egyptians and Turks proceeded to announce a strategic agreement whose unspoken target is Israel.
Even were an unintended war to be averted, Egypt’s politicians are faced with intractable problems like overpopulation, unemployment and economic collapse. These challenges are so systemic, and the expectations of Egyptians so high in the aftermath of their uprising, that the leadership might even view the prospect of a brief skirmish with Egypt’s favourite villain as an option in refocusing attention away from domestic dilemmas.
During the revolution, pro and anti-regime Egyptians competed for who would sound the most anti-Semitic or condemn the West louder. State TV accused foreign journalists of being Jews in disguise. Revolutionaries in Tahrir chanted “Don’t speak to (Mubarak) in Arabic, he only understands Hebrew.” Foreign journalists constantly had their documents checked in the hope that an Israeli would be apprehended. At one check in Tahrir, a revolutionary grinned at me apologetically and said, “Sorry for the irritation but there are some Jews among us. We need to find and kill them.”
Sure enough, an Israeli was discovered a few weeks later. Ilan Grapel, an American Israeli and former IDF soldier had thought it a splendid idea to visit Egypt and post on his Facebook page pictures of himself mingling with revolutionaries in Tahrir. Though likely just an innocent victim and not the ‘spy’ the Egyptian media painted him as, Grapel remains in prison to this day. He happened to be the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time. Should the increasingly tense standoff between Egypt and Israel tip in the near future over into conflict, we might see many more such unintended consequences.
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Dear Mr. Athanasiadis,
I hope I am not being presumptuous in assuming that you are of Greek descent. I am 1st/2nd generation Greek American (Chios). It is an odd thing that many of us Greek Americans still feel a deep connection to our “motherland” and that it translates to a feeling of kinship with any Greek we come across. So forgive my boldness in bring a sad story to your attention.
This is my first time reading Politico. I came upon it while searching for any current information on Ilan (Danny) Grapel. I live in Bayside, Queens, NY. Ilan’s dad has been our family podiatrist for many years. He is a humble hard working family man. Years ago, my little girl was ill. Her doctors put her through test after test. Finally I decided to take her to Dr. Grapel. He took the time to listen to what my child was saying. Needless to say he diagnosed her and in no time my child was off and running.
This is the kind of man who raised Ilan. He and I discuss our children especially regarding academics as my grownup daughter is college bound and apparently is interested in the same fields as his son was. You can see and hear his pride in his son. Yet he never bragged about Ilan. After this tragic situation began, I was seeking updates on Ilan’s detention and in those searches I learned what a truly exceptional young man he is.
Unfortunately, young people can be naive. Ilan was in doing what he is always doing: trying to help the disenfranchised. Was it smart to go to Egypt during such a crises? No, but youth is the time when you don’t think with your head but with your heart.
School has begun and instead of sitting at a desk in a lecture hall beginning his final year of law school, he is sitting in jail. For what? For being idealistic? For being naive enough to believe that his good intentions would shield him? or because of his dual American/Israeli citizenship?
The longer time passes, the more he is forgotten. Our local politicians seem to have put this case on the back burner. I can only imagine how his mother must be suffering. His friends have a face book page and the local enews editor has tried to re motivate some local officials to no avail.
I realize that in the great scope of tragedies, Ilan’s situation is trivial. With all the stories that you write you must be terribly busy. Still I’m going ask; would take you look into Ilan’s situation? Sometimes shining even a little light, can re ignite a fire.
In your debt,
Eugenia Karydas
Dear Mrs Karydas,
Thank you for posting about Mr Karydas. Please email me on my site at http://www.iason.ws and we can discuss further.
Many thanks,
Iason