The relationship between Egypt and Israel is a complex tapestry woven with threads of conflict, peace, and strategic cooperation. From the early days of Israel's independence to the present, the dynamic between these two nations has been shaped by historical grievances, regional politics, and the ever-present Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Sinai Peninsula, a region central to the Egypt-Israel relationship.
Early Conflicts and the Path to Peace
Israel became an independent nation and Jewish homeland in 1948. From the very beginning there were ethnic and religious tensions with its neighbors. Most of the Middle East is Muslim, and Muslims resented the Jewish presence, especially since the new Jewish immigrants were primarily European refugees who brought Western ways and beliefs with them.
Right after Israel achieved independence, several of the Muslim nations formed an alliance and invaded. Against great odds, the Israelis won and expanded their territory at the expense of their defeated neighbors. Egypt, the most populous of the Muslim states in the region, emerged as Israel's most bitter enemy.
In the conflicts that followed in the 1950s and 1960s, Israel was consistently victorious and Egypt lost the Sinai Peninsula (a triangular shaped piece of land in northeastern Egypt which borders the Suez Canal) to Israeli forces. Even the Yom Kippur War of 1973 failed to produce a victory for Egypt.
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In that war, Egypt attacked Israel from the south and west while Syria attacked from the north and east on October 6, the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur, when most Israelis engaged in religious observances. Despite the surprise, the Israelis recovered and defeated the Egyptians and Syrians. Only the threat of intervention by the Soviet Union, which supported Egypt, prevented Israeli forces from taking the Egyptian capital of Cairo.
Realizing that additional wars would further weaken his country, the Egyptian leader Anwar el-Sadat took advantage of American diplomacy to begin talks with the Israeli leader Menachem Begin. The United States, which supported Israel, also had an interest in promoting peace in the Middle East, since the United States depended heavily on oil imports from the Muslim nations of that region.
Following a historic visit by Sadat to the Israeli capital of Jerusalem to meet Begin, the two leaders began peace talks under American auspices at the presidential retreat known as Camp David just outside of Washington, D.C. American president Jimmy Carter worked to bring the two sides together, smoothing the way with promises of economic assistance to both sides, and eventually Israel agreed to return most of the territory it had taken from Egypt in return for certain security guarantees and Egypt's commitment to forego future attacks.
Sadat and Begin both received the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. The peace treaty was signed in 1979 and ambassadors were exchanged in 1980. The initial reaction of the other Muslim nations was hostility toward Egypt for signing a separate peace agreement, and many of them temporarily severed diplomatic relations. Extremists within Egypt assassinated Sadat in 1981. However, there have been no further wars between Egypt and Israel, and there is even a limited amount of economic cooperation between the two countries.
Full diplomatic relations were established on January 26, 1980, and the formal exchange of ambassadors took place one month later, on February 26, 1980, with Eliyahu Ben-Elissar serving as the first Israeli Ambassador to Egypt, and Saad Mortada as the first Egyptian Ambassador to Israel. Egypt has an embassy in Tel Aviv and a consulate in Eilat. Israel has an embassy in Cairo and a consulate in Alexandria. Their shared border has two official crossings, one at Taba and one at Nitzana. The crossing at Nitzana is for commercial and tourist traffic only.
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Peace between Egypt and Israel has lasted for more than forty years and Egypt has become an important strategic partner of Israel.
On February 27, 1980, Egypt and Israel exchanged ambassadors, marking the progress that had been made in normalizing relations between two historic enemies and ending 30 years of war between the two nations. The peace established by the two countries, which had fought several wars since Israel became an independent Jewish state on the northeast border of Muslim Egypt, has lasted ever since.
What Were The Camp David Accords? - Middle East Explorers
The "Cold Peace" and Lingering Tensions
In Israel, the initial response to the peace treaty was one of optimism and high expectations for a warm and comprehensive relationship with Egypt. However, this soon gave way to disappointment as Egypt limited its engagement to formal diplomatic ties, leading to a "cold peace". Scholars have debated the causes and context behind the emergence of the “cold peace.” One perspective attributes it primarily to the policies of the Egyptian leadership, which is seen as having intentionally slowed the normalization process out of fear that closer ties with the other side’s society could destabilize Egypt internally and diminish its regional influence.
An alternative view points to Israeli actions in the early 1980s as a key factor-such as the 1981 strike on Iraq’s nuclear reactor, the 1982 Lebanon War, and legislative moves like the Jerusalem Law and the Golan Heights Law. These developments intensified pressure on the Egyptian regime from both Egyptian and broader Arab public opinion, weakening its willingness to pursue normalization.
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In addition to the two main schools of thought, there is broad agreement that the Palestinian issue remained a major obstacle to deeper relations.
Strategic and Economic Cooperation
Strategic ties between Egypt and Israel have never been as close as they are today under President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, and both he and Netanyahu reportedly communicate with each other fairly often. Under Sisi’s administration, Egypt and Israel have closely cooperated on counterterrorism measures, particularly against the main terrorist group in the Sinai called Wilayat Sinai, formerly known as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, an affiliate of the so-called Islamic State (IS).
Concerning cooperation on the former, Israel has allowed significant Egyptian military units and armaments to be deployed to the northeastern section of the Sinai Peninsula in contravention of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, which restricts the number of Egyptian personnel and armaments in this zone. At the same time, both Egypt and Israel have an interest in containing Hamas, which has been in charge of the Gaza Strip since 2006 when military skirmishes resulted in the expulsion of the secular-nationalist group, Fatah, from that area.
Egyptian officials have long been wary of Hamas, which grew out of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood, as the Brotherhood remains the Sisi government’s main domestic and ideological foe and one that attacks it from media outlets abroad. The Sisi government also believes that Hamas often disregards extremist elements in Gaza aiding the terrorist insurgency in the Sinai. From Israel’s perspective, Hamas is an enemy that has neither given up violence nor recognized Israel’s existence.
Both Egypt and Israel have cooperated in closing down tunnelsconnecting the Sinai to Gaza, which have been used to smuggle people and goods in both directions. However, Egypt has also played a dual role regarding Hamas. Although it favors Fatah in Palestinian politics (the party dominating the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank), it has often hosted meetings between the two Palestinian factions in the interest of supporting Palestinian unity, with the meetings occurring in Cairo in February and on March 16, in anticipation of Palestinian elections later in the year. During this time, Egypt even opened the border crossing in Rafah by the Gaza-Sinai border to allow for the Hamas delegation to travel to Cairo and as a goodwill gesture to Palestinians living in Gaza.
Although trade between Egypt and Israel along with joint projects like Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs), which allow for products to be manufactured and exported to the United States without tariffs, have existed for a long time, what is new is the potential for large, joint gas projects. In 2005 Egypt started to export natural gas across the Sinai into Israel, but such exports stopped in 2012 as Egypt’s domestic demand for gas rose and insurgents in the Sinai targeted the gas pipeline. Now it appears that gas in large quantities will flow in the opposite direction.
Last month, Egypt’s Minister of Energy Tarek al-Molla traveled to Israel to meet with his Israeli counterpart, Yuval Steinitz, as well as with Prime Minister Netanyahu, to discuss a major collaborative project. Gas from Israel’s large offshore Leviathan field in the eastern Mediterranean would be transported via a new pipeline on the seabed to connect with liquefication facilities in Egypt. Currently, gas from the Leviathan field is being sent to Egypt via a pipeline that runs to the Sinai Peninsula. The goal of this new project, according to an Israeli official, would be to use these facilities to export gas to Europe, where demand is rising.
From Egypt’s perspective, this deal fits into its plans to become a major regional hub for natural gas. In 2015, a large gas field, called Zohr, was discovered in Egyptian territorial waters in the Mediterranean, and Egypt has been the force behind the establishment of the “East Mediterranean Gas Forum” which includes Cyprus, Greece, Israel, Italy, Jordan, and the Palestinians. What most of these countries have in common right now is opposition to Turkey’s desire to expand the jurisdiction of its territorial waters in the eastern Mediterranean.
The East Mediterranean Gas Forum members.
Public Opinion and Political Constraints
The Egyptian public, while desirous of the continued peace between Egypt and Israel, is still not comfortable with the idea of warming ties between the two countries as long as the Palestinian issue is unresolved. This causes Egyptian officials, including Sisi himself, to tread carefully at times.
Polling in 2020 conducted by the respected Zogby Research Services found some interesting data on Egyptian public attitudes toward Israel and the Palestinian issue. Similarly, the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies’ Arab Opinion Index in its 2019-2020 surveyof public attitudes toward Israel in Egypt found almost identical results. A full 85 percent of Egyptians responded that they oppose recognizing Israel, although a peace treaty has existed between Egypt and Israel since 1979.
These public attitudes and the advent of the new Biden Administration have put the Sisi government in a sort of a quandary. Democratic leaders in Congress have raised. On the other hand, there are limits to how far he can go in cooperating with Israel, especially if the right wing there remains ascendant.
In the meantime, Sisi has shown a willingness to display a more tolerant religious side to Egypt by allowing Judaism to be taught in Egyptian schools, as part of studying the three Abrahamic faiths, and by providing government funds to restore some synagogues in Egypt that had fallen into disrepair. These gestures are designed in part to lure Israeli tourists back to Egypt, but they are also meant to make a favorable impression in Washington.
Recent Tensions and the Gaza War
The Gaza war has strained Egyptian-Israeli relations to an unprecedented level and raised questions about the future of their 1979 peace treaty that has been a cornerstone of Arab-Israeli peace.
officials met recently in Cairo with their Israeli and Egyptian counterparts against a backdrop of mutually diminishing confidence between the two parties, particularly following Israel’s ground offensive in Rafah. This comes on the heels of a shooting incident between Israeli and Egyptian forces that left at least one Egyptian soldier dead, and Egypt joining South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
People gather on the Gaza side of the closed Rafah border crossing with Egypt.
Egypt, understanding Israel’s need to respond to Hamas’ October 7 attack, adopted a restrained approach, particularly compared to other regional countries like Turkey and Jordan. But Cairo felt this restraint was not appreciated, nor were Egyptian sensitivities around Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor - a strip of land running the length of the Egyptian-Gaza border that Israel controlled until its 2005 disengagement from Gaza - taken into account by Israel.
Tensions reportedly grew to the point that Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi refused to take a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Egypt’s joining the ICJ case against Israel is another strong signal of Cairo’s frustration.
Many are wondering whether the Israel-Egypt peace treaty could be in jeopardy. Indeed, as far back as January, the head of Egypt’s State Information Service warned that Israel taking control of the Philadelphi corridor would be a violation of the 1979 peace treaty.
Still, despite these tensions, both sides are clear in their commitment to the treaty, and it is not in any imminent danger. After taking over the Philadelphi Corridor, Israel announced that it has discovered at least 50 tunnels in the area although it is not clear how many of them led to Sinai.
On the economic front, Egypt has been importing natural gas from Israel since 2020 following a decrease in its own production. At the outset of the war, Israel suspended its gas exports to Egypt - later to be resumed but in smaller quantities.
Plans were announced in August 2023 to increase future Israeli gas exports to Egypt, starting in July 2025 for the next 11 years, by an additional 4 billion cubic meters, which is three times the current export levels. Rolling power outages have been on the rise in Egypt causing public dismay and the government indicated that this is due to shortages in gas supplies as well as foreign currency requirements.
The Rafah Crossing and Humanitarian Concerns
The control, security, humanitarian assistance and movement of people around the Egyptian-Gaza border is another major point of contention. In the first weeks of the war, an official spokesman for the Israeli army indicated that Palestinians should head to Egypt, which Cairo strongly criticized. Israel responded by indicating that the border crossing was closed.
Around 100,000 Palestinians have fled from Gaza to Egypt since the beginning of the war. The fear of mass displacement was heightened during the beginning of the attack on Rafah. Israel’s operation in Rafah has been another major stressor in the relationship.
A secondary result of the Rafah operation was Israel taking control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing and the Philadelphi corridor, leading Egypt to close the Rafah crossing. Egypt has refused to reopen it and allow humanitarian aid to pass through as long as Israeli forces maintain control over the Palestinian side of the crossing, and Israel objects to the Palestinian Authority (PA) taking control of the crossing indicating that it can go through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.
The issue of tunnels has become particularly fraught. In a statement before the ICJ, Israel indicated that it had discovered at least 50 tunnels in the Gaza-Egypt border area, but it was not clear how many of them crossed the border into Egypt.
Egypt has been working to make sure that all these tunnels are destroyed. A recent report indicated that secret military documents reveal that more than 2,000 tunnels were destroyed by Egyptian military engineers in the Rafah area between 2011 and 2015. An Egyptian official also indicated that Egypt had destroyed over 1,500 tunnels over the years.
The Path Forward
Despite the daunting current challenges, resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is now front and center for those hoping to make the October 7 war the final war between Israelis and Palestinians. Biden has reiterated the need to move toward the two-state solution numerous times since the war started.
For years before the war, Egypt, Jordan and other regional countries disapproved of Netanyahu’s policy of weakening the PA and allowing Hamas to be strengthened. The Arab world - and much of the rest of the world - maintains that a reformed PA is the only credible option for Palestinian governance in postwar Gaza.
There are also the questions of how reconstruction will take place. If the provision of humanitarian assistance has proven difficult, reconstruction - particularly the issue of “dual-use materials” - will be more so.
Israel and Egypt have to do their utmost to ensure that their relationship is put on a constructive path. Further deterioration will have hugely negative implications for both countries and the region at large.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s recent description of Israel as an “enemy” at the Doha summit marked a clear fracture in relations between the two countries, which had maintained a workable relationship for nearly half a century. Tensions have been mounting, particularly since the Gaza war that began about two years ago.
Since Egypt signed the Camp David peace accord with Israel in 1979, the two countries have maintained a steady, if understated relationship, shaped by a deep-rooted sense of hostility that lingered in the minds of Egyptians. The United States played a decisive role in fostering this relationship, approving US aid to Egypt in 1980, the second largest package after Israel’s, on the condition that ties with Israel remain intact.
On the security front, Camp David and the framework it set for the Sinai region became central in defining the scope of bilateral cooperation. In 2004, the United States established the Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZ) agreement with Egypt and Israel. The deal allowed Egypt to export goods to the US tariff-free, provided that those products contained an Israeli component. The expansion of energy cooperation opened a critical window for mutual interests between Egypt and Israel.
Netanyahu has not concealed his strategy toward Egypt. His vision of a “new Middle East” casts Israel, not Egypt, as the hub connecting East and West. Tensions and developments between the two countries are rising sharply. Egypt has escalated its rhetoric against Israel, declaring that any Israeli attack on its territory would be treated as a declaration of war.
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