The first formal Israeli reaction to the departure from Cairo and from power of Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak came only after the Egyptian Military Supreme Council' reaffirmed, in Communique Number 4, Egypt's continuing adherence to all its international treaty commitments. For Israel, this provided reassurance on its number one priority – the preservation of the 1979 Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel. The peace treaty was brokered in very hard negotiations conducted at Camp David by U.S. then-President Jimmy Carter. Mubarak himself had mentioned, in his final formal televised address to the nation on Thursday night, his pride that he had been able to plant the Egyptian flag once again over the Sinai Peninsula, which had been captured by Israel in the October 1973 war. The Egyptian-Israeli peace accord stipulates that the Sinai will forever remain demilitarized forever. A strict interpretation of the peace treaty gives Israel the right to veto Egyptian military presence there. Since Israel's 2005 unilateral withdrawal of some 8,000 Israeli settlers and the Israeli military protecting them in Gaza, Israel has only approved the presence of a limited contingent of some 750 Egyptian military/police forces in the Sinai. At the end of January, as the protests in Egypt grew, Israel approved a temporary and limited increase in the number of Egyptian military all along the Israeli border in the Sinai – reportedly bringing the total up to about 850 or so. [This was previously reported -- first -- on BikyaMasr, here.] Despite this, the Jerusalem Post Defense Correspondent Yaakov Katz reports here on Israeli military concerns that Egypt may be “losing control of the Sinai to Bedouin”. Katz wrote that a “senior [Israeli] defense official” told him over the weekend that: “The Sinai is already known as a lawless land … There is a real concern that if the Egyptians don't get the Sinai back under their control, it could develop into a major threat to Israel”. At the beginning of February, an explosion in the Sinai affected pipeline installations and interrupted delivery of Egyptian natural gas to both Israel and Jordan. As the continuous protests launched in Egypt on 25 January began to mount an imminent threat to Mubarak's continued rule, there was widespread Israeli anxiety – which was voiced by Israel's Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu – that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood might somehow come to power. It was a simple equation: Mubarak, and most of his government, had openly distrusted, and been hostile to, the Muslim Brotherhood. Many Israelis said they feared the departure of Mubarak would result in official hostility towards Israel that would include the scrapping of the peace treaty, and even a possible new outbreak of regional war. On Sunday, at the start of the Israeli Government's regular weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu made terse remarks saying: “Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned over the weekend and left Cairo. The Government of Israel welcomes the Egyptian military statement that Egypt will continue to honor its peace agreement with Israel. The peace agreement with Israel has stood for many years. During this period, all Egyptian governments have upheld and advanced it and we believe that it is the cornerstone of peace and stability, not only between the two countries, but in the entire Middle East as well”. Already on Saturday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's office issued an immediate preliminary response welcoming the Egyptian military communiqué and saying that the “longstanding peace treaty between Israel and Egypt has greatly contributed to both countries and is the cornerstone for peace and stability in the entire Middle East.” Later on Saturday, Israeli media reports indicated reported, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak had a phone conversation with the head of Egypt's Armed Forces Supreme Council, Field Marshall Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, who is also Egypt's Defense Minister. Also on Saturday, a statement issued by the White House in Washington indicated that U.S. President Barack Obama “welcomed the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces' announcement today that it is committed to a democratic civilian transition, and will stand by Egypt's international obligations”. The U.S. has close contacts with the Egyptian Military, which it supports with annual assistance that now amounts to $1.3 billion U.S. dollars per year. In recent weeks, as protests filled Cairo's Tahrir Square and the streets of most Egyptian cities, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was in even closer contact than usual with Tantawi, in an apparent effort to ensure that the military – which initially stood by without reacting – would ensure an end to violence against protesters perpetrated mainly by Egyptian police and “baltagiya” (thugs, many of whom were hired by the ruling party), that had caused the deaths of more than 300 unarmed Egyptian civilians and injuries to thousands. Despite Netanyahu's ban on any comments on events in Egypt by government officials (other than himself), Haaretz reported Saturday here that “Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Israel was not interested ‘in Egypt's internal affairs', adding that the only thing Israel wanted was that ‘regional stability be preserved and the peace treaty respected'.” The same Haaretz report noted that Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said in an interview to Channel 2 that it Netayahu's statement was “a good announcement … Peace is not only in the interest of Israel but also of Egypt. I am very happy with this announcement,” Steinitz said. Meanwhile, the Israeli media is asking questions. Zvi Bar-El asked, in Haaretz today here how it is that the U.S. has encouraged Muslim Brotherhood participation in an Egyptian dialogue. The unspoken remainder of Bar-El's question is that – at Israel's and Washington's insistence – nobody is allowed to talk to Hamas in Gaza. In today's article, he wonders when Obama might begin pressing Israel to engage in a dialog with Hamas. Bar-El wrote: “how is it that the Muslim Brotherhood – forerunner of Hamas, suspected of encouraging terror and of seeking to establish a Sharia state – became a legitimate representative of the Egyptian public, to the extent that Omar Suleiman, who for years led the crackdown against the organization, is now willing to sit down with its representatives and to meet some of their demands. Has anyone heard a peep out of Washington about it being verboten to sit down with the Muslim Brotherhood? Just the opposite; Clinton took heart from the Brotherhood being part of the dialogue in Egypt, and even took credit for initiating it. That is a significant switch: The Muslim Brotherhood has already been given legitimacy by both Cairo and Washington … The next question is when will Washington open a dialogue with Hamas and perhaps with Hezbollah? … [I]f the United States wants to maintain a proper relationship with Syria – and it does – it must recognize Lebanon's new government, which is dependent on Hezbollah's partnership. It also will be unable to provide a convincing argument for being willing to accept an Egyptian democracy that includes the Muslim Brotherhood while opposing the participation of the democratically elected Hamas in the Palestinian leadership of a state that has already been recognized by quite a few countries. It is often said that in the Middle East, anything is possible; judging by America's behavior toward Egypt, one can say the same thing about U.S. policy”. And, Aluf Benn wrote in another article published in Haaretz today here that “In all the upheavals that took place in the Middle East over the past three decades, the Egyptian regime appeared to be a powerful rock. The leaders of Israel knew that their left flank was secure as they went out to war, built settlements and negotiated peace on the other fronts. The friction in relations between Jerusalem and Cairo, however frustrating it was at times, did not undermine the foundations of the strategic alliance created by the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement”. From there, Benn argues that the change of Egypt gives Israel an excuse to stop wanting an attack against to stop a possible Iranian weaponization of its nuclear capabilities – but Benn does not argue that it makes such an attack against Iran impossible. Benn says that “Netanyahu shared with Mubarak his concerns about the growing strength of Iran. Egypt played a key role in the Sunni, the ‘moderate', axis, which lined up alongside Israel and the United States against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his allies in Lebanon, Syria and the Gaza Strip. The toppling of the regime in Cairo does not alter this strategic logic. The revolutionaries at Tahrir Square were motivated by Egyptian national pride and not by their adoration of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Whoever succeeds Mubarak will want to follow this line, even bolster Egyptian nationalism, and not transform Egypt into an Iranian satellite. This does not mean that Mubarak's successor will encourage Israel to strike the Iranian nuclear installations”. Then, after two cryptic arguments (a) about Arab states not wanting a preemptive attack on Iran, which is contradicted in the Wikileaks cables, and (b) about how Israel would “find it difficult to take action far to the east when it can not rely on the tacit agreement to its actions on its western border” [here, it is not at all clear what he means – possibly, Egypt?], Benn abruptly concludes, “Without Mubarak there is no Israeli attack on Iran. His replacement will be concerned about the rage of the masses, if they see him as a collaborator in such operation. Whoever is opposed to a strike, or fear its consequences – even though they appear to be in favor, like Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak – now have the ultimate excuse. We wanted to strike Iran, they will write in their memoirs but we could not because of the revolution in Egypt. Like Ehud Olmert says that he nearly made peace, they will say that they nearly made war. In his departure Mubarak prevented a preemptive Israeli war. This appears to have been his last contribution to regional stability”.
