It is because I so often find myself on the same side of the fence as my fellow columnist Larry Derfner that I want to take issue with his facile statement in the wake of the deadly terror attacks on Israelis in the Taba Hilton and other seaside Xanadus.
“Mubarak’s Egypt,” he wrote, “is not our enemy, but our enemy’s enemy — in other words, our friend.”
This is as false as false syllogisms get: Just because Islamic, Arab and Palestinian terror organizations are virulently anti-Israel and also periodically anti-Egypt, it therefore stands to reason that Egypt is a friend of Israel.
This is not simply a matter of nitpicking in the world of logic; a correct understanding of the true relationship between Israel and Egypt over the past 25 years is a matter of life and death.
It’s closer to the mark to claim that Egypt is our “very temporary and very partial partner in mutual self-interest.”
This time, the issue arose surrounding reports that Egypt had dragged its feet in offering aid to the Israeli victims of the Sinai terror bombings. Some of this criticism was indeed exaggerated.
Egypt is a basket-case, petrified bureaucracy where nothing gets done unless the military dictatorship which rules that country orders that it be done. Egyptians themselves are the main victims of this social order.
But when the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak felt itself threatened by Islamic terrorist attacks on foreign tourists (mostly Germans in Luxor) nine years ago it mobilized the entire murderous ferocity of its dictatorship to quash those terrorists.
As the late Yitzhak Rabin would have said: “No bagatz [judicial restraints] or b’tselem [human rights monitors] there.”
The same Mubarak regime has not invested similar energies in interdicting the Islamic and Arab terrorists who openly threaten Israeli tourists in Sinai, or the deadly smuggling of arms and explosives via tunnels into the Gaza Strip. It is this smuggling that is the main cause of Israel’s recent military operations in Gaza.
I write this out of a deep sense of insult at the knee-jerk insistence of our leaders, from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon through opposition leader Shimon Peres and Matan Vilnai, on declaring the magnanimity of Egyptian behavior from the rooftops.
They and others all believe there is little sense to the Israeli disengagement from the settlements in the Gaza Strip if the Egyptians do not cooperate to fill the power vacuum there. So why not sacrifice the truth about Egypt’s real behavior in Sinai and throughout the world to Israel over the past 25 years for such a good cause?
I have been a supporter of the 1979 treaty with Egypt — which was not peace but an armistice — and I am a current supporter of the disengagement from the Gaza settlements specifically because I refuse to see the real world in black-and-white terms.
I believe that both are good for Israel, tactically. Neither, by themselves, brought or will bring real peace.
Had our leaders insisted on holding Egypt to the full conditions of the 1979 treaty, they would have demanded that Mubarak make good on Egypt’s commitment to educate its people toward a real peace with Israel.
The sad truth is that Egyptian popular hatred for Israel, popular anti-Semitism and lately, virulent anti-Americanism are much worse today than they were 25 years ago.
True, there has been no shooting war between us for these 25 years. And that’s a good thing. But Egypt knows how to play the game of not inviting a major war, which it truly does not want, while hurting Israel as much as possible on the international scene and making her bleed by proxy in Gaza and in her own fields, buses and streets.
We should take a leaf out of Egypt’s game plan. We should strengthen Egypt’s determination not to go to war against us but hurt its leadership as much as possible in other fields, to drive home the truth that hostility will engender hostility, and not groveling.
The best place to press would be in the United States, by supporting the bill of Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) that would slash U.S. military aid to Egypt by about $500 million a year, transferring that sum to economic aid.
Why, after all, do the Egyptians need that annual military infusion if not as part of their long-term military plans against Israel? The bill nearly passed; it was defeated only because of State Department opposition.
It would pay to keep up the pressure, and to let the Egyptians know that we and our American supporters are among those behind it.
I am not suggesting that we undermine the Mubarak regime, because of the very real dilemma that what would come in its stead would surely be worse. But it would be appropriate to learn to play the Egyptian two-faced game with equal sophistication.
Yosef Goell is a retired lecturer in political science and a veteran journalist. This column previously appeared in the Jerusalem Post.
TWO VIEWS:
After Taba tragedy, is Egypt friend or foe?