Israel Sees a Chance for More Reliable Ties With Egypt and a Weakening of Hamas

After Mohamed Morsi, an Islamist, was elected president of Egypt a year ago, he refused any contact with Israelis, raising deep anxiety here and concern about the future of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty, a cornerstone of regional stability for decades.

But with Mr. Morsi’s ouster and the crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt this week, Israelis see the prospect of a return to what they view as a more reliable status quo, as well as a weakening of Hamas, the militant Islamic group that runs Gaza. 

And yet, the good news for Israel remains tempered by the danger of chronic instability next door.

“What is important for Israel is a stable Egypt,” said Shaul Shay, a former deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council. “I don’t see the Muslim Brotherhood there swallowing the blow and waiting another 80 years to try to return to power. The story is not over, despite the fireworks in Cairo.” 

While Mr. Morsi served as head of state, Israel’s only line of communication with Cairo was through the Egyptian military and security establishment, which is now controlling Egypt’s political process. Perhaps more reassuring to Israel is the role of Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, the top commander who led the move to depose Mr. Morsi. 

General Sisi is well known in Israel’s defense establishment from his past roles in military intelligence and in northern Sinai. An Israeli expert said that even after Mr. Morsi appointed General Sisi as his defense minister, the general’s office continued to communicate and coordinate directly with Israel. 

Israeli officials have maintained a diplomatic silence since Mr. Morsi’s overthrow, refusing to comment publicly on what they say is an internal Egyptian affair. 

“We are observing very closely,” one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly. “This is a matter of highest importance for us. We really hope the Egyptians manage to put together a functioning democracy, slowly but surely, but there is still a very high level of uncertainty.” 

He added, “What’s next is anybody’s guess.” 

Still, for some Israelis, the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood was reason enough to celebrate. 

“It’s good that the Muslim Brotherhood has gone,” said Zvi Mazel, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt. “If they had stayed in power for another two or three years, they’d have taken control of the military and everything else, and Egypt would have become like Iran.” 

Mr. Morsi did not radically shift Egyptian policy toward Israel, upholding Egypt’s commitment to the peace treaty. Under his authority, the Egyptian military acted in the volatile Sinai Peninsula against Islamic militants who had been attacking Egyptian forces in recent years and using the wild desert terrain to stage cross-border attacks against Israel. Israeli experts said Israeli-Egyptian security coordination over Sinai in the last year had been closer and more intense than during the era of Mr. Morsi’s predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.

In November, Mr. Morsi played an instrumental role in brokering a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza, ending a fierce eight-day Israeli offensive. Hamas has since worked to rein in rocket fire by Gaza militants against southern Israel. 

With Egypt in flux, the Sinai Peninsula remains a potential source of friction. Early Friday, gunmen attacked an airport and Egyptian security forces there. The Egyptian authorities took the immediate step of indefinitely closing the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border, presumably to block any potential access for Hamas to its allies in Egypt. 

It was a sign of the times for Hamas, which faces increasing isolation, experts said. When the Brotherhood was in power in Egypt, Hamas had a strong ally. 

For a while after Mr. Morsi’s election victory, Hamas felt empowered. Mr. Morsi sent his prime minister to Gaza in November in a show of solidarity amid the Israeli offensive. In October, the emir of Qatar became the first head of state to visit Gaza since Hamas took over in 2007. He pledged $400 million for major housing and infrastructure projects there. 

But the high expectations never fully materialized. The Rafah crossing remained limited to passengers and closed to commercial goods. The Egyptian military recently stepped up its campaign against the tunnels beneath the border that are used for smuggling goods, weapons and fugitives. The clampdown is causing shortages of cheap fuel and depriving Hamas of the significant tax revenues it collects from the underground trade. In addition, Qatar indefinitely suspended its projects in Gaza, partly because of the unstable situation in Egypt. Qatari officials were apparently unable to get to Gaza to endorse the second phase of the work.

Hamas had already been suffering from a sharp drop in financing from Iran in recent months because the group did not stand by President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, its former patron, in his struggle against rebel forces. 

“Hamas is in a very difficult situation because its outside relations are shrinking,” said Akram Atallah, a political analyst in Gaza. 

But Israeli experts cautioned that a weakened Hamas was not necessarily good for Israel, either, noting that weakness could also lead to extremism. 

Ehud Yaari, an Israel-based fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described Egypt as “the sick man on the Nile,” adding, “A situation in which Egypt, a nation of 85 million people, is in danger of some kind of implosion is a horror scenario for all of us.” 

Internal chaos would also be likely to further erode Egypt’s historic role as a leader of the Arab world, but Israeli analysts said its influence had already been in decline for years. 

“Egypt is busy with its own domestic problems and is not much of an actor on the regional scene,” said Efraim Inbar, the director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. 

Fares Akram contributed reporting from Gaza.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/world/middleeast/israel-sees-prospect-of-a-more-reliable-egypt-and-a-weaker-hamas.html