As the Israeli military’s invasion of Rafah looms, Egypt, the Arab state next door, is building walls against refugees and threatens to pull out of a 45-year-old treaty that cemented Israel’s existence. In 1978, the deal brokered by President Jimmy Carter was a sign that the United States could bring warring parties together in a pragmatic peace. The treaty didn’t create a new friendship, but it was evidence the United States could help neighbors focus on economic development and diplomacy.
The treaty didn’t create a new friendship, but it was evidence the United States could help neighbors focus on economic development and diplomacy.
Now, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military prepares its “powerful action in Rafah,” a new generation of Egyptians and world leaders are wrestling with what it means to be allied with Israel and to rely on the United States. In threatening to pull out of the “Framework for Peace in the Middle East,” also called the Camp David Accords, Egyptian officials are doing what the Biden administration has so far been unwilling to do: exact a cost to Israel for ignoring the counsel of allies and continuing the war in Gaza. It is unlikely that Netanyahu will consider any consequences to be significant enough to stay his hand, but Egypt is taking a harder line than the United States, even when it has far more to risk in the chaos that’s been unleashed by its neighbors Israel and Hamas.
Egypt is not only willing to say that Israel’s actions to send refugees into Sinai violate the demilitarized zone agreement between the two countries, but Egypt’s officials are also saying in effect that their own $1 billion military trade with the United States is no longer worth the cost of the burden of supporting Israeli and U.S. policies. Despite being where the Arab League was founded, Egypt’s embrace of the Camp David Accords — and its acceptance of Israel — saw it temporarily kicked out of the group. Decades later,…
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