Dispatch: Israeli National Security and the Egyptian Crisis

Analyst Reva Bhalla examines the unfolding crisis in Egypt from Israel’s national security perspective.

Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today that if democracy prevails in Egypt it will not pose a threat to peace with Israel. And this is a bit of wishful thinking on Netanyahu’s part. As Israel is watching things play out next door in Egypt, it’s watching with great concern for its own national security.

Israel’s national security depends on its ability to keep its Arab neighbors weak, divided and neutralized. So if you look at the situation now, Jordan is pretty much a marginal player. Lebanon is in a state of its own self-contained chaos. Egypt, most critically, is locked into the 1978 peace accords which was ensured by the Sinai buffer. Syria remains a threat but not really a serious threat. Syrians are by far more interested in dominating Lebanon, and more importantly in making money in Lebanon, right now. So if you look at the current regional framework, this is really the best it gets for Israel in dealing with its neighbors. The point is that Israel felt it had Egypt locked into this peace agreement and that could prove to be a miscalculation although it is not very likely right now.

From Israel’s point of view, democracy is nice as long as it doesn’t elect its enemies, and in this case it can’t be quite too sure what will happen in Egypt. So in this case, Israel is looking specifically at the Islamist organization the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Now the Muslim Brotherhood presents itself in the democratic, nonviolent movement but this is also an organization that has been severely repressed by Mubarak’s secret police for decades and Israel simply does not want to rest its national security on the assumption that the Muslim Brotherhood will remain this democratic and nonviolent movement once it gains political power.

Israel is primarily looking to the military in Egypt to manage this crisis and there are certain key figures that Israel is talking to alongside the Americans. Those include the current Defense Minister Marshal Tantawi and the chief of staff of the armed forces, Lt. Gen. Sami Annan, as well as figures like the vice president and former intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman. These are figures that Israel can at least rely on for the most part in maintaining Egypt’s foreign policy under Mubarak, specifically in maintaining the peace agreement with Israel that is so vital to Israeli national security interests.

Now here’s a critical thing to monitor: Israel for the first time has permitted Egypt to deploy two battalions, that’s 800 troops, to Sharm el-Sheikh in the Sinai Peninsula. This is a direct violation of the ‘78 Peace Accords, but apparently Israel feels it is worth the political risk at home to do so. The question is, what is behind the deployment? We know Mubarak has a home in Sharm el-Sheikh and we have been saying the time for the army to nudge him out might be nearing. Whether or not Israel is facilitating a military transition to force Mubarak out, if he is in fact in Sharm el-Sheikh, remains to be seen. But we’ll certainly be watching this closely. But the problem now for Israel is that the longer the military waits to push Mubarak out, the more the crisis escalates in the streets of Egypt and the more Israel then has to fear the unknown.

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