Israel cannot leave Egypt to its own affairs. It will try by every means to draw Egypt into particular corners of its choosing, ones that guarantee Egypt's collapse or its compliance with plans Israel wants carried out.
اضافة اعلان
It has been said repeatedly that the current scheme will be followed by another later, directed against Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, and Arab states. But Egypt is under the spotlight for several reasons, foremost among them the strength of the Egyptian army. It is ranked among the world's strongest armies, first in the Arab world and Africa and within the top 20 armies globally for 2026. That is reason enough for Israel to target this army, either through internal strife in Egypt, or by pushing it into a war with Ethiopia, which is being used to pressure Egypt, or through any internal means we might expect.
The policy of weakening Egypt continues day and night on the economic front. The economic crisis is worsening amid high prices and Egyptians' inability to live decently in a country whose revenues have been hit and whose burdens have grown because of surrounding regional and international tensions. It is enough to mention the cost of the Bab al-Mandab crisis and its effect on the Suez Canal. Egypt's external debt stands at 161 billion dollars, while domestic debt is estimated at about 11 trillion pounds according to the latest published figures. Repayment demands press hard on Egypt, amid inflation and energy prices.
Egypt must not be left alone at the Arab level. Those who believe that one's stance toward Egypt should depend only on one's stance toward Egyptian policy, or even toward the ruling authority in Egypt, are ignorant, because they fail to grasp that the total cost will exceed any negative political views. It will extend to the stability of Egypt and its people, and reach Egypt's neighbors and the Arab system as a whole, in which Egypt is a pivotal pillar.
The Gaza file pressing on Egypt's flank is part of the crisis, because plans to displace Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt remain alive. In terms of Arab national security and geopolitical calculations, Egypt cannot allow Palestinians to be displaced into Egypt or into Sinai. This is not out of aversion to them, but because it would have catastrophic consequences for Palestine and Egypt alike. Perhaps Gaza is among the files on which Egypt is meant to be bargained with, but Egypt's acceptance of concessions there would lead to dangerous results, potentially becoming a replicable model for the West Bank and Jordan. This implicitly means that foiling the displacement plans to Egypt is a Jordanian interest, at a time full of dangers and possibilities, and amid information about plans to generate chaos inside Egypt itself.
The problem with the Arab political mind is that it dozes off in one corner or one file. The best proof is the current focus on the Iranian front and the possibility of a return to war. But a deeper reading should take us to the effects of that war on Egypt, Jordan, and other countries if it erupts again, especially when we know that this chaos in the region is managed by the United States and intended, in order to dismantle the whole structure of the region, ignite sectarian wars, and let the repercussions reach every influential state. The goal is for Israel to remain the strongest state amid a shattered surrounding, suffering from chaos, wars, and ruined economies.
The occasion for these remarks is official Ethiopian accusations against Cairo of supporting an armed opposition alliance fighting government forces in the north of the country, in parallel with continuing tension over the Renaissance Dam file and the strangling of Egypt's water supply. The accusation is that Egypt, along with other countries, is working to support a political and military opposition alliance led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front that seeks to overthrow the Ethiopian regime, which has become a dagger stabbing Egypt in the back, in a functional role whose ultimate aims are plain.
Then we must distinguish completely between legitimate criticism of any Arab political system, and what may befall any Arab country, its people, and its institutions in the context of regional infighting that aims to demolish all the weighty historic Arab incubators, leading to a new fragmented region in which small, isolationist states grow on ethnic, religious, and sectarian foundations, sponsored by Israel and orbiting around it.
