U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived in Israel, where he is expected to press Israel and the Palestinians to restart peace talks in the wake of increased unrest.
After Egypt\’s wondrous revolution the Middle East will never be the same again. Egypt is so large and so consequential that such profound political change there is bound to impact everything, including the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Is it a threat to peacemaking or an opportunity?
President Shimon Peres urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday to move quickly toward a solution in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in light of the crisis that has wracked Egypt over the last two weeks.
Israel must be prepared for any outcome in Egypt, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset, \”by reinforcing the might of the State of Israel.\”
Leaders on both sides are optimistic. They see Olmert\’s moves as part of a new and wider American plan for Israeli-Palestinian accommodation.
Israeli leaders were heartened in late December, when Egypt\’s foreign minister announced that he would come to Jerusalem for talks on promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace.
At the same time, however, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was moving in Cairo to galvanize international pressure on Israel to dismantle the nuclear weapons it is presumed to possess.Â
These seemingly contradictory thrusts in Egyptian policy highlight the deep ambivalence that has characterized Egypt\’s attitude to Israel since the two countries made peace in 1979.
Throughout last month, the Israeli people commemorated the 25th anniversary of the historic visit to Israel by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and the resulting peace accord between Israel and Egypt.
A time for peace and a time for war. Most talk, for years, has been about peace, but there\’s war talk in Israel now. At least one independent intelligence agency is predicting a regional war this spring, and nobody is offering credible deniability. The Palestinians have been smuggling weapons into the country — mortars, anti-tank weapons, heavy machine guns, who knows what else. The stuff comes into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt or sneaked past Israeli naval patrols along the coast. It\’s not Jordan they\’re gunning for, at least not to start.
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