Despite acknowledging that "out of a desire for democracy, a terrible dictatorship has arisen" in Egypt, senior Israeli defense official Amos Gilad still expressed great concern Friday that Muslim Brotherhood leader and Egypt's newly elected president, Mohammed Morsi, "won't talk" to Israel."
In an address to students in Herzliya, Gilad noted how important it is for Israel to safeguard the peace agreement it had had in place with Egypt "at any cost," adding that the Jewish State does not wish to engage in any kind of military conflict. The problem, however, is that, according to Gilad, "there is no talk between our political echelon and that of Egypt, and I don't think there will be."
They "won't talk to us."
Haaretz reports that in July, Israeli President Shimon Peres received a letter from the Morsi, the longtime Muslim Brotherhood leader, expressing hopes for stability in the Middle East, however, Egypt later denied that Morsi had sent such a letter.
Prior to the Muslim Brotherhood's ascendancy in Egypt, the country had maintained a cold peace with Israel, begun by the late Anwar Sadat and carried on by ousted president Hosni Mubarak. Since the more secular-oriented Mubarak regime was toppled, an Islamist resurgence hostile to the West and Israel has filled the void.
Case in point is the heightened presence of al Qaeda-affiliated Salafist militant group surging in what the JPost calls the "increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula."
Reports of terrorist activity targeting Israel from the Sinai have increased exponentially since the Muslim Brotherhood seized power in Egypt. JPost reports that in recent months al Qaeda and Salafist jihadists "have conducted a series of deadly terrorist attacks against both Egyptian and Israeli interests on the border, including the September 21 shootout that killed 20-year-old Cpl. Netanel Yahalomi."
Disturbingly, the threat to Egypt may only serve as an excuse for Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood affiliates to seek amendment to the Camp David Peace Accords with Israel, thus allowing increased Egyptian military presence in Sinai -- a feat that would also prove deadly to the Jewish State.
