The most anxious player among
Israel’s neighbors and allies is Jordan, whose population is between one-half and two-thirds Palestinian — among them, Jordan’s Queen Rania. While Israel marked the 30th anni-
versary of the 1994 Jordan-Israel peace agreement in conferences and com- memorations, Jordanian officials were conspicuously absent. For its part, Israel has withdrawn
from a joint project to desalinate the Red Sea.
Palestinians on the neighboring
West Bank are also nervous about whether Trump will continue to cham- pion Israel’s desires over their demands for a state and sovereignty. Despite their congratulatory cables,
both Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Pal- estinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are said to be deeply concerned about Trump, given his first term’s policies which included a reversal of decades of diplomatic gospel by recog- nizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017 and moving the U.S. embassy there the following year. Palestinians in Gaza and the West
Bank, as well as those in Amman, the Jordanian capital, are also alarmed by what they see as their own political mar- ginalization in favor of Trump’s pursuit of expanding the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia. The Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s seven-
front war in retaliation mainly against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran — all of which have attacked Israel — have exacerbated fears in Arab capitals that the conflict could escalate into an even broader war. Egypt and Jordan must take their populations’ fury over the mass killing of Palestinians into account. “Because of Gaza,” said David
Schenker, a former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, “rela- tions between Israel and its Arab allies, despite their close security cooperation, are incredibly strained.” Egypt, however, has long been schizophrenic about its pioneering peace with Israel that President Anwar
TRUCE Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced a ceasefire with Hezbollah, ending a year-long conflict after the 2023 Hamas attacks.
While Egypt claims to have destroyed over 1,500 tunnels along the Gaza border, Israeli forces discovered at least 50 tunnels into Egypt when they entered Gaza.
Sadat forged in 1978. After Sadat’s assassination by mili-
tant Egyptian Islamists, Egypt’s leaders never fully explained to Egyptians why peace with Israel was in Egypt’s vital security interests. Relentless propaganda against Israel since then helped fuel the feeling of many of the 116 million Egyp- tians that their leaders have betrayed Palestinians and the Arab cause. Cairo has not publicized the close cooperation between Israel and Egyp- tian intelligence and the fact that Israel quietly helped el-Sissi defeat Islamist militants in his decade-long war in the Sinai Peninsula. As a result, Cairo and Jerusalem have
long observed what has been known as a “cold peace” with virtually no contact with, or cooperation between, members of Israeli and Egyptian civil society. Oct. 7 dramatically exacerbated the
Peace Likely to Prevail M
ost analysts agree the peace treaties and security cooperation between Israel and its Arab partners are likely to endure.
“These relationships have proven resilient, even during the current crisis,”
said James Jeffrey, a veteran diplomat and Middle East expert who has served in four administrations. Because ultimately, he said, Israel and its Arab allies need one another. “Their security depends on it.” So, despite recriminations and
mutual bitterness, he said, security requires continued cooperation. “They will continue to pursue vital shared interests,” Jeffrey predicted, “albeit in a low-key and limited way.” — J.M.
tensions between them and with all of Israel’s Arab peace partners. “Israel now has a cold peace with
virtually all of those who recognized it,” said Peter Berkowitz, a Hoover Insti- tution senior fellow and former State Department director of policy planning during the first Trump administration. In late May, Egyptian forces post-
ed at the Gaza border opened fire on Israeli forces. In the resulting exchange, two Egyptian soldiers were killed. Since then, Egypt has demanded that Israel leave the Philadelphi Corridor — a nar- row strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt. But Netanyahu wants to stay to pre-
vent Hamas remnants from rearming via smuggling in the Sinai. While Egypt claims to have
destroyed over 1,500 tunnels along the Gaza border, Israeli forces discovered at least 50 tunnels into Egypt when they entered Gaza. But Israeli officials have acknowledged that while the smuggling of arms has continued with Egyptian complicity — negligence or bribery — it is not through tunnels but largely aboveground at the Rafah crossing, which Egypt controls. The two countries have also blamed
each other for the failure to deliver humanitarian aid.
Judith Miller is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter and an expert on U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East.
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