Comment by delecti
1 day ago
> Put together, we’re seeing an Emirati-Israeli axis emerging to balance Saudi hegemony in the Gulf and Iranian hegemony over the Persian Gulf. I’d expect to see an Emirati deal with Egypt and India next if this hypothesis is correct.
Don't Egypt and Israel hate each other though? Could UAE feasibly align with both?
Virtually all Arabs hate Israel but Arab governments are more varied. The modern Egyptian state is oriented toward close partnership with the US, and a large part of that was peace with Israel post '73.
So yes, the UAE could align with both.
> Virtually all Arabs hate Israel
This is true, but Emiratis are a notable exception. The UAE may be the only Arab country where Jews are not only allowed to live, but can do so safely without fearing either their neighbors or their government.
For example, last year when a rabbi was murdered, the Emirati government reacted forcefully and made a point to sentence the perpetrators to death. Note, the perpetrators were not Emiratis.
> The modern Egyptian state is oriented toward close partnership with the US, and a large part of that was peace with Israel post '73.
While also true, the relationship between Israel and Egypt has been tense lately.
They are at peace, and the border is stable. And economic integration is tightening, for example with the recent $35B gas deal [1]. So it's plausible that UAE could align with both, as you say.
But at the same time, it's just as plausible that this alignment will become increasingly complicated for geopolitical reasons. As Israel grows stronger in the region, Egypt seems to have adopted a strategy of indirectly undermining them.
For example, Egypt's handling of the Gaza war has indicated that they were playing a double game - openly containing Hamas, while covertly allowing them to grow stronger. When the IDF captured Rafah in 2024, they uncovered massive smuggling tunnels under the Egypt-Gaza border, which could not possibly have been unknown to Egypt.
Sisi is also known for having cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood domestically, as they were his primary political rival. But externally, he has shown a willingness to support them as a tool to weaken his rivals, including Israel. This is a dangerous game which could easily backfire.
One more example: just this week Egypt is conducting a live fire military exercise 100m from the Israel border - a deliberate decision that is escalating tensions. [2]
[1] https://www.egyptindependent.com/all-you-need-to-know-about-...
[2] https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/egypt-live-fire-drills-is...
By the way that's just Qatari propaganda meant to put a wedge between Israel and Egypt. Qatar(Muslim Brotherhood) hates Egypt (that cracked down on MB) and hates Israel. They paid Netanyahu's advisors to push those lies about Egypt's double game and the cross border tunnels. Netanyahu the clown he is, "leaked" those lies to journalists. Qatar also paid Haaretz journalist to push those lies. The current situation with Egypt is good. They need to pretend to be somewhat cold to satisfy the hostile to Israel population, but there is cooperation and good relationship.
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Various Arab states maintain this balancing act between a virulently anti-Israel population and a US-aligned (in most cases, US-installed) regime that’s tacitly okay with the existence of Israel.
It’s actually surprising it’s achievable for so long but in the long term doesn’t feel stable given the direction things are headed
Which Arab regimes, today, are "US installed"? Iraq is the only plausible answer.
As far as stability, I don't know. My view is that Arab democracies are unstable because they will elect Islamists. Dictatorship/monarchy has proven far more stable. Syria is trying to buck the trend; we'll see how it goes.
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Arabs dont have equal standing and treatment in israel. Also, Israel is increasingly far right and best estimate is less rights in the future.
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If they join a religion that isn't on the state approved list, they can't get married there and hard or extra expensive to get buried. There are some limits on religious freedom.
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They're not buddies per se, but Egypt was the first ME country to normalize relations.
They've also been cooperating on blockading Gaza for a couple of decades. Israel gets most of the attention for that, mostly rightfully so, but people seem to forget that there's a border with Egypt too and that has also had very limited access.
Egypt learned on other's mistakes for once. They saw how Jordan welcomed Palestinians on their land and they repaid the kindness by launching a coup against the government in 1970. No wonder not a single anti-Israeli coalition country is willing to deal with Palestinians directly at their own home and are keeping borders watertight :) .
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As an Arab friend summed it up, 'All Arab governments like to trumpet the Palestinian cause when it serves them, but none of them are willing to lift a finger to help the Palestinians.'
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To be fair, part of the peace deal between Egypt and Israel gave Israel some control over the crossing, and they seized it entirely during the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafah_Border_Crossing
> The Rafah crossing was opened by Israel after the 1979 peace treaty and remained under Israeli control until 2005...
> Under a 2007 agreement between Egypt and Israel, Egypt controls the crossing but imports through the Rafah crossing require Israeli approval.
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People don't forget it. But Egypt is a dictatorship aligned with US/Israel, so there's again not much we can do there. Ending foreign aid to Egypt is probably very aligned with ending foreign aid to Israel in terms of popularity among American voters
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Egyptians and Israelis hate each other, not their governments. They're on friendly terms relatively speaking.
Israelis do not hate Egyptians... The Arab world has a major Jew-hatred problem, but the reverse it not true.
Remember that 20% of the Israeli population is Arab.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_to_Arabs
> Death to Arabs" or "Death to the Arabs" (Israeli Hebrew: מָוֶת לָעֲרָבִים, romanized: Mávet la'Aravím) is an anti-Arab slogan originating in Israel.
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If Egypt were a democracy, its government would hate Israel. That's why the current dictator overthrew the last democracy and had its elected leader die in jail, and that same dictator is now supported heavily by US funding
The briefly elected Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt was .. not as liberal as the Tahrir Square protests demanded.
I think you might be overestimating how liberal the protesters were. Source: I was in Tahrir square during the protests and spoke with many Egyptians.
Almost all of the complaints I heard while I was in Egypt were about corruption and lack of opportunity. It was more frustration with rampant nepotism/cronyism and less a desire for liberalism. From the ground, it appeared to be driven by economic forces and not political ideology.
In fact, many Egyptian men that I spoke to made the argument for the continued oppression of women (e.g. the full burqa and absence from work). In general, the populace was decidedly anti-liberal.
The election of the Muslim Brotherhood happened after I left the country, but it was no surprise to me at all. The fact that they attempted to change the constitution so quickly after their victory was unwise, and the subsequent coup by the West was just as unsurprising.
And the UAE played a large role in covertly supporting the movement that toppled it.
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