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Egypt: Israel’s Alleged ‘Peace Partner’
Egyptian trucks carrying humanitarian aid make their way to the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Israel, May 30, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
In capturing Rafah between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, Israel uncovered more than 50 smuggling tunnels — some large enough to drive trucks through. Big trucks.
Israel has said that it will continue to control the Philadelphi Corridor to ensure that Hamas cannot rearm itself. Egypt, a ceasefire negotiating “partner,” announced that it will not accept Israeli control. And, in fact, The New York Times reported that Egypt’s state-run Al-Qahera News quoted an unnamed senior official saying “there is no truth” to claims of Hamas tunnels under the border.
Sadly, there’s nothing new here.
Egypt proved long before October 7 that it is not a “peace partner” for Israel and not a cooperative country. During the 1978 Camp David negotiations, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin wanted to return Gaza to Egypt along with Sinai. President Anwar Sadat was clear: Either Israel would keep Gaza and there would be a treaty, or Israel would try to return Gaza and there would be no treaty.
The Israeli leader made the decision to take Egypt out of the circle of war.
Sadat’s position was apiece with the Arab countries still at war. They had decided in 1949 that they would do nothing to help Arab refugees from what became Israel — that, they said, was Israel’s problem to solve. They put them Palestinians in refugee camps in Arab countries, closed the gates, and restricted their options. Gaza was a duty-free port for the Egyptian military; Palestinians were not able to live in Egypt proper, and the life and economic statistics were horrible.
UNRWA was actually created to settle the Arab refugees in Arab countries, the same way that international organizations settled refugees of the Korean War in Korea, and tens of millions of other refugees were resettled after World War II. The Arab states simply said no. [Read Adi Schwartz and Einat Wilf’s excellent The War of Return for details.]
Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai in 1982 reestablished a border between Gaza and Egypt — the Philadelphi Route — which divided the city of Rafah. (If you think the tunnels of Rafah were built by Hamas, you’re way late.) The 2005 Gaza disengagement was accompanied by the Philadelphi Agreement, under which Israel and Egypt pledged to work together to “stem terrorism, arms smuggling, and other illegal cross-border activities.” Israel was supposed to have access to the goods brought in by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which was, for a while, the government of Gaza.
Jordan was a bit different, but not much. It illegally annexed the West Bank and the eastern side of Jerusalem in 1950, giving citizenship to some resident Arabs, including some refugees. In 1972, the PLO tried to overthrow the King of Jordan; Israel stepped in to prevent Syria from taking advantage, but King Hussein knew the Hashemite Kingdom had no long-term future in the territory. In 1988, he renounced Jordan’s claim and stripped most of the people of Jordanian citizenship. No one seemed to have noticed.
Over the years, King Hussein not-quite-jokingly referred to Yitzhak Rabin as “Jordan’s Defense Minister for the West Bank.” [His heir, King Abdullah II, relies on Israel for economic assistance as well as security control.] Then, in 1994, he had the same discussion with Yitzhak Rabin in advance of the Jordan-Israel peace treaty that Sadat had with Menachem Begin: keep the West Bank and have a treaty, or push it on us and there won’t be one.
It was still going to be Israel’s problem to solve.
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has exposed some serious shortcomings by Israel in the security of the Gaza Strip. Those will, no doubt, be the subject of a serious post-war assessment. But consider Egypt, Israel’s alleged peace partner and recipient of billions in US aid.
The Egyptian government refused to permit Palestinians displaced by the war to enter northern Sinai, even temporarily. Cairo claimed it would not be secure — although the mostly-empty area would easily hold Egyptian military camps for temporary refuge. Even NPR was critical of the decision.
The world later discovered that Gazans could buy their way out, though, for several thousand dollars, which tells you something about Egypt’s motives.
Egypt also delayed passage of aid trucks into Gaza after Israel took over the crossing, demanding a Palestinian presence restored on the Gaza side of the border.
After a (rare) rebuke by the US, Egypt agreed to reopen the crossing, but after another slowdown, Middle East Monitor reports that talks with the US and Israel in July failed to resolve the new impasse.
A week ago, an Israel-Egypt border agreement for Gaza was announced.
On Monday, Egypt reneged.
Israel will have to make the determination that serves its security interests. It would be in the interest of the United States and the Palestinian people to support a strong Israeli presence and control of the border to help break the control of the territory and the people of Gaza by Hamas.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly
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Palestinian Authority Restructures ‘Pay-for-Slay’ System, but Questions Remain About Whether Move Is Genuine
PA President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly in New York. Photo: Reuters/Caitlin Ochs
The Palestinian Authority has restructured its so-called “pay-for-slay” program, which rewards terrorists and their families for carrying out attacks against Israelis, in an effort to push the United States to repeal punitive legislation against the PA for its long-standing policy.
The Palestinian Authority Martyr’s Fund makes official payments to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, the families of “martyrs” killed in attacks on Israelis, and injured Palestinian terrorists. Reports estimate that approximately 8 percent of the PA’s budget is allocated to paying stipends to convicted terrorists and their families.
On Monday, however, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a decree revoking the “laws and regulations related to the system of paying financial allowances to the families of prisoners, martyrs, and the wounded,” according to the official PA news agency WAFA.
“All families that benefited from previous laws, legislation, and regulations are subject to the same standards applied without discrimination to all families benefiting from protection and social welfare programs,” WAFA reported.
The decree means that the PA has changed its system such that payments to Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorist attacks and their families will be based on their social economic status, not the acts they committed. Under the now-revoked program, Palestinians would receive more money for more severe terrorist acts — a policy that, according to critics, incentivized more terrorism.
However, Israeli journalist Lahav Harkov argued that the PA is “just restructuring the mechanism through which they pay terrorists so that they can claim it’s not them, it’s an ‘independent’ foundation doing it. An ‘independent’ foundation funded by the PA and whose board is appointed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday saying, “This is a new fraudulent trick by the Palestinian Authority, which intends to continue making payments to terrorists and their families through other payment channels.”
Palestinian officials told Axios they hope Abbas’s decision will improve relations with the Trump administration and with the US Congress in order for Washington to resume US financial aid to the PA.
Along with its policy change, the PA reportedly asked the US to repeal the Taylor Force Act, a 2018 law which prohibits US funding to the PA so long as it maintains its pay-for-slay program.
Critics therefore doubt the sincerity of the move. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a think tank, noted that the PA has deceptively used “pay-for-slay” reform as a beginning chip in the past.
“The PA president … promised ‘pay-to-slay’ reform in 2020 to try to convince then incoming President Joe Biden to revoke 1987 legislation designating the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) ‘and its affiliates’ as terror groups,” FDD wrote.
Aaron Goren, a research analyst and editor at FDD, wrote in response to Monday’s news that “pay-to-slay reform is certainly welcome at face value and demonstrative of the Trump administration’s power in negotiations. However, American officials should be wary of the PA’s steadfast tactic of leveraging pay-to-slay reform to get concessions from the United States and Israel. The PA is likely to make serious demands from both nations in exchange.”
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Super Bowl Halftime Show Dancer Gets NFL Lifetime Ban for Displaying Palestinian Flag During Performance
A protester holding a flag with the words “Gaza” and “Sudan” as rapper Kendrick Lamar performed during the Super Bowl halftime show at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans on Feb. 9, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
A dancer in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show has been banned for life from all National Football League stadiums and events for waving a combined Palestinian-Sudanese flag with the words “Gaza” and “Sudan” during the rapper’s performance on Sunday night at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
The NFL said the African American protester, who has not been identified, concealed the flag and unveiled it without prior knowledge by the show’s production team.
“We commend security for quickly detaining the individual who displayed the flag,” the NFL said in a released statement. “He was a part of the 400-member field cast. The individual hid the item on his person and unveiled it late in the show. No one involved with the production was aware of the individual’s intent.” The league added that the individual “will banned for life from all NFL stadiums and events.”
Toward the end of Lamar’s performance — after his track “Not Like Us” and right before his final song “TV Off” — the dancer waved the flag while standing on top of a car used as a prop in the performance. The car, a Buick Grand National GNX, inspired the name of Lamar’s latest album, “GNX,” and it was a key prop in the rapper’s halftime show performance.
“Sudan” and “Gaza” were written on the white sections of the flag held by the protester. A heart was drawn next to “Sudan” and a solidarity fist was depicted next to the word “Gaza.” The dancer, who wore a black ensemble matching the other dancers on stage, also jumped off the car and fled the stage while still displaying the flag. He waved it while standing on the ground near other dancers before security personnel tackled and detained him. He was then removed from the field and escorted from the stadium. New Orleans police told USA Today that as of Monday, the performer has not been formally arrested or charged.
The incident took place a day after three more Israeli hostages were freed from Hamas captivity in Gaza, as part of a ceasefire agreement in the war between the terrorist organization and Israel, and while a civil war rages on in Sudan.
The New Orleans Police Department said it “continues to work with NFL and the halftime production team to ascertain any affiliation the individual may have had with the halftime show.”
The entertainment company behind the halftime show, Roc Nation, said in a statement that “the act by the individual was neither planned nor part of the production and was never in any rehearsal.”
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CAIR Accuses Israel of Moving ‘Genocide’ Into West Bank
CAIR officials give press conference on the Israel-Hamas war. Photo: Kyle Mazza / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization that purports to advocate for Muslim Americans, has accused Israel of “moving the genocide from Gaza to the occupied West Bank,” lambasting the Jewish state for committing a litany of alleged human rights abuses in recent days.
In a Monday statement, CAIR accused Israel of displacing thousands of Palestinian civilians, destroying Palestinian neighborhoods, murdering a pregnant woman and her baby, and unjustly raiding a Palestinian bookstore.
“The radical Israeli government is clearly trying to move its genocidal campaign of slaughter and destruction from Gaza to the West Bank, where Israeli occupation forces are driving thousands of Palestinians from their homes, destroying entire neighborhoods, kidnapping hundreds, and randomly shooting others, including an eight-months pregnant woman and her baby,” CAIR said in its statement. “Indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu is a sociopath leading an army of war criminals, and our government must stop spending American taxpayer dollars on his latest campaign of murder, ethnic cleansing and destruction in the West Bank.”
In the 16 months following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s cross-border invasion of and massacre across southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, the Jewish state has ramped up operations to uproot terrorists in the West Bank.
These efforts intensified last month, when Israel launched a counterterrorism effort in the West Bank coined “Operation Iron Wall”” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops, gunships, and drones operated in Jenin to extract Palestinian terrorists from the town and its adjacent refugee camps. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that the operation was greenlit “on the directive of the security cabinet” with the aim of “bolstering security in Judea and Samaria [Israel’s preferred terminoloy for the West Bank].”
Jenin Mayor Mohammad Jarrar claimed that 150 buildings had been destroyed in the town as a result of the operation, suggesting that Israeli officials approved the operation with the intent of driving out the Palestinian population from the West Bank and annexing the territory.
Israel has long accused Iran of supplying armed factions in Jenin, particularly its refugee camp, with weapons. Palestinian terrorists have long been active in the city. Israel has been especially alarmed by the rise of the Jenin Brigades, a new armed group.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN body responsible for Palestinian refugees, alleged that Israel inflicted “forced displacement” on some 40,000 Palestinians. The Israeli government and research organizations have publicized findings in recent months showing numerous UNRWA-employed staff, including teachers and school principals, are active Hamas members, some of whom were directly involved in Hamas’s Oc t. 7 atrocities, while many others openly celebrated it.
CAIR’s latest accusation against Israel was not its first time stepping into controversy. In the 2000s, the organization was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing case. Politico noted in 2010 that “US District Court Judge Jorge Solis found that the government presented ‘ample evidence to establish the association’” of CAIR with Hamas.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), “some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas.” CAIR has disputed the accuracy of the ADL’s claim and asserted that it “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
CAIR leaders have also found themselves embroiled in further controversy since Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.
The head of CAIR, for example, said he was “happy” to witness Hamas’s rampage of rape, murder, and kidnapping of Israelis in what was the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
“The people of Gaza only decided to break the siege — the walls of the concentration camp — on Oct. 7,” CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad said in a speech during the American Muslims for Palestine convention in Chicago last November. “And yes, I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, which they were not allowed to walk in.”
CAIR has accused Israel of committing atrocities beyond Gaza and the West Bank. In December, the Islamic group said the Jewish state was guilty of “ethnic cleansing” in Syria following the recent collapse of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime, despite the limited nature of Israel’s military operations in the neighboring country.
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