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It Is in Israel’s Interest to Uphold Egypt’s Role in Gaza
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Photo: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office.
JNS.org – As could have been predicted well in advance, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in power in Egypt since the overthrow of Mohammed Mursi in July 2013—and elected in 2014 and again in 2018—met with no difficulty in his 2023 bid to secure a third term in office. He won 89.6% of the vote, against a number of nearly anonymous pseudo-candidates.
At least in theory, this should serve to re-establish the legitimacy of his rule, both at home and in the eyes of regional and international players. And yet, in early 2024 he faces a troubling combination of woes and challenges—above all on the economic front—that, over time, may amount to a threat to the social order and hence the regime’s stability.
The Egyptian economy has been plagued for more than a year by the consequences of a severe balance of payments problem, the collapse of the Egyptian pound—which has lost more than half its value against the U.S. dollar since the autumn of 2022—and a growing difficulty in abiding by the requirements of the International Monetary Fund, which has already led to a delay in the disbursement of the loan it was supposed to receive under the terms of a December 2022 agreement. As a result, Egypt’s credit rating was downgraded by Moody’s, and there are signs that investors, including some of Egypt’s wealthiest men, are shifting their activities to the more stable and comfortable environment of the Gulf monarchies.
One of the driving factors behind this crisis is the shortage of essential supplies and their rising prices—above all, due to the war in Ukraine, which until February 2022 was the main source of Egypt’s wheat imports. Over the years, the long-term damage inflicted upon Egyptian agriculture by the Aswan High Dam (which stops the fertile silt from being carried downstream by the river) has diminished crop yields: recently, as sugar cane crops dwindled, Egypt’s 155-year-old sugar factory in Minya was forced to close down.
Another factor is the steady increase in Egypt’s population, which has gone well past the one hundred million threshold in recent years—including, by some estimates, up to 9 million refugees, mainly from Sudan but also from war-torn Libya and Syria. The combined result is that Egypt has turned from a grain exporter into one of the world’s largest importers of wheat and cereals. This dependence is the main reason that the Egyptian national debt has doubled since 2016, despite reform efforts made by Sisi early on in his years in power, such as cutting fuel subsidies.
Recent events have dealt a further, double blow to Egypt’s sources of revenue. Before the war in Gaza broke out, the tourist industry—one of the pillars of the Egyptian economy and a vital source of foreign currency—was already showing signs of decline, enhanced by regional tensions and violence. The slow revival which followed the end of the COVID-19 crisis has once again been thrown into reverse. The second and more recent blow—although this was initially denied by the Suez Canal Authority—is the increasingly severe decline in income from passage through the canal due to the Yemen Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping. Many major shipping groups now prefer the much longer route around the Cape of Good Hope, rather than risk sailing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea.
The Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is another troubling issue casting a long shadow over Egypt’s economy—and in the eyes of some Egyptians, over the nation’s sheer survival (a somewhat exaggerated fear, since Ethiopia does not intend to stop the Blue Nile altogether). The repeated attempts to achieve a negotiated agreement over the rate at which the reservoir would be filled have failed, and after the collapse of meetings in Addis Ababa in December 2023, Egypt has reverted once again to thinly veiled threats warning that they will not tolerate a shortage of water for a nation of one hundred million people. In practice, however, Egypt’s military options are limited, not least because of the civil war currently raging in Sudan.
Egypt’s role in the Gaza war
At these difficult times, it is Egyptian involvement in Palestinian affairs—Sisi hosted Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas for a tripartite summit with King Abdullah of Jordan on Jan. 10, 2024—specifically in Gaza, that lends Egypt additional weight, regionally and internationally. This is due to the direct and effective levers it has on Hamas “on the ground” (or rather under it) as well as its straightforward dialog with the Israeli leadership. Both efforts are led by the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate, Maj. Gen. Abbas Kamel. Not for the first time, Egypt finds itself in fierce and practically open competition with Qatar, which hosts the Hamas leadership in Doha. Still, it has been the Egyptian efforts that have borne fruit so far with the hostage-prisoner swaps of November 2023.
Notably, Egypt avoids any semblance of formal legitimacy for Hamas operatives. While some of the movement’s leaders do reside in Cairo, Egypt does not grant them official status. This reflects Cairo’s continued commitment to the P.A. and Abbas as the sole representatives of the Palestinian people—another reason being Hamas’s affiliation with the hated Muslim Brotherhood, Sisi’s sworn enemies. In its 1988 covenant, Hamas explicitly defined itself openly as a branch of the Ikhwan—the Muslim Brotherhood—even if later, in their 2017 policy document, wary of Sisi’s hostility, they muted this aspect. As a result, it’s not the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs but rather Kamel’s organization that manages direct contacts with Hamas’s command structure in Gaza.
At the same time, Egypt’s control of the southern approaches to the Gaza Strip, and the crucial function of the Rafah Crossing, give Cairo unique leverage over Hamas. (There was widespread anger in Egypt over the false impression that the Israeli defense team in The Hague had accused Egypt of being responsible for the failure to arrange for the entry of humanitarian supplies to Gaza). Technical arrangements make it possible for Abbas Kamel to have direct—and occasionally blunt—conversations with Hamas leaders, including Yahya Sinwar, as well as to maintain at all times open channels with Israel.
All these aspects place Egypt in the lead: hence it was Cairo that put forward to both sides a plan for resolving the hostage situation that in its final phase would also lead to an end to the fighting (with Hamas surviving in Gaza). Israel at least gave it a hearing at the cabinet level; Palestinian Islamic Jihad and then Hamas rejected it out of hand. But Egypt’s efforts continue.
Egypt on Israel’s agenda
It continues to be in Israel’s interest for Sisi’s Egypt, rather than Qatar, to maintain the lead on the hostage situation, as both military pressure and indirect channels of communication are being used to generate progress once again. This preference should be shared with the Biden administration, which seems to be unduly beholden to the Qataris and at times insufficiently attentive to Egypt’s needs—and Egypt’s importance.
As Israel’s leadership has made all too clear, it will not accept an outline that means, in practice, an end to the fighting while Hamas retains its hold on power over at least parts of the Gaza Strip. There are reasons to believe that the Egyptians themselves, regardless of their formal position, share the understanding (as do others in the Arab world) that the future of the region may well depend on Israel’s ability to dismantle Hamas and take down a notch the muqawama (“resistance”) camp—led by Iran—and the myth of heroic achievements that has been built around it.
At the same time, Israel should invest consistent efforts at the highest level to sustain open channels of communication with Egypt, focusing on six key aspects:
Allaying fears that Israel intends to deport or induce masses of Gazans to migrate into Sinai. Due to repeated statements by senior members of Israel’s governing coalition, Cairo views this as a real threat, and the concerns expressed by Egypt are not a mere anti-Israeli propaganda ploy. Given the almost mystical attachment of Egyptians to “every grain of sand” of the country’s soil, this is a sensitive issue; it also raises the specter of renewed terror activity in northern Sinai, after years of bloody warfare against the “Sinai Province” of ISIL. An unambiguous Israeli commitment in this respect—even if it entailed political difficulties at home—would reassure Egypt and could provide legitimacy for its continued engagement with Israel on matters of importance to both countries—arguing that “this is what enabled us to prevent the deportations.”
Proceeding carefully and in close coordination with the Egyptian military as regards the achievement of full operational control of the so-called “Philadelphi Corridor.” Such control will ultimately serve the interests of Egypt as well, but the obvious sensitivity and the need to avoid friction requires further work to secure mutual understanding. Israel after all gave its consent again and again in the last decade to the deployment of significant Egyptian forces in Sinai, well above the levels allowed under the Military Annex of the 1979 Peace Treaty. It is thus entitled to a similar Egyptian recognition of the IDF’s operational needs.
Bringing Egypt into the inner circle of consultations on “the Day After” in Gaza, after the Americans but ahead of others—once Israel and the Biden administration engage in an orderly discussion of options and modalities, looking toward the future. In any strategic design chosen, Egypt is bound to play a role given its geographical position and its vital interests—although neither Egypt nor Israel are planning to rule Gaza directly by military force, as Egypt did from 1948 to 1967 and Israel did briefly in 1956 and again from 1967 to 2005.
Offering Egypt a vision whereby northern Sinai, which saw—as mentioned above—intensive warfare between the regime and ISIL, can become a vital logistical and economic hinterland for the reconstruction effort in Gaza, with significant benefits for all.
Building upon this option, and with a wider regional view, Israel should promote the economic and energetic integration of Northern Sinai, and of Egypt more generally, with other partners in the Eastern Mediterranean, including an improved port at al-Arish. Greece and Cyprus could join Israel and Egypt to create a new transport architecture that could also assist Gaza in “the Day After.”
Amid all this, Israel and its friends should systematically work to improve Egypt’s standing in the American (and allied) public domain, in Congress, and with key administration figures—seeking to underline the importance of Egypt’s role and the need to find solutions for its present difficulties, while neutralizing as much as possible the counter-pressures by “progressives” who remain focused on the iniquities of Sisi’s regime.
Originally published by The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.
The post It Is in Israel’s Interest to Uphold Egypt’s Role in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Meta Boots Anti-Zionist Columbia University Group From Instagram
Pro-Hamas Columbia University students march in front of pro-Israel demonstrators on Oct. 7, 2024, the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel. Photo: Roy De La Cruz via Reuters Connect
Meta Platforms, Inc. has banned the infamous Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) anti-Zionist student group from its platforms, a decision that the company says is irrevocable.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD is responsible for spreading pro-Hamas propaganda, assaulting Jewish students, and disrupting academic study at Columbia with unauthorized demonstrations and property destruction. Its behavior, among other factors, drove the Trump administration’s cancellation in March of $400 million in federal contracts and grants awarded to Columbia.
CUAD first reported that Meta shuttered its Instagram account on Monday, denouncing the measure as being part of “a long and concerted effort from corporations and imperial powers to erase the Palestinian people.” Meta later justified the decision to Jewish Insider, explaining that CUAD had forced the company’s hand by ceaselessly transgressing the platform’s terms of use of agreement. Meta forbids groups which advocate violence to operate on Instagram, and CUAD has used its account to call for toppling the Israeli and US governments. Additionally, its Instagram account has been essential for promoting unlawful demonstrations CUAD continues to hold at Columbia University and for sharing resources that have helped its collaborators avoid punishment.
Meta told Jewish Insider that the group won’t be allowed back.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, CUAD’s activities have been described as a threat to the civil rights and security of Jewish Columbia University students.
Last April, CUAD members commandeered a section of campus and, after declaring it a “liberated zone,” lit flares and chanted pro-Hamas and anti-American slogans. When the New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrived to disperse the unlawful gathering, hundreds of CUAD members and their affiliates reportedly amassed around them to prevent the restoration of order. During ensuing clashes with law enforcement, one student screamed “Yes, we’re all Hamas, pig!” while others shouted, “Long live Hamas!” and filmed themselves praising the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the US-designated terrorist group.
In September, during the university’s convocation ceremony, the group distributed a pamphlet which called on students to join the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s movement to destroy Israel. Several sections of the document were explicitly Islamist, invoking the name of “Allah, the most gracious” and referring to Hamas as the “Islamic Resistance Movement.” Proclaiming, “Glory to Gaza that gave hope to the oppressed, that humiliated the ‘invincible’ Zionist army,” it said its purpose was to build an army of Muslims worldwide.
In February, CUAD committed infrastructural sabotage by flooding the toilets of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) with concrete. Numerous reports indicate the attack may have been the premeditated result of planning sessions which took place many months ago at an event held by Alpha Delta Phi (ADP) — a literary society, according to the Washington Free Beacon. During the event, the Free Beacon reported, ADP distributed literature dedicated to “aspiring revolutionaries” who wish to commit seditious acts.
Following two occupations of administrative buildings at Barnard College, Laura Rosenbury, the school’s president, denounced the group as a paranoid hate-organization.
“They [CUAD] operate in the shadows, hiding behind masks and Instagram posts with Molotov cocktails aimed at Barnard buildings, antisemitic tropes about wealth, influence, and ‘Zionist billionaires,’ and calls for violence and disruption at any cost,” Rosenbury wrote in an op-ed published by The Chronicle of Higher Education. “They claim Columbia University’s name, but the truth is, because their members wear masks, no one really knows whose interests they serve.”
Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Meta Boots Anti-Zionist Columbia University Group From Instagram first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Tlaib Set to Headline Terrorist-Connected Palestinian Event in New Jersey
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) speaking at a press conference at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, March 11, 2025. Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) is set to headline a conference that is also hosting a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an internationally designated terrorist organization, according to documents obtained by The Algemeiner.
The Palestinian American Community Center (PACC) in New Jersey will hold its annual conference, titled “Grounded in Action: Exploring the Power of the Palestinian Diaspora,” from Thursday through Sunday. Wisam Rafeedie, a self-admitted member of the PFLP, will address the conference virtually on the 4th day of the event.
According to PACC’s website, the conference “is a call to recommit ourselves to amplifying and supporting the Palestinian voices and advocates who have long been at the forefront of our struggle.” PACC also calls on members of the Palestinian diaspora “to leverage our unique positions and power” to “push for meaningful action.””
Tlaib is scheduled to headline the event’s “Youth Day,” in which she will host a reading and signing for her new children’s book, Mama in Congress, alongside her son Adam Tlaib. According to Harper Collins, the book’s publisher, Mama in Congress will chronicle Tlaib’s journey from Detroit to the halls of the federal government. The book will also detail Tlaib’s supposed efforts in working toward “justice for all” in Congress.
The conference will include several workshops educating attendees on “resistance,” “solidarity,” and “collective struggle.” The event will also feature a session stressing the importance of “centering Palestinian prisoners.”
This is not the first time that Tlaib has come under scrutiny for attending a pro-Palestinian conference tied to terrorists. Last May, Tlaib came under fire for speaking at the “The People’s Conference for Palestine,” which also hosted Rafeedie among other individuals connected to terrorist groups. During that event, Rafeedie praised Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza and murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages on Oct. 7, 2023, as a “resistance” against Israel. He defended and downplayed Hamas’s atrocities, saying that “Zionists lie like they breathe.”
“This is not a struggle between Hamas and Israel. Hamas is part of the resistance of the Palestinian people. The core issue is between the Palestinian people and the project of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing,” Rafeedie said.
Rafeedie also called for the complete destruction of Israel and the replacement of the Jewish state with a “democratic” Palestine.
“There is no longer a place for the two-state solution for any Palestinian. The only solution is one democratic Palestinian state on all Palestinian land, which will end the Zionist project in Palestine,” Rafeedie continued.
Tlaib, the first Palestinian American woman elected to the US Congress, has positioned herself as a fierce and outspoken critic of Israel. Since entering office, Tlaib has repeatedly accused the Jewish state of implementing an “apartheid” regime in the West Bank and turning Gaza into an “open-air prison.”
In the year following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Tlaib has sharpened her condemnations of the Jewish state. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, she hesitated to release an official statement acknowledging the mass slaughter, abductions, and rapes perpetrated by Hamas. Less than two weeks after the invasion, Tlaib introduced a “ceasefire” resolution between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group. In November 2023, the House of Representatives voted to censure Tlaib over her anti-Israel rhetoric.
The progressive firebrand has also condemned Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza, accusing the Jewish state of committing a full-scale “genocide” against the civilians of the enclave. She has also peddled the unsubstantiated claim that Israel has purposefully inflicted mass starvation against Palestinian civilians and urged the Biden administration when it was in power to impose an arms embargo on Israel. Simmering with anger over the Biden administration’s support for Israel, she refused to endorse former Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed presidential bid.
Tlaib’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The post Tlaib Set to Headline Terrorist-Connected Palestinian Event in New Jersey first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Driver Charged for Brooklyn Car Crash Killing Jewish Family Has History of Claiming CIA Follows Her
An overturned auto in a car crash flipped on its roof landing on a mother and her three children, killing two children on March 29, 2025, in Brooklyn, New York. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
A Brooklyn woman who was charged for a car crash on Saturday that killed a Jewish woman and her two young daughters has alleged in the past on social media that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is following her, a claim she also made to first responders after the fatal accident.
Miriam Yarimi, 32, is facing multiple charges, including three counts of second-degree manslaughter, three counts of criminal negligent homicide, and four counts of second-degree assault. Yarimi — a Brooklyn resident and wigmaker who is also a Jewish mother herself – was transported to NYU Langone Hospital in Brooklyn in stable condition. She was then moved to the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital, according to reports.
The car crash killed Natasha Saada, 32, and her daughters – 8-year-old Diana and 6-year-old Deborah. Saada’s son Philip, 4, was injured in the crash and hospitalized at Maimonides Medical Center in Borough Park in critical condition. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) arrested Yarimi, a single mother who has a young daughter, and she is awaiting arraignment in connection to the crash that took place Saturday afternoon at an intersection on Ocean Parkway off Quentin Road in Midwood. Police said she was driving with a suspended license at the time of the crash.
“This was a horrific tragedy caused by someone who shouldn’t have been on the road,” said Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch. “A mother and two young children killed, another child fighting for his life, a family and a neighborhood devastated in an instant. The NYPD sends its condolences to the family of the victims.”
Yarimi, who shares custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, reportedly told first responders with the Jewish-led volunteer ambulance service Hatzalah that she was “possessed” and that she believes the CIA was pursing her.
She has made similar claims about the CIA many times on Instagram, a former customer of hers told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. The source, who wishes to remain anonymous, purchased a wig from Yarimi several years ago and has been following her on social media for a number of years. Yarimi has 16,000 followers on Instagram and screenshots of her since-deleted posts, obtained by The Algemeiner, confirm she previously believed that the CIA is tracking her.
“It’s very convenient to plead insanity. But it’s not new. She is actually insane. This is [an] old topic,” the former client told The Algemeiner. “She thinks that she’s been followed by CIA for a long, long time already. She truly believes that CIA is spying on her … But only people who follow her [on social media] and know her for a long time would know this. She’s sick.”
In one since-deleted Instagram post, Yarimi wrote in part about the CIA: “They have control of EVERYONE here in this world BESIDES ME … when I went to Miami, it all clicked … once they knew that I knew, they followed me around the hotel, dressed up as young parents with a doona [stroller] and disco outfits like I was stupid and didn’t know who they were … if anything they stuck out like glue.”
“It was the government, blackjack, and the CIA who manipulated everyone and took control of everyone’s mind but because I was the catalyst and the sacrificial lamb so they did their best to break me,” she wrote in a separate post that has also been deleted. “They experimented (abused) me and that’s when they cloned my daughter and I so when I die, they could reinsert me into the crowd and make me into another person.”
Yarimi previously had a highlight on her Instagram page where she talked about demons and the CIA, but it has since been deleted, her former customer told The Algemeiner. Yarimi also wrote on her Instagram Story once that she believes Hollywood is trying to clone people to look like her.
“Why do you think most of the girls in Hollywood have similar features to me like Rita Ora & Jane the Virgin etc,” Yarimi once wrote on Instagram, as seen in a screenshot shared with The Algemeiner. “Wake up, this is not just happening in Hollywood. This is happening right here in the Jewish community in Brooklyn.”
Not long after she uploaded the Instagram posts, Yarimi was admitted to a psychiatric ward and when she returned to social media, she spoke about the experience, the source told The Algemeiner.
“After the above posts she was locked up for two weeks in a psych ward. She’s very public. She went live when paramedics broke into her house and took her. She came back online two weeks later and spoke about her psych ward experience,” Yarimi’s follower said. “And it was saved in her [Instagram] highlights as well … It was horrible.”
The Algemeiner has seen a copy of Yarimi’s Instagram video that shows police drag her out of bed after she refused their orders to get up by herself. In the clip, three police officers are seen in her bedroom and a fourth is standing by the doorway.
Another longtime Instagram follower of Yamini’s described her as “delusional” when speaking to The Algemeiner, and confirmed that Yamini has spoken online repeatedly in the past about how she believes the CIA is tracking her.
In December 2024, Yarimi won a $2 million settlement from the city of New York after she filed a lawsuit claiming that former NYPD Officer George Mastrokostas repeatedly raped her for several years after falsely arresting her.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Deputy Chief Richie Taylor attended the funeral for Saada and her daughters on Sunday in Brooklyn before their bodies were flown to Israel for burial. Saada is survived by her husband, Sidney Saada, her sons Philip and Jacob, her parents and three siblings. Adams called the crash “a tragic accident of a Shakespearean proportion.”
“A mother going for a simple stroll on a sunny day was struck and killed. As we pray for their families and this entire community, the city mourns this loss,” he added.
Police said Yarimi was driving a blue Audi A3 sedan when she rear-ended a 2023 silver Toyota Camry with TLC plates that was carrying four passengers – a mother and three children. NYPD Commissioner Tisch said the force of the crash caused the Toyota Camry to be pushed aside, while the Audi moved forward, crashing into Saada and her children as they were crossing the street before the car overturned. Saada and her two daughters were pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the Toyota Camry, a 62-year-old man, was hospitalized in stable condition. The four passengers inside his car sustained minor injuries and were also hospitalized, according to Tisch.
Yarimi’s car had 99 parking and camera violations between August 2023 and March 2025, including 21 speed camera tickets and five red light tickets, Eyewitness News ABC 7 reported, citing a website that tracks vehicle violations using city data. She had nearly $10,500 in fines and a car with the same license plate as Yarimi’s still has $1,345 in unpaid fines, the news outlet also revealed.
The post Driver Charged for Brooklyn Car Crash Killing Jewish Family Has History of Claiming CIA Follows Her first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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