Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

From a strategic perspective, it has been a profoundly bad week for Israel, with a sharp deterioration in relations with both Egypt and Turkey – and, as a consequence, a profoundly bad week for those hoping to avoid a clash between Israel and Iran.

On the Egyptian front, a $2.5bn gas-supply deal signed between Egypt and Israel in 2005 and intended to run for 15 years was terminated by Egypt last Thursday (19 April), ostensibly on the grounds of arrears in payments by Israel.  From Israel’s point of view, however, the gas supply has been regularly interrupted since the 2010 Egyptian revolution, with the Sinai pipeline that carries the fuel being bombed 14 times.  Before the interruption in supplies, Egypt was providing Israel with 40% of its natural gas needs, but since the attacks began Israeli electricity prices have increased by 20%.  It is possible that the cancellation is intended to pressure Israel into calling off the lawsuit for compensation of $8bn over Egyptian failure to provide gas as promised, and it is possible that it is temporary.  This theory agrees with the announcement by diplomatic officials in Jerusalem that the decision stemmed from a ‘business dispute’.  But business dispute or not, it has rapidly become intensely political.

Initially Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tried to play down the significance of the deal cancellation, saying “We don’t see this cut-off of the gas as something that is born out of political developments.  It’s actually a business dispute between the Israeli company and the Egyptian company.”  Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman tried to be equally calm on the surface.  But these reactions only served to emphasize how important good relations with Egypt are to Israel.

Israel’s opposition leader Shaul Mofaz described the cancellation as a violation of the economic part of the Camp David accords and as presaging an unprecedented crisis.  According to Israel Radio, Mofaz called it a "blatant infringement of the peace treaty".  On 22 April, Israel’s finance ministry called the move “a dangerous precedent that casts clouds over the peace agreements and the atmosphere of peace between Egypt and Israel.”

And although Lieberman tried to play down the significance of the cancellation, he had been quoted on 22 April by the Israeli newspaper Maariv as having sent a letter to Netanyahu saying that Egypt is more of a threat to Israel than Iran.  He added that the Egyptian forces that Israel had allowed Egypt to move into the Sinai (which is demilitarized under the terms of the Camp David accords) were ineffective against the terrorist threat.

This prompted Egypt’s de facto leader Field Marshall Mohamed Hussein Tantawi to respond by warning that his country would ‘break the legs’ of those threatening its border.  Addressing troops in the Sinai Peninsula during annual field exercises, Tantawi said:  “Our borders, especially the northeast ones, are inflamed. We do not attack neighbouring countries but will defend our territory.  We will break the legs of any trying to attack us or come near the borders.  Therefore our forces must be on alert and constant combat readiness.”

On 23 April, a former senior leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who is a leading candidate in Egypt's presidential elections, Abd-al-Munim Abu-al-Futuh, welcomed the abrogation of the agreement, saying: “It's the will of the Egyptian people.”  Another presidential candidate, Amr Musa, a former head of the Arab League and ex-foreign minister, said ending it was “a natural step in light of information related to corruption which tarnished this deal.”  Leftwing Nasserite candidate Hamdin Sabbahi tweeted: "I hail the decision to stop exporting Egyptian gas to the Zionist entity. We hope the implementation of the decision will continue out of respect for the will of the people and the judiciary's rulings, and in order to protect our national wealth."

The Islamist-dominated parliament issued a statement through the speaker Saad al-Katatni saying it “salutes the decision to stop exporting gas to the Zionist entity...[which] reflected the will of all Egyptians”.  And on 24 April, Abdelbari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the London-based pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi, wrote: "Whether the Egyptian authorities' decision to end gas exports to Israel is political or commercial in nature, it is a brave decision that reflects a major change in post-revolutionary Egypt’s attitude towards relations with Israel and normalized economic ties with it."  He added that the decision may be the prelude to the cancelation of the “humiliating” Camp David accords.  Atwan also agrees with Lieberman’s statement that Egypt is more dangerous than Iran, saying: “It was Egypt that led all the Arab states’ wars against Israel...”

Meanwhile, on the Turkish front, during a Nato meeting in Brussels last week Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Ankara would not allow Israel to take part in 20-21 May Nato summit in Chicago as part of Nato’s Partnership Cooperation Menu programme.  An anonymous senior Turkish official elaborated on the move by saying: “We are blocking Israel in many areas.  We avoid contact with Israel in any international meeting.”

No doubt huge pressure is being brought to bear on Turkey to rescind this decision.  It has been reported, for instance, that some ministers of Israeli-friendly Nato members have gone as far as to threaten to veto the participation of Egypt, Mauritania, Algeria, Morocco, and other partner countries in the Mediterranean Dialogue if Turkey does not recant on Israel.

However, the damage has already been done, and it is twofold.  First, Turkey has reconfirmed its hostility to Israel as a time when Israel is for the first time since 1979 contemplating the possibility of a military threat from the south.  Secondly, Turkey has further undermined the idea that Israel could rely for its security, as some in the diplomatic community argue, on Nato.  The message that Israel will once again take from this is that, in extremis, it can rely only upon itself.

This will not be a new realization for Israel as it is a point that Netanyahu constantly makes.  But it will have reinforced Netanyahu’s argument, and it will have strengthened the case of those who argue that Iran cannot be allowed to buy sufficient time to develop and protect its nuclear programme in a way that puts it beyond Israel’s capabilities to destroy or greatly degrade.

This key point about Iran crossing into ‘the zone of immunity’ was once again made by Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Benny Gantz in an interview with Haaretz published on 25 April.  Gantz chooses his words carefully, but there was little doubt about what he meant when he said: “If [Iran’s] supreme religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wants, he will advance it to the acquisition of a nuclear bomb, but the decision must first be taken.  It will happen if Khamenei judges that he is invulnerable to a response."