How to End the War in Gaza: What an Egypt-Brokered Cease-Fire Should Look Like

By Ehud Yaari

Israel and Hamas are once again locked in a shooting war. Each day, hundreds of missiles fly toward Israeli cities and villages. Meanwhile, the Israeli Air Force has been systematically pounding the Gaza Strip, carrying out no less than 1000 strikes on Hamas military targets in the last several days. As indirect negotiations over a cease-fire progress at this moment, with active U.S. involvement, it is time to chart a course to end this round of hostilities.

Israel has set fairly modest goals for its campaign, dubbed Operation Pillar of Defense. It does not seek to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza, as it has sought in the past, nor does it want to bring about the total collapse of Hamas' military wing. As statements from senior Israeli officials indicate, the objective is a long-term cease-fire along the Israel-Gaza border. Hamas, for its part, has one objective: to stay on its feet. It is trying to inflict maximum damage and casualties in order to prove that Israel's military superiority alone will not force it to back down. With the right kind of a no-victors formula, sponsored by the United States and other international players, a deal can be reached to ensure a long-term calm.

Previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas, including the 2009 war, have been resolved, with Egyptian faciliation, through a simple formula: each side commits to refrain from opening fire as long as its adversary does the same. But these calm periods -- or tahdia, as they are called in Arabic -- have historically not lasted very long. Hamas has increasingly allowed other heavily armed terrorist groups in Gaza, such as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to launch attacks on Israel. And in the past few months, despite Egyptian warnings, Hamas has targeted Israeli soldiers and military outposts along the border, too.

This time, ending the conflict and restoring stability will require a different type of arrangement. The cease-fire agreement should involve other parties and contain additional checks on violence. It will have the best chance of lasting if it is primarily based on an Israeli-Egyptian agreement, supported by the United States and, possibly, by the European Union. It will be up to Hamas to adhere to the terms.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood-led government has showered Hamas with statements of solidarity, and its prime minister made an unprecedented visit to Gaza on the second day of the Israeli operation. But what Cairo ultimately wants is a speedy cease-fire. Despite its support for Hamas, the new Egyptian regime is reluctant to grant the group a defense guarantee or to open the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi underscored this on Friday, saying, "We don't want a war now."

Egypt knows well that ongoing support for Hamas' shelling of Israeli civilians would jeopardize the billions of dollars in international aid that its bankrupt treasury depends on -- $450 million annually from the United States, $4.3 billion annually from the IMF, and $6.3 billion annually from the EU's development bank. This explains why, despite Cairo's venomous anti-Israeli rhetoric over the past several days, Egypt did not take any serious actions beyond recalling its newly accredited ambassador from Tel Aviv. Furthermore, the Egyptian military and intelligence services are hesitant to provoke a confrontation with Israel.

Given Egypt's adversity to conflict, Egypt and Israel should strive to reach an understanding about Gaza. In doing so, they would reaffirm the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty for the post-Arab Spring era. Such an Egyptian-Israeli understanding could include several components. 
First, Egypt should broker the Israel-Hamas cease-fire at the highest political levels, rather than through behind-the-scenes talks organized by its General Intelligence Directorate. That in itself would constitute a departure from the Morsi administration's policy of putting a pause on normalization with Israel and preventing any contact with the country other than for military or intelligence cooperation. Egypt faces a choice: launching a high-level political dialogue with the Israel to obtain the cease-fire that it desires, or seeing the continuation of violence in Gaza. An Egyptian refusal to lead the political process should raise red flags in Washington.

Second, since most of the weapons in Gaza were trafficked through Egyptian territory, Cairo should agree to help prevent the reconstruction of Hamas' arsenal. For years now, Egypt has been turning a blind eye to smuggling in the Sinai Peninsula and tolerating the operation of 1200 tunnels that run underneath the Egypt-Gaza frontier. Cairo could try to shut down the tunnels and intercept arms shipments that come through the Suez Canal. Egypt, which is already domestically unstable, has every reason to prevent renewed violence by counteracting the remilitarization of Hamas and its allies.

Any agreement should also address the growing lawlessness in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, where attacks against Israel and even sometimes against Egyptian security personnel have become regular occurrences. Egypt's Operation Eagle, aimed at cracking down on insurgents there, has so far failed to dismantle the widespread terrorist infrastructure in the area. (Hamas even twice took the liberty of testing its long-range Fajr-5 missiles by firing them into the Sinai desert.) Since a number of Salafi jihadist organizations have branches in both Gaza and Sinai, for all practical purposes the peninsula is an extension of the Gaza front.

Egypt and Israel need to ensure that when the cease-fire takes hold in Gaza, terror operations do not simply pick up and move south to Sinai. Despite restrictions on Egyptian military deployments in the area, which stem from the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, Israel and Egypt can work through the decade-old Agreed Activities Mechanism to allow Egyptian units to take up positions in the eastern Sinai. Israel has already consented to let Egypt introduce a mechanized brigade and commando battalions in the area. Israel could also approve the deployment of whatever Egyptian troops are necessary -- save tanks and antitank weapons -- to uproot the terrorist safe havens. Egypt won't just be doing Israel's dirty work; Cairo knows that these organizations might eventually target the Suez Canal as well.

A cease-fire agreement could also address the sensitive and important issue of border crossings. Egypt might get Israeli consent to open the Rafah terminal on its border with Gaza, not only for passenger traffic but also for trade. This could mean that Gaza would get its fuel and other commodities from Egypt, while Israel would continue to supply electricity. Egyptian ports could begin to handle the flow of goods in and out of Gaza, and Israel would gradually phase out the commercial activities that pass through the six terminals it now operates into Gaza. The move would signal the completion of Israel's 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip, slowly handing over responsibility for the area's economic needs to the Egyptian government. Egypt, which already perceives itself as a patron of Hamas, would see this situation favorably because it would grant Cairo more influence over the group. And Hamas is already pleading for this type of arrangement, seeking to end its economic dependence on Israeli goodwill.

Given its leverage over Egypt, Washington has a role to play in bringing about such a comprehensive cease-fire -- and in keeping it in place. The Obama administration should inform Morsi that, in return for the huge financial support Egypt gets from the United States, it must start ensuring stability in the region, create a dialogue with Israel that is not restricted to security personnel, prevent Egyptian territory from becoming a safe haven for weapons smugglers, and convince Hamas militants to stop lobbing missiles into Israeli towns and villages.

Reaching such a deal in the depths of a conflict will not be easy. But if the aim is anything more than a temporary break from fighting, it's a deal worth striving for.  

EHUD YAARI is a Lafer International Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a Middle East commentator for Channel 2 news in Israel.

This article was originally published on Foreign Affairs and was reprinted with the permission of the author. 

Egyptian Copts and the Arab Spring: A Revolution Lacking Relief

by Natalie Milstein

The Coptic Church comprises about ten percent of Egypt’s population and is the largest Christian community in the Middle East. However, 1.5 million Egyptian Copts now call North America, Australia, Europe and Sudan their new home. Why are the Copts leaving their ancestral homeland and will the Arab Spring bring any respite for those who remain in Egypt? 

The Coptic congregation traces its roots to the Apostle Mark, who founded the Church in Alexandria during the expansion of Christianity in the 1st century. Islam conquered the region in the 7th century making Egypt majority Muslim. Today there is no linguistic or ethnic difference between Coptic and Muslim Egyptians and both religious denominations contributed tremendously to the growth of Egyptian civil identity and politics.

In 1919, the Copts and the Muslims joined forces to overthrow the British occupation. To symbolize national unity, Coptic priests rallied support in mosques, including in renowned Al-Azhar institutions, while Imams mobilized the Christians in churches. And again in 2011, Christians and Muslims allied in opposition to Hosni Mubarak’s regime.

However, the revolution that brought down the dictator in favor of civil liberties only further entrenched disparity between the Christian and Muslim communities of Egypt. Though some argue that the relationship between the two religions has always been inherently imbalanced, a demarcated shift appeared with Gamal Abdel Nasser’s government. A Copt and a former ambassador to Egypt, Wahib El-Miniawy, asserts that deep-seated Muslim animosity towards Christians begins in elementary schools. He attributes such hateful curriculum to the ignorance of the education minister that Nasser first appointed.  

Another schism emerged after the deterioration of the relations between President Anwar Sadat and Coptic Pope Shenouda III in the 1970s; the pope saw that the regime lacked proper channels of political expression and demands for the Copts and encouraged that they turn to the Church to meet their needs. Sporadic Muslim attacks on the Christian communities, often unstopped by the army, led to further Coptic withdrawal into isolation.

Coptic emigrants living in the diaspora began meeting annually in 2004 to demand equality for all citizens, indiscriminate of religion. Year after year they call for more equality in promotions in academia, the state bureaucracy, the police, the military and the public sector. They implore the Egyptian administration to remove sectarian affiliation from government-issued documents where religion is irrelevant. Such conferences evoke ire from locals in Egypt, who perceive the Copts as a fifth column, supported by foreign powers to interfere in Egypt’s domestic affairs.

Millions of Copts partook in the Arab Spring in hopes of removing Mubarak and electing a stable, equitable democracy that would proffer Coptic Egyptians with the same civil liberties as their Muslim neighbors and temper the rise in the tide of Islamism. They waited with bated breath to see how the election of Muslim Brotherhood candidate Muhammad Morsi would affect the Coptic Church and community.

Though he pledged to the acting pope Anba Bakhomious that he would not permit a condescending relationship between Muslims and Christians, his skirmish with the Supreme Constitutional Court over the dissolution of Parliament is not a promising indication for the Coptic congregation.

Added to a recent spate of Copt arrests for defaming Islam—in the case of Naguib Sawiris, Albert Saber, and others—the “free and fair” elections that placed Morsi in the presidency do not appear to be so free and fair. Only in an Egypt where freedom of expression is cherished can the Copts venture out of their isolation to be integrated members of society. But the current of Islamism, strengthened by the ballot box, may be too strong a competitor for the withdrawn Coptic community. 

How to Turn Crisis Into Diplomatic Promise in Gaza

By Steven L. Spiegel

The crisis over Gaza was triggered by a Hamas escalation of missile attacks against Israel, which resulted in Israeli retaliation, the killing of Ahmed Jabari -- the Hamas military chief, and the destruction from the air of major Hamas missile emplacements. The question now is how this escalation will end.

Since the Hamas attacks have not stopped, including the first missile over Tel Aviv since Saddam Hussein attacked Israel at the outset of the 1991 Gulf War, Israel is preparing for a ground attack. This leaves 2-3 days for a ceasefire to be reinstated. The U.S. will not deal directly with Hamas due to its having been designated a terrorist organization, so the only country that is capable of arranging a ceasefire is Egypt. President Morsi may well be reluctant to do so given his new Islamist government and the opposition to aiding Israel in any way by much of the Egyptian population. The challenge for the US is therefore to convince the Egyptian President to paint mediation as a way of saving Hamas and Gaza, and to move forward to achieve a ceasefire if Hamas will go along before Israel proceeds further.

If the Israelis do attack, they will have three options: reoccupy Gaza and remove Hamas, presumably returning the area to Palestinian Authority control; attempt to weaken Hamas by a massive assault as was pursued in Operation Cast Lead (Dec. 2008 to Jan. 2009), without completely taking over Gaza; or a peripheral strategy of a limited nature which would attack Hamas installations outside populated areas. Unless Hamas is removed, the other two approaches of attack will likely look toward repeated similar confrontations between Israel and Hamas in the years ahead. The key question will then be the degree of destruction and the political fallout, depending on the military tactics Israel uses each time, and the effectiveness of Hamas missiles.

But in addition to counting casualties on both sides, and assessing the relative effectiveness of each in achieving its aims, this time the Middle East is much more complicated in the wake of the Arab Spring. A new Egyptian Islamist government may well distance itself from Israel in dramatic ways. Jordan in is the midst of political crisis. Israel has much to lose from deteriorating relations with both Arab states with which it has peace treaties. And while Hezbollah has acquired thousands of weapons since it last confronted Israel in 2006, it is very unlikely that it would risk its hard-won gains in Lebanon by an attack on Israel, especially given the civil war in Syria and the need for those missiles as a possible retaliation should Israel attack Iran. But it could attack, and Israel can't ignore Hezbollah either. There are increasing dangers as the hostilities continue.

The Israelis also must face the past repeated sequence of its wars since 1982, when the first Lebanon-Israel war was waged. In each of these cases, Israel gained early, achieving many if its initial objectives, but then the problem of how to complete the remaining objectives and end the war satisfactorily emerged, and in the process Israel progressively began to suffer in world opinion and at home as it inflicted and suffered increasing casualties. The early military gains were slowly challenged by political and diplomatic difficulties that robbed Israel of its clear victories. The longer the Gaza war ensues the more challenges Israel will face.

But in this case Hamas and the other Islamist and radical organizations in Gaza also face severe challenges. The Netanyahu government, with elections in late January, may have an incentive to end the suffering of the Israeli people once and for all, even if the cost is high. If this is the case, Hamas could either suffer major losses or even be removed from power in Gaza. And Hamas has been doing well politically recently against its Palestinian foe, Fatah, led by Mahmoud Abbas. The latter's imminent bid to the United Nations for an observer state non-member status will almost certainly be successful, and will diminish Hamas' standing. Indeed, Hamas may well have increased its attacks on Israel to diminish Fatah at a critical moment.

Meanwhile, the crisis creates a new dilemma for the U.S., Israel, and some Europeans: They oppose the Palestinian Authority application because it will unilaterally change the dynamic of the peace process to the extent it still has potential, and the bid will likely permit the Palestinians to confront Israelis in various UN bodies such as the International Criminal Court. But Hamas would lose as a consequence of the PA application.

All of these mind-boggling complexities may offer the U.S. a possible opportunity for a diplomatic coup. Continue to back Israel solidly, coax Egypt's president to push for a ceasefire, and make a side deal with Abu Mazen to increase economic assistance to his Palestinian Authority in exchange for delaying his UN bid. After all, the UN application will be less necessary if Hamas suffers a major defeat at the hands of Israel. And the bid may be less appropriate at a time of turmoil initiated by the Israeli-Hamas confrontation. In this way a seeming political hurricane could be transformed into a new playing field offering President Obama a chance to move forward toward increasing stability in a region now seemingly escalating toward major disaster. Such an approach is certainly worth a try.

Teetering but not falling into chaos: Lebanon and the conflict in Syria

By Eric Bordenkircher

For almost a year now, there has been a chorus of voices claiming that the fighting in Syria is beginning to ignite civil conflict in Lebanon. Those voices were heard again two Fridays ago after a car bomb killed a senior Lebanese security official and two civilians. Some media reports claim that the latest act of violence is pushing Lebanon’s tenuous multi-religious state over a precipice and into sectarian conflict, reminiscent of its 15-year bloody civil war. But these interpretations are incorrect. Lebanon’s past will not rear its ugly head again. Violent episodes and tensions between Lebanon’s religious communities are not new; even prior to the Arab Spring they had been periodically occurring. This sporadic violence will continue in the near future, particularly in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli. But the car bombing two weeks ago and the situation in Syria will not trigger the outbreak of another civil war.

What the world is witnessing today with the periodic violence and tensions in Lebanon is the manifestation of the still present but weakening Syrian veto in Lebanese affairs. However this weakened veto has not allowed Syria’s opponents to run the table. They cannot. This is largely attributable to the fragmentation in the Sunni political leadership of Lebanon. These two somewhat concurrent developments have ultimately prevented the outbreak of another civil war.

Syria has always loomed large in Lebanese affairs. With shared borders and Syrian beliefs that Lebanon was unjustly separated from the Syrian nation, Syrian regimes have historically held the ability to prevent or alter developments — hold veto power— in Lebanese affairs. This veto power in Lebanese politics has been demonstrated by the closure of its border crossings with Lebanon in the 1950s and 60s, the infiltration of Syrian-affiliated Palestinian fighters in the late 1960s and 1970s, to its outright military occupation of Lebanon from 1976-2005. Beginning with the Syrian military withdrawal in 2005, the Syrian veto in Lebanese affairs has waned, ceding ground to the Saudi/Qatari/American veto. No longer able to manipulate most developments inside Lebanon to suit their immediate interests, parity between the Saudi/Qatari/American veto and the Syrian/Iranian veto has been established. As a result, the current situation or status quo will not change. This parity and the maintenance of the status quo will persist unless the Asad regime falls.

If the car bombing was indeed an act of Syria and/or its proxies, it further demonstrates that Syria still has the ability to wager its veto in Lebanese affairs and send a message to its regional enemies that its power and reach has not yet been extinguished. However the waning Syrian veto power in Lebanese affairs only provides half the story to Lebanon’s current predicament of periodic violence but no civil war. The other variable in the equation that prevents the exploitation of the weakened Syrian veto power is the fragmentation in the leadership of Lebanon’s Sunni community.

The political climate of Lebanon’s Sunni confession is increasingly in a state of flux. Following the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic al-Hariri in 2005, Hariri’s Future Movement was able to hold a virtual monopoly over Sunni politics. This monopoly began to erode in the parliamentary elections of 2010, the establishment of current Prime Minister Najib Miqati’s government in 2011 and is now being challenged further by more conservative political elements in Akkar, Tripoli, and Saida. While political diversity within confessions is often embraced, in Lebanon it is not always a blessing, especially if you want to change the status quo.

In the Lebanese political system, political competition occurs within the confession and not between them. When a particular figure or party does not maintain a virtual monopoly over the confession, they will be more constrained by the confession’s opinion and their status within the community will be more easily challenged by an opponent from within the community. A political monopoly within a confession in Lebanon allows the leadership to be more demanding in their bargaining or challenging of the status quo and enables it to hold out longer in the bargaining process which ultimately increases the strength of the community’s veto power vis-à-vis the other confession(s). For the Sunni community of Lebanon and its current political struggle, they don’t have this luxury at the moment.

The current domestic political battle in Lebanon is between the Sunni and Shia communities. The Christians of Lebanon have been largely relegated to the status of a third wheel because of reforms to the Lebanese constitution in 1990, the absence of any popular leadership after those reforms for fifteen years and their current political division. Since the Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005, Shia politics has been largely monopolized by the political alliance of its two main political parties: Hezbollah and Amal. The domination of this alliance, at least on the surface, is not cracking or eroding. Considering this Shia monopoly and the current Sunni fragmentation, the Sunnis face a predicament in which they cannot really hope to exploit the weakened Syrian veto in Lebanon or effectively change the status quo that is being maintained by the relative unity of the Shia political community. Thus, the current situation of periodic flare ups and tensions in Lebanon will continue.

This predicament is clearly demonstrated by the location of most of the current violence in Lebanon. The Sunni community has not been directly confronting the Shia community in Lebanon. The fighting in Tripoli is between the Sunnis and the Alawites. While the Alawites are considered Shia, they are not from the same branch of Shiism as the partisans of Hezbollah and Amal. Moreover, the Alawites’ representation in the Lebanese parliament is distinct from the Hezbollah/Amal representation and totals a mere two seats. Therefore, this violence has no immediate impact on the Sunni/Shia struggle in Lebanon and is further evidence why this violence has not spread elsewhere.  

A good novelist sometimes cannot imagine the plot twists that occur in Lebanese politics. But given the current political dynamics, the status quo of sporadic violence and tension will endure and Lebanon will continue to teeter on the brink but not fall into chaos.  

Eric Bordenkircher is a PhD Candidate in Islamic Studies at UCLA and currently an affiliate at the American University of Beirut’s Center for Arab and Middle East Studies. 

Podcast of Ambassador Oded Eran's Lecture

In the first of this year’s series of lectures hosted by the UCLA Center for Middle Eastern Development (CMED), Ambassador Oded Eran presented an Israeli perspective on the survivability of his country’s peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt. He draws on many years of experience in the Israeli government, including serving as ambassador to Jordan (1997-2000) and chief negotiator with the Palestinians (1999-2000). He is currently a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).