Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has only recently and grudgingly accepted the idea of an independent Palestinian state next to Israel. With Egypt in flux, efforts to bring this about may soon go into deep freeze.
Israel's main concern is whether its peace agreement with Egypt, which underpins its security in a hostile Arab world, can survive without President Hosni Mubarak at the helm.
The tumult in Egypt has plunged Israel into dismay, arousing fears that Islamic radicals, backed by Iran, are about to score another victory, as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
At this point, Israeli leaders can only guess what will happen in Egypt now that Mubarak has said he won't run for re-election. Mubarak is Israel's bridge to the Arab world and a mediator with the Palestinians. Gaza borders Egypt's Sinai desert, making Egypt the guardian of its western border.
Until the picture clears, Netanyahu is unlikely to rush into a deal with the Palestinians that creates even more uncertainty on his doorstep by turning over territory to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a man Israelis see as well intentioned but weak.
Under the 1979 treaty with Egypt, Israel's first with an Arab country, Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, which it had captured from Egypt in the 1967 Mideast war.
A demilitarized Sinai allowed Israel to slash military spending and troop levels along the border. The return of the massive, U.S.-supplied Egyptian army to potentially just 40 miles from Tel Aviv would send shudders through Israel's military establishment.
Some analysts argue that now is the time to strike a deal with the Palestinians and take some of the sting out of the turmoil sweeping Arab countries. But Israelis will prefer caution, said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator who is now at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Washington think tank.
"The logic for Israel will be 'We need to be very careful with respect to anything we do,' " he said in an interview.
This article appeared on page A - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/02/MN4G1HHSJI.DTL#ixzz1CtIVKghn
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