A prominent Israeli general warned of an Egyptian-Jordanian-Palestinian “trap” that was set up for “Israel without an outlet”, stressing that Cairo had never given up on seeking a solution to the Palestinian issue.

The former commander of the Israeli army, General Gershon Hacohen, and a researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Research at Bar-Ilan Hebrew University, explained that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s meeting with the leader of the Egyptian regime, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi recently in Sharm El-Sheikh, “a political achievement worthy of the blessing.” But it is also worth identifying the danger.”

And he noted in an article published in the newspaper “Israel Today”, that “Egypt, led by Sisi, is preoccupied with economic difficulties and existential threats represented by the Ethiopian dam on the Nile and the reduction of American aid, and these preoccupations can explain the motive for changing the public treatment towards Israel, and Cairo has never given up on Its desire to hold a regional peace conference, and the meeting aimed to create the infrastructure for that.”

final agreement

He pointed out that “in the peace talks between Israel and Egypt, led by US President Jimmy Carter, the peace agreement between the two parties was practically achieved; He was well known in its principles and in its details, and another agreement on the autonomy of the Palestinians, whose details were not agreed upon due to differences of principle.”

He continued: “It was clear to the three leaders (Carter, the late Egyptian President Muhammad Sadat and the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin), that without confrontations over the autonomy plan, the final agreement between Israel and Egypt would not be signed, so that on the one hand Israel was not explicitly mentioned. “A Palestinian state,” but from the point of view of the Egyptians and President Carter, the legitimate rights of the “Israeli Arabs” were emphasized, which necessitate the pursuit of a comprehensive solution.

“Since then, despite the Israeli withdrawal and the exchange of ambassadors, the Egyptian leadership has consistently prevented all steps of normalization on the pretext that Israel has not implemented its commitment to self-rule,” Hacohen said.

At a conference held at the Jaffa Institute on the occasion of ten years of the agreement, Dan Petir testified that he said: “President Carter saw the Camp David Accords first and foremost as a comprehensive agreement, and accordingly, the second agreement – the Autonomy Agreement – was considered in His most important view, and on this he ignored the Israeli side, especially Begin.”

The general warned that “Begin expected that with the achievement of all the steps involved in the direct agreement with Egypt, the Egyptian interest in demanding progress in a solution for the Palestinians would wither, but Egypt never gave up on that.”

sharp saying

He pointed out that the late seventh Israeli president, Ezer Weizman, “criticized at that conference Israel’s delay on the Palestinian issue, and offered a sharp and bold statement: “I have completely self-esteem, that Begin is sitting at home not for the reasons that some speculate (his responsibility for the Lebanon war). Rather, he came to the conclusion, that with the signing of the “Camp David” agreement, he put the entire future of Israel, and I do not want to say on the deer’s horn, but in a sensitive situation, and then he understood what happened.”

He stressed that “since then until today, Egypt has not retracted its demands to establish a Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, and for its part, to push forward a regional peace conference, is a step in a steady tendency to reduce Israel and return it to the 1967 lines.”

And Hacohen warned, that “this threat was hung as a “sword of Damocles” (a common metaphor to indicate imminent danger) over Bennett’s head in Sharm el-Sheikh, and in this scheme; Represented by a regional peace conference led by Sisi, in coordination with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, is “a trap for Israel without an outlet.”

And he indicated that “if she refuses the conference, it will be presented in the world as a rejection of peace, and if it accepts this conference, it is walking on the edge of a chasm in everything related to its future.”