The Egypt-Israel peace treaty was signed on March 26, 1979 by the President of Egypt,

Anwar Sadat, and the Prime Minister of Israel, Manachem Begin. Over the last 45 years, the governments,

economies, intelligence services, and militaries of Israel and Egypt have worked together, sometimes more intimately, sometimes less so, but a stable, if cold, peace has endured for nearly 50 years.

One of the key areas of coordination has been security in Gaza. Egypt, of course, ruled Gaza until 1967, and Israel ruled Gaza until 2005. After

Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, Israel and Egypt jointly imposed a blockade and began to

control its borders. Each had their own reasons to fear, Hamas's ideological ambitions,

and its stated purposes. Hamas is, after all, an outgrowth of the very Muslim Brotherhood that threatened the Egyptian

government's rule.

Since October 7th, Egypt has catapulted itself, into a key mediator between Israel and

Hamas.

Its president, Abdel Fata al-Sisi, saw in Hamas's attack and the war that would ensue,

a crisis, that he thought he could leverage

to grow his country's economy and restore some of its diminishing political clout.

Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. My guest today is Haism Hassanun of the

Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Heism joins us to help us try and understand how Cairo

assesses the war on its

borders, how it dimensions its own interests, and what lasting consequences Israel's war with

Hamas may have on the future of Egypt's relations with Israel. Now, in the last days, media have

widely reported that Egyptian mediators are responsible for surreptitiously changing the terms of a recent

hostage negotiation between Israel and Hamas, thereby deceiving the American and Israeli negotiators.

That news broke after we recorded our conversation, and so while we do not discuss it explicitly,

that news can be better understood, in light of how Heism describes how Egypt understands

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