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this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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No Stupid Questions
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Huh? Are we having the same conversation?
I'm pointing that Egypt has already collapsed since Israel captured the Sinai and returned it in exchange for recognition. You claimed that when this Egyptian government collapses, or rather if it does, then Israel will seize the opportunity to do so. But they've had this opportunity presented to them already. For example, in 2011... but they didn't do anything, so why would they now?
Uh... Egypt did not collapse in 2011. That was a regime change. I'm talking about a Libya or Syria-style failure to keep existing as a sovereign state.
Government collapses tend to count as state collapses, but using your definition it's pretty hard for Egypt to end up in that state. Unless an extremely powerful empire like the British or the Ottomans takes over. Egypt's geography makes it very hard for the country to be divided and fall into civil war. Virtually all Egyptians live on the Nile or its delta, and those areas are completely packed with a fairly homogenous population. There's isn't a big demographic rift or a clear ideological divide. There's the Coptic Christians who make up 10% of the population, but they aren't large enough to do anything and there's the islamic fundamentalists, who do cause trouble, but they either swing the whole country in that direction or don't have enough influence to do anything.
You only say that because you don't know how Egypt is looking like right now. Egypt's economy is the worst it's ever been in decades because of mismanagement, and it's not getting better. We're seeing the government build new bridges and cities using our tax pounds while people can't buy food. They're borrowing money at absurd rates to try to keep the whole thing from collapsing and paying back by selling the counter piecemeal to gulf states while refusing to actually fix anything. People keep having to find places to cut back on food and other essentials just so they don't starve. We can't get enough fuel for the country so blackouts have been going on for a while and it's killing newborns in hospitals. Hell, a guy I know had a 9-hour long blackout recently.
Egypt's economy is in free fall right now and there's not much more room for falling before people starve. Some kind of revolution is going to happen within the next few decades (because people don't like to die of starvation) and you know what happens when the people try taking back control from a military dictatorship. Where exactly it'll be on the Frenchrevolution-Syrian civil war (which started because the Syrian government refused to give up its power) spectrum I don't know, but given what I've seen from other examples in the region and the behavior of Egypt's government I am very much not optimistic.
I am well aware that Egypt's economy is in shambles because of Al Sisi's vanity project in building the new capital city with money the country doesn't have. I agree with you that some kind of revolution is bound to happen at this rate, and I actually think it'll happen in the next few years because the situation is pretty grim. I'm not Egyptian, but I've talked to Egyptians who say their families in Egypt are struggling to the point where they find it difficult to buy rice and sugar. I don't think a revolution is a few decades away with conditions like that. With that being said, is there any indication that the upcoming revolution will end in civil war? Egypt can't be compared to the other countries in the region because it's a unique country due to its geography and high population. Based on recent Egyptian history, which I think is the best comparisons we can make, the country has had a few dictators and revolutions but it hasn't had any civil wars, at least not any that I could recall. Is there something on the ground that is not apparent in the media our Egyptian diaspora?
Not really; it's just that I doubt the army will give up power peacefully. Hence civil war or violent revolution. And in both cases it wouldn't be strange if Israel decided to expand into Sinai during the chaos.
There's also a good possibility that one of the high ranking military officers will use the opportunity that will arise from the chaos to orchestrate a coup and put themselves in power.
But think about it from an objective point of view. Israel has already taken control of the Sinai twice. Once from October 1956 to March 1957 and again from June 1967 to April 1982. The second time, it held the Sinai for 15 years. That's not a small amount of time and Israel even had a few settlements set up. However, it gave all of them up and handed back the Sinai in 1975 as a part of the Egypt Israel peace treaty. This treaty has been active for 50 years, what would Israel gain from destroying it?
Unlike the previous times where Egypt was the aggressor, that excuse can't be used by Israel if it occupied the Sinai again. The occupation would immediately be seen as unprovoked aggression. Why? Because Israel is the one that's very clearly hostile and violating the treaty. Egypt has been keeping it's part of the deal since 1975. It has allowed for Israeli ships to pass through the Suez, it has kept the Sinai largely demilitarized, and it has recognized Israel. If Israel invades, it would be a pariah like Russia when it invaded Ukraine. Unlike it's war with Hamas or Hezbollah, the US won't be backing Israel on this. Egypt is not a terrorist group and it's not an aggressor, and Israel would have blatantly violated a US brokered treaty. Backing Israel would be a massive blow to the credibility of American diplomacy and no US president would risk American soft power for an ally that's not willing to respect them or keep their words. They would have to back Egypt, or at the very least condemn Israel's aggression. If the US abandons Israel, you can be sure the EU will follow.
But it actually gets worse for Israel, because all the other Arab countries that established relations with it will immediately sever relations again. Why wouldn't they? Not only is Egypt a fellow Arab country, but it is the most populated Arab country and a key ally to all the other Arab countries. It's in their interest to back up their fellow Arab country that's in the right. After all, if Egypt, who has kept their part of the deal for 50 years, still ended up getting attacked, what's there to stop the other Arab countries from being next? Clearly Israeli treaties are worthless since they won't even bother to honor them and they're hellbent on violent conquest.
You can also be certain that the moment Egypt declares war back on Israel, the Palestinian terrorist groups and the Iranian backed terrorist groups are going to go wild. They'll attack Israel from every direction. Hell, I wouldn't even be surprised if the bordering Arab countries joined the war alongside Egypt. I'm sure Syria would love to get Golan Heights back, Jordan and Lebanon would want Israel eliminated as a threat, and the other Arab countries would want a decisive victory to end this long conflict. In the off chance that Israel does win another war against an Arab coalition by itself, it would have gained the Sinai at the cost of all of it's diplomacy and it would have to start again from scratch.
And what for exactly? A piece of largely inhospitable desert that bares no security threat from a country that's both peaceful and cooperative with Israel. Israel has already given up the Sinai twice because it doesn't hold enough strategic value. The things it gained from making peace with Egypt is far greater than anything the peninsula had to offer.
So let's summarize Israel loses it's valuable alliances with the US and the West, it loses all the recognition and diplomacy it worked for in the Arab world, it risks fighting another coalition war by itself, and it'll become a pariah state all for an empty piece of desert that poses no threat, has little strategic value, and it has given up twice before. So I ask again, what would Israel gain from doing this?
I just don't see it happening.
That is, admittedly, a possibility I hadn't considered.
If the treaty remains active then makes sense, but I doubt anyone will care about a peace treaty with a failed state. You know how when a country just falls apart its neighbors go after the pieces? That's the sort of scenario I'm envisioning here. Admittedly my thinking might be overly simplistic, and I should've considered more orderly possibilities, but at least in the Syria-style absolute chaos situation I'm imagining (which after thinking about it isn't as likely as I thought) of I don't see why they'd honor the sovereignty of a state that ceased to exist, in the same way nobody really cares about Syria as a sovereign state anymore.