Keeping Peace with Egypt and Jordan, First Members of Abrahamic Peace Accords

 Nadene Goldfoot                                     

   

Anwar Sadat was president of Egypt in 1979, the year peace was signed with Israel.   He was an Egyptian army officer and politician who was president of Egypt from 1970 until his assassination in 1981. He initiated serious peace negotiations with Israel, an achievement for which he shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for Peace with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Under their leadership, Egypt and Israel made peace with each other in 1979.      

                                                                   

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (L) meets Egyptian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nabil Habashi (R) in Cairo, Egypt on 9 December 2021. [Shlomi Amsalem / Pool - Anadolu Agency]  They've had 43 years of peace between the 2 countries.  

Menachem Begin was PM of Israel in 1979 when Egypt signed the peace treaty with Israel.

"During all the wars against the Gaza Strip, the regime in Egypt sided with Israel and took an anti-Palestinian resistance stance in Gaza, except the 2012 war that took place during the reign of Morsi, who fully supported Gaza, " Sawaf explained.

The analyst said that situation worsened further when the Rafah crossing – connecting Gaza with Egypt – was closed following the Israeli aggression as punishment for the Palestinian resistance. He said the crossing was restored only after Hamas leaders threatened to suspend all agreements with the Egyptian side regarding security in Sinai.                     

Sadat with Jimmy Carter of US and Begin of Israel with Camp David Peace Accords in 1978.  
               

    King Hussein of Jordan (l) shares a smoke with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin after the signing ceremony of the Israeli – Jordanian peace treaty. October 26. Photo credit: Reuters

Jordan celebrating their 25th anniversary of peace with Israel 

The treaty between Israel and Jordan in 1994 was the culmination of over thirty years of discreet engagement and cooperation, punctuated by periods of tension and conflict. It reflects a broad base of shared interests and of particular but complementary perspectives.

Yitzhak Rabin was the PM of Israel when Jordan signed their peace treaty with Israel.

Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel  in 1979 and Jordan signed in 1994, a span of 15 years.  "Since then, both countries have maintained full diplomatic relations, as well as close, though clandestine, military and security cooperation."                                          

   Bill Clinton of USA with King Hussein and  Rabin of Israel

                                                 

U.S. President Bill Clinton looks on as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat shake hands after the signing of the Israeli-PLO peace accord at the White House in this September 13, 1993. Photo credit: Reuters

Security, normalized interactions, acceptance of Israel in the region, the right of Palestinian self determination, and the role of Egypt and Israel in the newly emerging Middle East setting were topics of discussion at a historical meeting which had taken place in May 1979, in Cairo.  About a dozen intellectuals from Israel and Egypt met to discuss these and related issues. 

They identified important areas in which they shared crucial common interests with Israel which were shown by the dangers and threats posed by the rise of radical and militant Islamist groups such as Islamic State (ISIS) and the various jihadist factions affiliated with al-Qaida and Hamas.

Israel saw that there was a big difference between perceptions of the three of them of these dangers and the reality facing Jordan to the east and particularly Egypt to the west.

ISIS was such a danger, causing the struggling in bloody battles in Syria and Iraq and turning its eyes on Jordan for future take-overs.  However, Israel's security sources saw no evidence of its presence then in the Hashemite Kingdom.  They thought that Jordan and Israel really needed a "peace" border to forstall future changes, having nothing like a fence between them at the time.  

The Egyptian border was not calm and had more cause to worry Israel, though they had a peace treaty for a longer time.  Israel completed a 200 km long fence from Eilat to Gaza in 2012. It's 3-4 meters (13.1234 feet) high equipped with electronic sensors and cameras.   

The fence was first designed to stop the flood of African immigrants and job seekers from Eritrea and Sudan that were invading the little Israel when 6,000 to 10,000 people-sometimes entire families--were able to easily infiltrate Israel from the Sinai Peninsula. PBS reported 60,000 sought refuge in Israel by 2013. Just 12 people managed to reach what is for them the "promised land" of Israel the next year from these African countries.  

From 2011 to 2014, the fence became the stop, or at least scaled down the threat of terrorism. The 'sand clock') referred to the fence built by Israel along its border with Egypt. Initial construction on the barrier began on 22 November 2010.

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's regime  in 2011 was toppled during the Arab Spring, and the installation of the Muslim Brotherhood regime of Mohamed Morse  In response, watch groups were organized by civilian vigilantes to protect their neighborhoods. On 11 February 2011, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak resigned as president, turning power over to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).  He was sentenced to death by an Egyptian court.                                   

A terrorist group emerged in Sinai calling itself Ansar Beit al-Maqdas, meaning Supporters of Jerusalem. Later in 2014, they renamed itself ISIS (Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and by its Arabic acronym Daesh in the Sinai Province (SP)of the Islamic State, after pledging allegiance to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.  Why?  Its ideology and hope for financial gain.  ISIS is a militant Islamist group and former unrecognized quasi-state that follows the Salafi jihadist branch of Sunni Islam.  

ISIS had split in 2012 from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida and had introduced radical Islam.  Instead of advocating world terrorism with no borders, it preached the creation of territorial units that would follow  the fundamentalist 7th century ideas that ruled the region with the spread of Muhammad's Islam, more like Iran.  By 2014, ISIS conquered Iraq and Syria, spreading this view.  During 2015, SP militants killed 350 Egyptian soldiers, policemen, security servicemen and government officials. 

New York Times reported in August 2021 that An Islamic State (ISIS)  affiliate that is a sworn enemy of both the Taliban and the United States threatens a large-scale attack against the mission at the airport.  ISIS poses the biggest immediate terrorist threat to evacuation in Kabul, Afghanistan.   The United States has been battling the Taliban and their militant partners in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda and the Haqqani network, for 20 years.

                 Egypt and Jordan's view of Iran

Following the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, and the appointment of ambassadors after nearly 30 years, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi made a historic first visit to Iran since the Iranian Revolution for the Non-Aligned Movement summit on 30 August 2012, where it handed over the rotating presidency to Iran. Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also visited Egypt in February 2013, making him the first Iranian president to visit Egypt since the Iranian Revolution..                        

Part of Iran’s expansion effort, as the Jordanian monarch noted, includes the destabilization of Jordan from the north, where drug smugglers are already wreaking havoc. Jordan also faces a threat from the south, with Iranian assets reportedly operating in the Red Sea. This all amounts to a direct threat to both Saudi Arabia and Israel. Both view the Hashemite Kingdom as a valuable asset. Stability on their respective borders is something both countries will protect at great cost.

Building on the momentum of the Red Sea islands negotiations, the White House has an opportunity to push the two sides in the right direction. After Abdullah’s recent visit to Washington, the Biden administration has renewed its commitment to Jordanian security. Enlisting the help of Riyadh and Jerusalem, separately and together, is the next logical step. 

Resource:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anwar-Sadat

https://www.jstor.org/stable/173749

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220218-normalising-ties-with-israel-still-lacks-popular-support-in-egypt-says-analyst/

https://jiss.org.il/en/krasna-the-jordan-israel-peace-treaty-at-25/

The Jerusalem Report, March 23, 2015 , magazine

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/spc/unpromised-land/ 2013

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/10/23/25-years-on-remembering-the-path-to-peace-for-jordan-and-israel/

https://thedispatch.com/p/jordan-has-an-iran-problem-can-israel?s=r

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Egyptian_revolution#:~:text=In%20response%2C%20watch%20groups%20were,the%20Armed%20Forces%20(SCAF).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Israel_barrier#:~:text='sand%20clock')%20refers%20to,from%20African%20countries%20into%20Israel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Spring

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/25/us/politics/isis-terrorism-afghanistan-taliban.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt%E2%80%93Iran_relations#:~:text=Despite%20oft%2Dwavering%20tensions%20between,OIC%20and%20the%20Developing%208.&text=According%20to%20a%202013%20BBC,48%25%20expressing%20a%20negative%20view.

Rabbi Meir Kahane, USA Born, Israeli Fighter-Friend of Stanley Goldfoot

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

US finally removed Rabbi Kahane from a terror blacklist.

He had founded the Kahane Chai Group that was designated as a terror movement back in 1997 after it had voiced support for a Jewish man who had massacred 29 Palestinians. "The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre of 1994, also known as the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre or the Hebron massacre, was a

shooting massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli extremist and physician, and member of the far-right Kach movement. " 

The Israeli government of Yitzhak Rabin condemned the massacre, and so must have Bill Clinton, USA president at the time,  and responded by arresting followers of Meir Kahane, criminalizing the Kach movement and affiliated movements as terrorist, forbidding certain Israeli settlers to enter Palestinian towns, and demanding that those settlers turn in their army-issued rifles, although rejecting a Palestinian Liberation Organization demand that all settlers in the West Bank be disarmed and that an international force be created to protect Palestinians

Rabbi Meir was only 2 years older than myself, born on August 1, 1932 in the United States as Meir David Kahane.  He became an Israeli  ordained Orthodox rabbi, writer, and ultra-nationalist politician who served one term in Israel's Knesset. He didn't move to Israel until 1971.  My husband and I had done this in 1980.  In 1980, Kahane was arrested for the 62nd time since his emigration, and he was jailed for six months after a detention order that was based on allegations of him planning armed attacks against Palestinians in response to the killings of Jewish settlers. Kahane was held in prison in Ramla, where he wrote the book They Must Go. Kahane was banned from entering the UK in 1981. 

He called for immediate Jewish mass migration to Israel to avoid a potential "Holocaust" in the United States, supported the restriction of Israel's democracy to its Jewish citizens, and endorsed the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

 A cofounder of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) and founder of the Israeli political party Kach in 1971, he espoused strong views against antisemitism.  In 1984, he became a member of the Knesset, when Kach gained its only-ever seat in parliamentary elections. Kahane was boycotted across the aisles of the Knesset, and would often speak in front of an empty chamber. Well, that's how Democracy is supposed to work.  People were very direct in their feelings.  

That same year, he was convicted in New York for conspiracy to manufacture explosives and received a suspended sentence of five years.

 In Israel, he was convicted for plotting to blow up the Libyan embassy in Brussels in revenge for the massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, receiving a suspended sentence and probation.

He became friends with my 3rd cousin, Stanley Goldfoot, my mother's age,  early on, as Stanley was born and raised in South Africa, and was also more radical than most Americans at age 18.  Stanley had also gone to Israel and had become Chief of Intelligence of the Stern Group (Lohame Herut Israel) standing for "fighters for the Freedom of Israel", for short called Lehi, which the Brits called "The Stern Gang," the more radical of defensive groups of his day, being born on May 2, 1914.  Their leader soon was Yitzhak Jazaminsky (Shamir).  Stanley told me how he drove Rabbi Meir around on his rounds.  They were friends.  Stanley, a journalist, had been jailed by the Brits.  They had that in common.  There was a lot of shooting going on at Israeli citizens then, lots of attacks by Hamas in '94.  Stanley is known for his Letter to the World, which is how he demonstrated his frustration. 

Feb 19, 1994	A pregnant Israeli woman was shot to death in the West Bank. HAMAS claimed responsibility for the attack which prompted widespread rioting by settlers in the West Bank.
Feb 24, 1994	In Hebron, US born Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein, a member of Kach, opened fire on Muslim worshipers in the cave of the Patriarchs, killing 29 people and wounding over 100 more. Goldstein was then beaten to death by Palestinians in the Mosque. PLO chairman Arafat called on the UN to deploy forces in the Occupied Territories and asked the security council to condemn the killings.
Feb 27, 1994	Israel issued orders for the administrative detention of 5 members of Kach and Kahane Chai movements, and announced that some settlers in Hebron would be disarmed and approximately 15 would be barred from entering the West Bank. A commission was created to investigate the Hebron killings. Israel also announced the planned release of 1,000 Palestinians prisoners by March 7.
Mar 1994	During the month of March 21 Palestinians were killed and 223 more were wounded.              Kahane in 1975 in Canarsie, Brooklyn, NY

Meir Kahane was born in Brooklyn, New York, to an Orthodox Jewish family. Kahane descended from a line of well-known rabbis, including his father, who was head of the Flatbush Board of Rabbis. His father, Yechezkel Shragei (Charles) Kahane (1905–1978), had studied at Polish and Czech yeshivas, and was the author of the rabbinic work Torah Yesharah. He was deeply involved in the Revisionist Zionist movement as a close friend of Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Kahane's grandfather was Nachman Kahane (1869–1937), a leading rabbinic scholar in Safed, who was the son of Baruch David Kahane (1850–1925), the author of Hibat ha-Eretz, and a disciple of Chaim Halberstam of Sanz. Baruch David was a direct descendant of Simcha Rappaport (1650–1718), of the Rappaport rabbinic family, who were allegedly able to trace their ancestry back to Eleazar ben Azariah, a 1st-century sage in the Land of Israel. Baruch David immigrated to Mandatory Palestine from Poland in 1873.  As a teenager, Kahane became an ardent admirer of Jabotinsky and Peter Bergson, who were frequent guests in his parents' home. 

I'd say that he was a rabbi of leading Jews who had decided to really do something about anti-Semitism but just couldn't balance his thoughts with action vs effects on all of humanity.  He had one main thought in mind and that was it. 

 He had the fortitude of our past Aluf "General" Bar Kokhba who had fought and died from 132-135 against the Romans.  With the fall of Jerusalem and then Bethar, the fortress to the southwest of Jerusalem where Bar Kokhba was slain, the rebellion was crushed in 135. Bar Kokhba was successful but it only lasted for 3 years, and then the Romans did him in, embarrassed and angry for showing them up.  

 According to Christian sources, Jews were thenceforth forbidden to enter Jerusalem.  We hadn't tried it again for 2,000 years, finally realizing the dream on May 14, 1948 with talk.  

In 2007, the FBI released over a thousand documents relating to its daily surveillance of Kahane since the early 1960s.

Resource: 

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2021/12/stanley-goldfoots-letter-to-world.html

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/h1spr00ypq?utm_source=email

https://www.refworld.org/docid/469f38a8c.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Goldstein