Examining Phase Two of the Peace Initiative

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here.

Sarah: All right. Good afternoon and welcome to yet another extremely interesting and thought-provoking EMET webinar. Our guest today is a very, very special person, Dalia Ziadi, an Egyptian scholar of Middle East geopolitics, specializing in governance, geopolitics, and regional security in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. She studied international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, managing in international security studies.

Dalia is now, among other things, the Washington coordinator for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism. She’s also a regular commentator on Middle Eastern affairs and has been featured in the media in places like i24 News, Fox News, and JBS. Let’s begin, Dalia, by you explaining to our audience what happened to you in Egypt on the date of October 7th, 2023.

Dalia Ziadi: First of all, thank you so much, Sarah, for having me, and thank you for EMET. I appreciate being with you today, speaking to your wide base of audience. You can’t imagine how many people contacted me once you announced that I will be with you. So, I’m very happy to be speaking to them from your platform.

My story, in short, it started long before October 7, when I was a teenager, a first-year student in a university in Cairo. At that time, it was the time of the Second Intifada, but I don’t want anyone to calculate my age, okay? So, I was 18 years old at that time. And like all other Egyptians, I grew up thinking that Israel is the enemy, the Jewish people are so evil, they eat the Palestinian children on breakfast, and horrible, horrible things like this, that we’ve been educated in mosques, in schools, in the media.

Although I’m speaking about Egypt, which is a country that has a peace treaty with Israel, even before I was born, which is so ironic, but the hate continued. The hate stayed there until today, unfortunately. So, I grew up believing that this is the truth, until in my first year in college. It was the time of the Second Intifada, big time in the region, protestors everywhere, everyone is wearing the keffiyeh, very similar to what we’re seeing around here in the US right now. Actually, I was just like all the other students; I joined the protestors against Israel, and it’s just the trendy thing happening on campus, honestly.

Until one day, about two months after joining these protestors in one of the sunny, beautiful days in Cairo, like most of the days are, the organizers of the protests, whom later on I knew are the Muslim Brotherhood, they decided to make a show by burning flags. They started by burning the Israeli flag, and then the American flag. And then they burned the Egyptian flag, which for me was so shocking that it created some kind of cognitive dissonance in my head that made me question everything. This was literally the moment I got out of the ideological box I was stuck into my whole life then, my whole 18 years of my life then.

And since then, I decided to take a step back, educate myself about this group that’s called the Muslim Brotherhood, what is their relationship to Islam, which is my religion. And then I educated myself about Islam, about Judaism. I’m a religious person. I love religions, so this is how I approached the issue of the Middle East through religion. And then I fell in love with studying the geopolitics of the Middle East. It has then become my life goal, is to be a geopolitical analyst, to be an analyst on Middle East geopolitics. And in the process, I became very active in people-to-people dialogue between Israelis and Arabs and Muslims and Jews.

Everything was good, my career progressed in the fields that I loved. I built a lot of connections and a lot of minor, small successes on the way in terms of improving the relationship between Israelis and Arabs within our own Middle East, that we all belong to. Until October 7 happened. When October 7 happened, I was leading a think tank in Cairo, Egypt. My life was perfect. Everything was good, until I just was called on to comment on October 7 and the war in Gaza.

Of course, my stance from day one was clear: I am against what happened on October 7. And then in this interview, and it was in Arabic, I said that I support Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization, and what they did on October 7 is an act of terrorism. This may sound to you like obvious facts. As an American audience or a Western audience, these are obvious facts. But when you say this to an Arab audience who are celebrating October 7, who are celebrating the rape, the murder, the killing of the Jewish people on October 7, you are an outsider now, and they think that you deserve to be killed. And this is exactly what they did to me.

My statements, all of a sudden, stirred an unexpected backlash against me, started first by radical Islamists, from the Salafists, in particular. They wanted to kill me. They came to my family house looking for me. And thank God I was not there. I was in my apartment in another neighborhood. And here is the worst part. When I contacted the authorities in Egypt, the country that has a peace treaty with Israel, the government that has warm relationships with Israel in the year 2023, and in this situation, I contacted the authorities to tell them, “My life is in danger. I need your protection. The Salafists, the extremists, they are coming to kill me just because of my statements.” And to my shock, they said, “We have nothing to do with you. Let them kill you.”

And when I told the very senior officer I was speaking to, “Why are you saying this? Aren’t you also against Hamas? Isn’t Egypt also against Hamas?” He said to me, “It’s not about Hamas, but you said you support Israel, so you deserve it.” It was a nightmare, but thank God, thank God, with the help of great friends. And of course, the next morning, the lawyers affiliated to the regime started to file claims against me of being a spy to the Israeli Mossad, or committing high treason, and all these crazy things that I didn’t do.

And then, in a very short period of time, once this news started to come out, that my life is in danger, great friends of mine from the US and from Israel, and from also one Arab country that I cannot mention, they came together and they helped me to get out of Egypt within only five hours before any harm happens to me, before I get killed or imprisoned for simply saying the truth, and nothing but the truth. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Israel has the right to defend itself. I didn’t say anything outside the truth. But when it’s hard for people to accept this truth, it’s easier for them just to kill, practice violence, project hate, similar to what we have seen.

I came here to the US thinking that I left the bad guys behind, but to my surprise, they were everywhere here. And since I came for two years now, I’ve taken on myself the mission to fight against them here too, because I don’t want to see the United States, the country that has given me my education, my career, and most recently, a refuge, when these bad guys wrecked my ship, I don’t want it falling in their clothes. I don’t want it falling in the same trap my home country, Egypt, fell in because of these bad actors who are hiding under Islamic labels or under nationalist labels or so. So, in short, this is my story.

Sarah: So, Dalia, have you gone on to college campuses or is it too dangerous? Is your name known out there in Salafist circles?

Dalia: It is. Unfortunately, it’s known also very much around the Muslim Brotherhood circles, Students for Justice in Palestine, and all these groups, sadly. But I tell you something, actually, my tour on American campuses in the past two years, I have visited so far more than 60 campuses. In the past academic year alone, it was more than 50 campuses. I spoke with students from all backgrounds, all backgrounds, including the ones who are supporting Hamas because they believe Hamas is right, and the ones who are so naive, they are just doing the trendy thing, exactly like I was when I was their age. And also the Jewish students who felt helpless in the middle of all of this.

I met students from all backgrounds, and the conversation with them was really amazing. Really, it helped me see where the problem is. The problem is a lack of education about the Middle East, a region that most of them, they didn’t even visit. The second thing, students at that age, they want to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves. And when you go to them and say there is a war, and people are dying in this war, and they are dying because of Israel, for example, so they automatically hate Israel without questioning the role of Hamas in exposing the Gazan people to being killed on purpose, so they can remain in power, so they can keep their weapons and so on. So people don’t know all these stories.

And also, as you know, Sarah, the Middle East is a very complicated place. Even for people like us who are coming from the Middle East, it’s still a big mystery to us how to achieve peace, how to explain what’s happening to the Middle East, to the world. So, imagine a foreigner, like a student who doesn’t know much about it, it’s easy to trick them into believing that they are doing good by supporting a terrorist organization like Hamas.

Sarah: Right. Okay. In September of 2025, Israeli officials told the media about the buildup of approximately 40,000 Egyptian troops in the Sinai, about twice the amount that’s allowed for the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. And yesterday, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the very rare visit with the head of Egyptian intelligence, Hassan Rashad. Can you tell us anything about why these discussions were held, and if you know anything about the outcome of these talks?

Dalia: Sure. I heard, actually, from very credible resources about what happened on these talks. But before we get to this point, which is a very optimistic point, by the way, I’m one of the people who were very angered by the straining of the relationship between Egypt and Israel that happened over the past two years, for no good reason, really. I mean, okay, with all respect to Gaza and with all sympathy to the suffering of the Gazan people, this should not affect the relationship between Egypt and Israel, two neighbors, economically and security interdependent on each other. It doesn’t make sense that they can have this conflict, or this lack of trust or confidence over the past two years.

Let me very quickly summarize what happened. So, what we saw is that Egypt and Israel were very close. We were in a region that is really evolving toward this maturity, toward this growing over its emotional impulses and ideological differences, and coming together on pragmatic terms. And we saw this, it started with the Abrahamic Accords, and then the waves of reconciliations that happened two years after the Abrahamic Accords between countries, not necessarily with Israel, but for example, between Turkey and Egypt, between Egypt and Qatar, and some Gulf countries and Qatar, and so on. So, there was a very strong sense of, “We want to be together. We want to build a new Middle East, a new region that breaks free from the trap, the ideological traps that we’ve been stuck into for so long. That Arabism, Arab nationalism, political Islamism, Shia and Sunni, and so on. We need to put this aside and build a new Middle East.”

And this was the spirit to the extent that actually we were talking about a historic agreement, a historic peace agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, only two days before October 7 happened. And then October 7 happened, and everyone got back, unfortunately, to the old… it’s like a bomb that pushed everyone back to square one, back to the point where we had all these ideological conflicts, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which actually was pushed to the back burner over the past five years or so, is once again becoming a forefront issue that everyone is talking about and even polarizing around, even among the Arabs themselves, not only Arabs and non-Arabs, but even among the Arabs themselves.

So, with all of this happened, unfortunately, we started to see more and more fragmentation or more and more straining in the relationship that Israel built with Arab countries for the past decade or two decades. And the most important of these relationships is the relationship with Egypt. Egypt is Israel’s immediate neighbor. We have economic ties. We have security ties. Actually, if it was not for the help of Israel for Egypt, the Israeli military for Egypt, in the war in Sinai against Hamas militants and other terrorist militia, in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, we were not going to be able to get rid of these terrorists. It’s only thanks to the help of Israel. So, imagine how important Israel is for Egypt and how important Egypt is for Israel.

Then, all of a sudden, we found this relationship, this gap started to widen and widen and widen until we got to this very shocking point of the Doha attack and the responses to the Doha attack. To be honest, the Doha attack in itself, of course, it’s not acceptable, but if you think about what Qatar is doing, supporting terrorism against Israel and against its Arab neighbors, not only Israel, you would understand why Israel had to do this strike. You will understand why Israel, that has been so exhausted by two years of war, had to do something to put an end to this by just finishing Hamas, the leaders that Qatar is protecting.

But this is not the issue. The attack in itself was not the issue, but actually the response to the attack by Arab countries was the issue. And the response was very harsh. It was the first time, for example, to hear a country like Egypt since the signing of the peace treaty with Israel in 1979; since that time, Egypt has never called Israel an enemy in any public context whatsoever.

Yes, there is anti-Semitism. Yes, there is Jew hatred and all of these among the mainstream in Egypt, but on an official level, it never happened. For the first time in the summit that was held in Doha in reaction to the Doha attack, for the first time, we heard the Egyptian president calling Israel our enemy. For the first time. And I was very angered by that because, honestly, I don’t want to see Egypt going to war with Israel and using our resources, our military, and so forth for the sack of Gaza. I don’t care for Gaza. I care for Egypt. And if my military does not care for Egypt first, not for Gaza or Doha or Qatar or whatever, then there is something wrong with this military.

But it seems that President El-Sisi was perhaps doing it as a gesture for Qatar, because, unfortunately, over the past two years, Qatar bought Egypt. I’m sorry to say that, but they bribed the Egyptian government in a way that makes it very difficult for Egypt not to be on their side, which, unfortunately, is a game Qatar has been playing widely everywhere. And it seems that it’s working for them. So, this was the situation.

And also, we saw an unexpected reaction from Arab Gulf countries, who actually a few years ago, they were boycotting Qatar because of its practices for the exact same practices that Israel attacked for, which is breeding terrorists, hosting terrorists, and using them as weapons against neighboring countries. These same Arab Gulf countries, they felt threatened, too. And by the way, this feeling has been brewing for a while among Arab Gulf countries because of Israel’s growing power. Israel is growing more and more stronger as a military power in the region. They cannot keep pace with that, and they felt threatened. But they kept it to themselves until the Doha attack happened. And that was the moment when they said, “No, we cannot tolerate this anymore. Otherwise, we will have a new Iran in the form of Israel.”

So, this is their logic. I disagree with that. Of course, Israel is not Iran by any means, but this is their logic. And that’s why their reaction was so exaggerated. Now, thank God, things are waning down after the ceasefire. And not because of the ceasefire. It’s because the US finally is once again returning to the region at that level of involvement, which we have been missing for so long since the Biden administration. And even at the time when they started in 2021, I guess when they started to say the US has to withdraw from the Middle East and all of this rhetoric. Now, thank God, the US is going back with putting all of its heavy weight on the region to bring things back on the right track of peace, reconciliations, and bringing us back to the moment of how we were before October 7. Hopefully, it will work. Arab countries are very cooperative with the US right now on that level. So, hopefully, it’s going to work on the long run, and the peace will hold, or the ceasefire in Gaza will hold, and there will be a potential for peace in the Middle East.

Sarah: Right. So, right now – excuse the phone – right now we see and we’re witnessing Hamas brutalizing its opposition within Gaza. First of all, do you think that this is going to sustain itself? And for how long before… I think it looks like only Israel will have to get involved. I do not think that America is proposing that they’ll have 200 troops along the perimeter, but I don’t think that they really want to go in. So, how do you predict things are going to shape out there?

Dalia: That’s a very good question. Actually, it’s also important to highlight that at a time when everyone is ignoring, perhaps on purpose or most likely on purpose, what’s happening in Gaza right now as we speak, Hamas is going around Gaza, home by home, looking for people that showed opposition to them during the past two years and killing them. I heard some stories from people I know inside Gaza. They told me when they get into a home and they don’t find the man they are targeting, like the father, for example, and they find the mother and her children, they just kill them for punishment. So, Hamas is literally killing the Gazan women and children. That there were so many protestors in support of them happening in Western countries, and all of a sudden, these protestors are so silent. Nobody is standing up for these innocent people who are being killed in their homes.

Also, these scenes of terrorists walking into homes and killing people inside their homes, it reminds us of exactly what ISIS has been doing in Syria and Northern Iraq for years. And even what the Syrian regime is doing now. I mean, the Syrian militants, the militants affiliated to the Syrian regime, have been doing against the Kurds and against the Druze right now in Syria. Very similar scenes, which tells us that Hamas is no different than any other terrorist organization in the region. Actually, they are just another copy of this terrorism, except that there is a huge PR machine behind them, a huge media machine, which is Al Jazeera, Qatar’s Al Jazeera TV, which is whitewashing them, making them appear as if they are freedom fighters, fighting for establishing a Palestinian state.

That, by the way, if you understand the ideology, they come from this jihadist ideology, radical Islamist ideology, actually, there is nothing called nation-state in this ideology at all. So, claiming that Hamas are freedom fighters and they are there to build a Palestinian state is a whole lie. It’s a whole lie. They will not do it. And Hamas right now, unfortunately, they have been given an opportunity to go back to Gaza and come out of their tunnels and just do what they, by the way, were doing before October 7. They were also killing the Gazans before October 7.

And when the war in Gaza started, I remember Abu Musa Marzook, I guess, one of the leaders of Hamas, were on Al Jazeera TV and the host asked him, “People are saying, why don’t you put the innocent civilians inside the tunnels and you, the militants, go above the ground and fight against Israel?” You know what his response was? “We don’t care about the people.” He said it. He said it so blatantly, but the world does not want to listen.

Haniyeh, who was assassinated later in Iran, in a very clever operation by Israel and the Israeli intelligence, he said it publicly, “We want more and more women and children to be killed in this war so they become the fuel for our movement.” And this is very true. They want a fuel for them so they can legitimize their terrorism and further demonize Israel. Unfortunately, Gazans, nobody cares about them. Hamas does not care about them. The Arab countries, who are showing all types of sympathy, crying and songs, and TV shows, and so on to them, they don’t care about them. And nothing proves this more than Egypt’s position on the Gazans.

Egypt is the only country that holds the keys for Gaza. The only country that could open the door and let the innocent people in Gaza flee this war, even for a few weeks, for a few days, for God’s sake, even for a few hours to save lives. And it didn’t want to do that. It refused to do that. And then they say, “Oh, we care for the people in Gaza.” Nobody cares, unfortunately.

Sarah: Right. So, I think it has long been a part of Israel’s strategic plan to work with clansmen, tribesmen who have spoken out against Hamas. But at this point, do they have the weapons and the wherewithal to be able to take on Hamas?

Dalia: Oh, that’s the biggest dilemma, actually. Here is the difference between Israel’s vision and the US vision on what needs to happen next in Gaza. Israel understands that it should not stay in Gaza for too long. It’s a drainage for its forces, for its resources, its exhaustion on the long run. So it doesn’t make any sense. Israel should be there for a certain period of time to make sure its security is protected and then leave.

And to do that, it needs to make sure that there will be actors inside Gaza who will be able to control Hamas terrorism to prevent another October 7 from happening. Its best bet right now is not on Arab neighbors, unfortunately. They are not friendly to Israel. They are more friendly to Hamas than they are to Israel, including the ones who signed peace treaties with Israel. Why? Because of the domestic pressure on them. The general public, still falling for this narrative of Islamic brotherhood with the Gazans or the Arab nationalist rhetoric, so at the end of the day, they will bleed their own audience because their political power comes from their domestic audience, not from their relationship with Israel or even the US.

So, Israel cannot bet on Arab countries. Its only bet is on the clans inside Gaza that are opposing Hamas, that has been fighting against Hamas for so long, by the way, since 2006. Since Hamas took over, they have been active against them and fighting against them, except, if you think about it this way, Hamas was the strongest tribe, so it took power. It’s not because it was the most legitimate or anything.

So, Israel’s best bet right now is to empower these clans, especially they don’t have a problem with Israel, by the way. They don’t have a problem with working with Israel. I mean, before 2006, they were already working with Israel. So, Israel wants to empower them. Of course, this does not mean they are good people. Also, by the way, there are so many criminals. It’s like mafia groups. They are not, I mean, noble people, for example, because they are fighting against Hamas. But at the end of the day, they are the devil you can work with, think about it this way. So, this is the logic of Israel.

From the US perspective, no, the US and the Europeans also, unfortunately. I mean, let’s say the West, in general, they are trying to project the Western model of governance on a place like Gaza or a place like the Middle East, to be honest. It doesn’t make any sense. The Middle East is so different than the West, the governance rules, the tribal rules, tribalism, ideology, ideological conflicts, and all of that. I mean, it’s very hard to project the European model or the American model on the Middle East and even harder to project this model or this way of thinking of what the future needs to be on a place very problematic like Gaza.

So, that’s the dilemma we are stuck in now, whether these clans should be empowered or not empowered. Right now, it seems that everyone is going with the US plan or the US vision to see if Arab countries can really play a role. And let’s see. I’m not very optimistic that they can make a difference. Many of them don’t want to be involved in any way. But let’s see. Let’s take a shot at them and see if they can really do it. If not, then Israel’s plan will be next, I guess.

Sarah: President Trump’s plan explicitly elucidates that Hamas has to disarm, and they obviously are not doing that. In the meantime, it’s been mentioned that Egypt, Qatar, Turkey are going to be involved in the rebuilding of Gaza. I’m not sure that Israel, at this point, can trust any of those three. Qatar certainly has done a tremendous amount for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas. It’s their main sponsor in Gaza. And they have really bought and sold a lot of American politicians, think tanks, and universities. Turkey, Erdogan is constantly praising the Muslim Brotherhood. It has no love lost for Israel. And Egypt could go either way. I think the military is fundamentally in control. But I know the Muslim Brotherhood does have a very, very big role within Egypt as well. So, how do you think this is going to play out eventually?

Dalia: Yeah. Of course, the image is so dark, as you just portrayed, Sarah. But actually, I told you earlier that I was very optimistic about the meeting that happened between the chief of intelligence, the Egyptian chief of intelligence, and Israeli officials, including the prime minister, Netanyahu, and of course, the head of Shin Bet and others. Why I’m optimistic specifically for that, for how they agreed on the vision, of course, first, because this is the first senior official visit to Israel since October 7. And also, there were many agreements, unlike what was said in Arab media today, which is not true, absolutely not true, that there were disagreements.

So, they agreed on the key issues, key steps of what needs to happen next. And chief among them, or on the top of them, actually, is the issue of which forces should join the multinational force inside Gaza that the Trump plan speaks about. So, it seems to me from what I’ve heard from very trusted resources that Egypt and Israel agree that Turkish troops should not have any role in Gaza, should not be deployed to Gaza.

For Israel, we know, the reasons are obvious for Israel. Israel knows very well Turkey is looking at Israel as an enemy it cannot work with, and Turkey is very vocal about supporting Hamas. So, this is one thing. But for Egypt, it’s even more complicated. If we look at the wider map, if we zoom out and look at the wider map, the Turkish troops are surrounding Egypt from almost all corners. From the north, above the Middle Sea, is where Turkey is. Above the Mediterranean Sea, is where Turkey is. Of course, we all know all the conflicts that are happening in the eastern Mediterranean region over resources. And so, it’s a headache on its own. It needs maybe another webinar. But this is one thing.

The other thing, in Libya, when the conflict, civil war happened in Libya, Turkey took the opportunity to send troops there. And now, these troops still exist until now for almost 10 years now. And they still exist there. They still operate from there. And actually, they caused a lot of trouble for Egypt to the extent that around the year 2019-2020, at one point, we expected that the Egyptian troops and the Turkish troops will clash together in Libya on the border. So, this is one thing. This is one issue on Egypt’s western border, a big trouble caused by Turkish troops being in Libya.

In Sudan, Turkish military support to the SAF, the Sudanese Armed Forces, also caused a lot of trouble to Egypt. Although Egypt agrees with the SAF in contrast to the support forces, the militia that was fighting against it, but still, this caused a lot of national security threat to Egypt on its southern borders that was amplified by the Turkish intervention. And Egypt cannot afford, in any way, having Turkish troops once again on its eastern border in Gaza, which Egypt considers, until today, as an extension to its land. By the way, Egypt, still, in the mindset of the Egyptian people, in the mindset of the Egyptian governments, Gaza is somehow linked to Egypt. And historically it was. But even until today, emotionally, this linkage still exists.

So, Egypt will not take this risk. Israel does not want Turkish troops in there. Everyone knows that, yes, if they get there, they will never leave. And they will be only further empowering Hamas. And Hamas, yes, the Trump plan said they should be disarmed. But the thing, I believe the mediators, especially Qatar, which unfortunately has a lot of influence on policymaking in the US now, the president listens to them. It seems that they misbriefed him about the need for Hamas to go back for a short while before it leaves completely.

And Hamas is simply using this, is simply using this opportunity to do what a terrorist organization would do, what a terrorist organization like Hamas would do. First, to set scores with its opposition, with its enemies inside the opposing clans in the very brutal way that we are seeing, and then to foster control and show, maybe it’s lost opportunity here, is to show that they are the strongest force inside Gaza in hope that the US or the other parties involved in this new peace plan would let them stay there and continue working, continue, I mean, governing Gaza. So, I think they are just taking their last chance, but it will not last long.

Sarah: We hope. So, if Egypt feels so strongly that Gaza is a part of Egypt, they absolutely hermetically sealed themselves off over the past two years of warfare, and all of the aid was going in through Israel; none of it was going in through Egypt. How do we resolve this?

Dalia: Okay. People may call it hypocrisy and so, but I call it really, really, it’s schizophrenia. It’s not hypocrisy as much as it is schizophrenia. And where this schizophrenia is coming from, part of it, part of the heart of the Egyptians, is with the Gazans. Oh, they are sympathizing with them. They are considering Gazans part of Egypt or an extension of Sinai. They are part of our Egyptian collective identity, if we can say. If we can say it so, I mean. So, this is one thing. Oh, and a lot of sympathy to them also, because they are Muslims like us, because they are Arabs like us. So, there is a lot of reasons why to sympathize with them.

And also because of their history of Islamist and Arab nationalist ideologies from the time of Gamal Abdel Nasser, that made people think that, “Okay, no, it’s our duty to stand up for the Palestinian cause, to fight against Israel.” And this word, this phrase, the Palestinian cause, Al-Qadiyya al-Filastiniyya, is a big issue in Egypt until today, a big issue. People believe in it more than they believe in the Quran. Actually, ironically, some people even think that it is an Islamic duty, that it is written in our Hadith or Quran, and so, that you have to fight for Palestine. Although there is nothing about it in our holy texts. I mean, I don’t know where they are getting it from.

In contrast, there is a lot of talk about Israel, the right of the Israeli people to this land in our history, Egyptian history, in our Islamic history, and everything, in our Islamic texts, even. But still, the brainwashing that happened over decades, seven decades now, since the Nasser era, and then the Islamist era until today, is what is creating this situation. So, this is one side of the schizophrenia.

The other side has to do with the heightened sense of nationalism among the Egyptians. Egyptians are very proud of their Egyptian identity, their national identity, their land, their history. It’s exaggerated sometimes, to be honest, but this is how Egyptians are. So, for them, there is this conflict, internal conflict between, “Should we open the border for the Gazans because we love them, they are our brothers and sisters, and so? Or should we keep them outside because they are troublemakers? We saw that Palestinians, wherever they go, they make troubles. They destroyed Lebanon. They destroyed Jordan. We don’t want to see this happening in Sinai. So we close our door, close our borders, and make sure that our home country is safe.”

So, this conflict between national interests, national security interests, and nationalism, very strong Egyptian nationalism, in contrast to very inherent ideologies, Islamist and Arabist ideologies that is instructing people otherwise, this is what is creating this state of schizophrenia. And unfortunately, it’s playing in the hands of radical Islamist groups and also in the hands of Arab regimes that are using this very well to their advantage to distract their own people from the domestic problems, from the failures of their governments and economy, politics, and other issues.

Sarah: Right. President John F. Kennedy once said that peace doesn’t exist in just signed documents and charters alone, but in the hearts and minds of people. It has been since 1979 that Egypt has had an opportunity to influence the populace of Egypt towards peace with Israel, yet the opposite has occurred. And Egypt has gotten billions and billions of dollars from the US taxpayer to keep the peace with Israel. How long do you think this is going to continue?

Dalia: I believe the issue was that it never served the people in power in Egypt or in other Arab countries to put Israel in a good light. Israel has always been the excuse why they practice repression against their own people, the Arabs, the Egyptians. And so why they are not held accountable for their failure in running economic affairs or political affairs, always, they would blame it on Israel. I remember before the Arab Spring, for so long, the Arab Spring revolutions that happened in 2011, in case someone doesn’t know what it is. For so long, they have been telling us that if anything happens, like removing the regime, any political turmoil inside, or so, Israel will just get in, take over Egypt. Of course, I mean, oh my God, growing up, we really believed that. But when you look at the map now, Israel take over Egypt, also Israel does not have any expansionist ambitions at all.

Anyway, but this is what was told to us. So, yes, this was a mob, they were using all the time to scare people away from taking action on their domestic problems. So, it’s definitely not in their best interest to finally say, “No, you know what, Israel is a good neighbor. We have economic agreements with Israel. We have security relationships with Israel.” They cannot say that to the public and lose one of the main tools that keeps them in power.

We slightly saw a very slight change to that when the region started to become more pragmatic after the Arab Spring. It became more pragmatic because the big sisters in the region became not anymore Egypt and Syria, who come from a very socialist, leftist, Nasserist ideology that hated Israel very much. On the contrary, we saw that the new big sisters in the region became the Gulf countries. And Gulf countries, they are people with wealth, mainly tribes turned into states, very pragmatic. All they care for is how they can do more, how they can develop more, how they can have more welfare for their people. So, they tried to stabilize the region.

And how to stabilize the region? By simply reconciling or finding a solution to the main problem in the region, which is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Arab-Israeli conflict on the bigger scale. And this is exactly what they did. And we ended up having the Abrahamic Accords. But unfortunately, it didn’t last long because the agitators or the bad actors in the region decided to flip the scenario and bring us back to where we were before all of that happened.

Sarah: So, are you at all concerned that Egypt is playing in the constellation of China and Russia?

Dalia: Actually, this is one of the main concerns now. Look, Egypt now is a country that has been struggling with its worst economic crisis ever, worst economic crisis in our history, honestly, for about seven years now. And it’s not being resolved. What the government is doing is just taking more and more loans from the IMF and more debt with Arab Gulf countries. And so, what’s happening is that they are trying to resolve debt with more debt. And we are ending up in a situation now that the economic crisis is tightening more and more, and it’s suffocating people to the extent that we are almost losing the middle class.

And the middle class was one of the core pillars of the Egyptian society. These are the people who don’t depend on economic subsidies from the government. They are the builders of the society. They are the educated people. They are the people who have access to good education, good medical care, and all of this stuff without being dependent on the government. Now, this space or this class is shrinking and shrinking further and further, and the economy is literally collapsing. If it was not for the help or the bailing out by countries like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia in the past few years, Egypt must have collapsed completely, economically at least. So, keeping this in mind and looking now at your question about what needs to be done next in terms of… sorry, I missed this point.

Sarah: Right. In terms of gravitating towards China and Russia.

Dalia: Of the alliances.

Sarah: The alliances.

Dalia: Yeah, the alliances. Exactly, that Egypt is creating. So, Egypt right now is willing to cooperate with anyone, anywhere, the Egyptian government, I mean, or the state, willing to cooperate with anyone, anywhere, as long as this will keep them standing on their feet for longer. China, in terms of, I mean, the great power competition in the region, we know that the US is on one side, and China and Russia are on the other side. China and Russia are mainly focusing on the economic competition and using their economic leverage. And they know that this is the language also that Arab countries understand very well.

Egypt has a very economic importance because of the Suez Canal and its geographic location in the heart of the Middle East and on the intersection between the Middle East, North Africa, and the Eastern Mediterranean, and Europe. It’s a perfect geographic location for anyone who wants to gain power in this region. So, China is putting a lot of weight on Egypt. There has been a lot of cooperation happening between Egypt and China, especially in the past three to four years in the economic field. And in the past two years, it developed into or evolved into security cooperation as well.

Actually, a few months ago in April, I guess, there was a training, a military training between Chinese forces and Egyptian forces for the first time, which means it seems that Egypt is losing its traditional alliances and now leaning towards new alliances that it does not necessarily ideologically agree with, but it finds that it is more economically profitable for its current crisis, or it can help with its current economic crisis.

Sarah: Right. Especially with the Suez Canal and the Yemeni ships. So, it’s really hurting. So, what is your feeling in terms of your long-term prognostications of whether or not this peace in Gaza is going to hold? And what are the relationships between Egypt and Jordan right now?

Dalia: First of all, the relationship between Egypt and Jordan is perfect. It has never been shaken, by the way. Although I know at some moments, there were talks that they disagree on certain things, but no, no, the relationship is at its best between Jordan and Egypt. And it has not been shaken by anything, and I think it will continue to be the case. Also, they are the two immediate neighbors of Israel. And both of them have the same domestic enemies, the Muslim Brotherhood, and they have been fighting against them. Their economy and security is so interdependent on Israel, and they want to rebuild this triangle of relationship between Jordan, Egypt, and Israel once again. So, I think in this regard, no worries about Jordan.

The other part of the question about the ceasefire in Gaza, I think the ceasefire in Gaza will hold because of US intervention, number one, of course. Like no one wants to let President Trump down, or his administration down. Everyone wants to please President Trump. People love him in the region very much, by the way, because he speaks their language. He understands them, and he’s not lecturing them about human rights issues and democracy and so. Although me personally, I don’t like that, but he knows how they think, and he knows how to approach them. So, no one wants to let him down. Everyone listens to him and wants to follow what he says. This is number one.

Number two, there is a state of fatigue inside the region from this war, and people just want it to stop, want it to end. So, because of this, because they don’t want to go back to the war, go back to the emotional exhaustion that has been happening for two years, and diplomatic tensions and all of that, they will do everything they can to ensure that this ceasefire will hold for as long as possible. Including, by the way, also countries that support Hamas, like Qatar and Turkey, that openly support Hamas, and Egypt also supports Hamas to some extent. It’s mainly to please Qatar and Turkey, not because they really love Hamas, and also to keep leverage on Gaza, which keeps Egypt important and relevant in the news, especially for its Western allies.

So, this is the situation now. The ceasefire itself will hold. But to make sure that on the long term, the peace plan that President Trump has put and wants to implement, and I’m sure he’s sincere about it, Hamas has to disarm. Hamas has to get out of the picture completely, the political picture and also even as a security picture, the political picture and security picture. Hamas should disappear from the scene. And I believe this is the top priority now. Everyone is pushing for phase two in the plan, but this is like jumping the gun. This is so premature.

We have to focus first on disarming Hamas, removing Hamas from inside Gaza, thinking about how we are going to foster security inside Gaza domestically first, I mean, before thinking about Israel’s security, but inside Gaza, like policing Gaza. How this is going to happen? There are now about 1,000 troops that were trained by Egypt and Jordan. They are Palestinians from the Palestinian Authority, and they have been trained to do this policing inside Gaza. So, we should think about when it is the right time to send them there to do that, and then think about the security guarantees for Israel. Everyone is ignoring this point, but it’s so crucial. We have to make sure there will not be another October 7, that this Jihad ideology, this violent resistance ideology, is completely eradicated before we even speak about a Palestinian state or speak about coexistence or anything. We have to start from there. And the first step towards eradicating this Jihadist ideology is by removing Hamas from Gaza, from existence if possible, from life if possible. So, completely neutralize Hamas and get rid of them is the very first step.

Sarah: Thank you so much, Dalia. You are a brilliant, brilliant presenter, and you really understand the neighborhood and the region, and particularly your native land of Egypt, very, very well. And I have a brand-new, wonderful friend here. All of us at EMET have a wonderful new friend. And also, Dalia is coming as well. We’re going to be having our annual dinner, November 19th. Please go to emetonline.org to be able to get tickets for the dinner. And I can’t wait to see you Friday evening at my house, Dalia. Thank you so, so much for your marvelous presentation.

Dalia: Thank you so much, Sarah. It’s a great pleasure. And yes, I’m honored to be your friend, and I’m excited about all the work you’re doing. Keep up the good work. It’s important for our region, not only for Israel.

Sarah: Thank you so much. God bless. Bye. Beautiful. Just beautiful. Thank you.

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