Rafah Clash Exposes Roots of Egypt and Israel Tension

This episode delves into the escalating tensions between Egypt and Israel, primarily centered around the strategic and embattled city of Rafah, which has recently experienced military confrontations.

1. Recent Tensions: Tensions have escalated due to Israel's military actions in Gaza, particularly in Rafah, which is critically positioned near the Egyptian border.
2. Egypt's Role: Egypt has historically played a mediator role but has strongly condemned Israel's recent actions, threatening to suspend the Camp David peace accords.
3. Strategic Importance of Rafah: Rafah's proximity to Egypt makes it a flashpoint, with fears of Palestinian displacement into Sinai being a significant concern for Egypt.
4. International Reactions: Egypt has increased its international advocacy against Israel, including joining the International Court of Justice's genocide case against Israel.
5. Broader Regional Implications: The episode discusses how these developments could potentially lead to broader regional conflict if diplomatic solutions are not found.

1: Introduction

Overview of the episode's focus on the escalating tensions between Egypt and Israel. Murtaza Hussain: "Welcome to Intercepted, where we explore the deep-seated tensions in Rafah that expose the fragile ties between Egypt and Israel."

2: Historical Context

Discusses the historical relations between Egypt and Israel, emphasizing the long-standing issues predating the recent conflicts. H.A. Hellyer: "This conflict has roots that go back decades, affecting not just Gaza but also the West Bank."

3: Current Crisis

Analysis of the current crisis, including military actions and diplomatic strains. H.A. Hellyer: "Cairo has been a linchpin in negotiations, deeply concerned by the escalation of violence in Gaza."

4: Rafah's Strategic Significance

Details why Rafah is critically important for Egypt and the broader geopolitical landscape. H.A. Hellyer: "Rafah's proximity to Egypt makes any conflict there a direct threat to Egyptian sovereignty and security."

5: Looking Forward

Considers potential future scenarios and the necessity for diplomatic engagement to prevent a larger regional war. H.A. Hellyer: "The need for strong international diplomacy is urgent to prevent these tensions from boiling over into a broader conflict."

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After eight months of brutal fighting with no end in sight, the war in Gaza is at risk of metastasizing into a regional conflict. Recent tensions between Egypt and Israel — normally security partners who have cooperated in the blockade of Gaza — have thrown into stark relief the growing risks of a spillover from the war.

This week on Intercepted, security expert H. A. Hellyer discusses with co-host Murtaza Hussain the growing hostilities between the two countries, which have resulted in Egypt joining the International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel, threats to annul the Camp David peace accords, and even a fatal shooting incident between Egyptian and Israel troops.

The war in Gaza is at risk of exploding into a far greater war that could cause the destruction of the tenuous security architecture that has held the region together for decades.

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H.A. Hellyer

Guest Name(s):

Dr. H.A. Hellyer

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Murtaza Hussain
This is intercepted.

Welcome to Intercepted Im Ratazza Hussein. In recent weeks, tensions have risen between Israel and Egypt. Though these countries are key security partners who have cooperated for years in the blockade on Gaza, they are now facing a potential breaking point in their relationship. Israel and Egypt have been bound together for decades by the Camp David peace agreements signed under former egyptian president Anwar Sadat. That agreement has kept the peace for years despite opposition from much of the egyptian public.

But it is now being pushed to the brink by the israeli assault on Gaza and in particular Israels attacks on the southern city of Rafah. In recent weeks, Egypt has threatened to suspend the Camp David peace accords, publicly criticized israeli actions in Gaza, and even joined the International Court of Justice. Genocide case against Israel. A shootout in late May between egyptian and israeli soldiers killed one egyptian soldier. These events have threatened to erode this relationship further into open conflict.

Joining me now to discuss the history of Egypt Israel relations and the growing tensions today is Doctor Ha Hellyer. Doctor Hellyer is a scholar in the Middle east program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC, and a senior associate fellow in security studies at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, or Russi, in London. Doctor Hellyer, welcome to intercepted. Thank you so much. It's a great pleasure to be here.

So, Doctor Hellyer, Egypt has been a critical part of the conflict in Gaza since the beginning as a mediator between Israel and Hamas. It's also a longstanding security partner of Israel and helped to administer the blockade of Gaza prior to this current conflict. Can you give us an overview of Israel and Egypt's ties since the start of this war and what tensions have emerged as it's continued into its 8th month? If we're talking about this particular, how should we say, phase of the conflict? Right.

H.A. Hellyer
Because I think there's a tendency to look at what's going on right now in Gaza as having started on October 7. And, of course, that's not the case. It's very clear that this has a much longer history going back decades. Right? I mean, what is going on right now is indistinguishable or very difficult to separate out from what's happening in the West bank at the moment as well, and what's happened in Gaza before October 7.

But if we limit it to October 7 onwards, then I think what you saw post October 7 were a few things from Cairo's perspective. The first was that they had maintained a certain level of coordination with Hamas as the de facto governing authority of Gaza. You had very clear coordination and engagement there. At the same time, you had coordination and engagement with the Israelis. And of course, Cairo was the first arab capital to sign a peace treaty with the Israelis more than 40 years ago.

That's been a consistent factor in that regardless. But also Cairo is engaged with pretty much every palestinian faction on the ground as well, the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and so on. So Cairo has really been, I would say, a linchpin of any type of negotiations that have taken place not simply over the past nine months, but going back many, many years. And I think that Cairo was, of course, as the rest of us, taken by surprise in terms of what happened on October 7. There were reports indicating that they suspected something was going to happen on the 7 October and apparently alerted the Israelis, according to some reports.

But, you know, I've never seen, you know, more details than that and also nothing to suggest that they knew about the scale of it, simply that they saw chatter going on and wondered what was going to happen, but nothing more than that. And of course, the Israelis got much more than that and chose to ignore it, as we know now from all the reports. But once that took place, I think Cairo was very clear in condemning any attack on civilians. But then when the reprisals and the retaliations by the Israelis began in October on Gaza, I think Cairo was extremely concerned, very vocal, very public about its opposition to the retaliation. And then the retaliation, of course, developing into a much wider large scale bombardment on Gaza that caused huge displacement of Palestinians within Gaza.

You have Palestinians in Gaza now who have been displaced five, six, seven times in the past nine months. So there was that concern, of course, and they were very public about it. I think that this has been very clear in international fora, in the media. It's been quite clear that there's been, at least on the rhetorical level, an incredible amount of work that has gone in from the egyptian side for many reasons, one of which is the concern that the Israelis are trying to push Palestinians out of Gaza and into the Sinai peninsula in Egypt, something that Egypt rejects completely. And I remember when this first came up back in, I think it was October time, there were a lot of people sort of belittling the suspicion that this is what the Israelis wanted to do.

Having said that, a few months later, it no longer seems or no longer seemed quite so far fetched because there were all of these leaks from the israeli cabinet about this is actually something that they were discussing. But certainly that was a big concern of Cairos. So there's a lot of factors that go in here. Doctor Halley, can you explain the egyptian military's relationship with Hamas historically? Obviously, it participated in the blockade of Gaza, but also has various forms of coordination with Hamas as a result of the fact that it's the governing power in Gaza for so many years.

Murtaza Hussain
How does it view Hamas in the context of this conflict and as a political actor generally? That's an excellent question because Hamas was, of course, founded as a brotherhood linked movement back in the 1980s. And of course, the egyptian state is nothing if not very, very clear about its opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, at least in the country. I say at least in the country because you've seen over the last decade that Hamas and the egyptian state have had a very interesting relationship. Some parts of the egyptian state are very, very unwilling to countenance, I think, any type of engagement beyond outright opposition.

H.A. Hellyer
But these parts of the state I don't think are an ascendancy at all. And I think what you have instead is a very pragmatic view by the egyptian state to engage with Hamas. And we've seen that very widely over quite some years now where Cairo has hosted palestinian reconciliation talks, hosted very senior Hamas leadership for meetings and conferences and so on. And it's not uncommon to hear people very close to circles of power in Cairo say things like, you know, Hamas has to be part of the solution, right? Which isn't, you know, typically what you would expect.

But there's, there's a few things here. One, officially, officially, Hamas disconnected itself from the Muslim Brotherhood, I think in 2016 or something. I'd have to go back and check the actual date. But it officially made that statement. And I think that that was a clear signal to the Egyptians that, look, we're a national movement in Palestine, and when you engage with us, it's on that basis we're not an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood movement that you are so opposed to.

And certainly I think the Egyptians took it as such. The other thing is that Egypt in terms of foreign policy is actually incredibly pragmatic. And you've seen that time and again over the past decade, generally speaking, they're actually really pragmatic in terms of foreign policy. And I think that if you look at the situation on the ground, what was really Egypt going to do except engage with Hamas? I mean, Hamas were governing at least partially, and I say partially because, of course, Gaza was and remains under israeli occupation.

And even in the heyday of, quote unquote, Hamas governance, it was still under occupation. So they never really governed it in a full sense, but they were in control of huge parts of the, quote unquote, governing apparatus right in Gaza. So what exactly was Egypt going to do? And I think they were very pragmatic in that regard. I've never seen anybody express any regret about that from the egyptian side.

Murtaza Hussain
And, Doctor Hellyer, this brings me back to recent events as well, too. Obviously, the israeli military has been threatening and in some sense carrying out a military operation in the southern gazan city of Rafah. There were reports in late maybe that an egyptian soldier was killed in exchange of fire between egyptian soldiers and the israeli military in the course of that operation. Of course, that's a very sensitive and incendiary potential situation to take place between these two countries. Can you talk about why Rafa is so critical to Egypt and also the implications of that incident and how it was received in Egypt itself first in.

H.A. Hellyer
Terms of that particular clash? So if you allow me, I'll explain that and then go on to Rafah itself. The israeli press reported last week, I can't remember which outlet did so, but the israeli press reported last week that the way in which that clash unfolded was that israeli soldiers were trying to get closer and closer to the border with Egypt at the crossing. And they were doing so purposefully to see how much they could get away with before there would be a response from the Egyptians. So an intentional provocation in order to test the waters, as it were, an egyptian soldier responded.

This is what was in the israeli press, and the Israelis shot him. That's apparently what happened again, according to the israeli press, I think very reckless, but I think their entire operation there has been incredibly reckless. What we saw in terms of public opinion thereafter was a huge amount of, you know, anger and grief. Grief, of course, about the egyptian soldier. I saw that on egyptian social media a lot from, again, official, unofficial sources.

And, you know, I don't think that there's any doubt that in Egypt, the official sentiment that's being expressed, which is very critical of Israel and the popular sentiment around the Palestinians are not particularly far off at all from each other. I think that it's pretty much identical. It might be that public opinion is even more inflamed, but I think that when you see expressions of anger from the egyptian side in official channels, they are reflecting a huge popular feeling. More generally, when it comes to Rafah, there's a number of things here. First, Rafah is the closest city to the border with Egypt.

So as I said earlier, the fear that the Israelis are trying to push Palestinians out of Gaza and displace them, that is, ethnically cleanse them to Sinai, is a fear and concern that the Egyptians have held for a very, very long time, that the Israelis are seeking to. I mean, I'm speaking from the egyptian perspective here. They're seeking to extinguish the palestinian cause by removing Palestinians to Sinai, and that's the solution for Gaza. They've long held the suspicion about, you know, the quote unquote Sinai solution. When hostilities broke out in October, there were reports, and I think that now everybody knows this, that the Israelis had considered this to be a possible option of quote unquote, temporarily displacing Palestinians to Sinai so that they could go into Gaza and, you know, do much more.

It was very interesting to see that even some european states and I think the United States up until, I don't know, maybe end of October, sometime in November, were at least considering whether or not this would be an option. CAIRo made it extremely clear that this was a no starter, that this would not be allowed, that they would not permit this sort of strategy even if it was touted as temporary. And that was that. I mean, to be fair, once Cairo made their wishes very clearly known, I think any western state that had thought that this might be something to pursue gave up on it. Now your listeners might wonder why Cairo was so adamant in this regard, because it was, you know, it was being counted as temporary, not permanent.

Again, from Cairo's perspective, and I think that this is borne out by history, the suspicion is that this wouldn't be temporary, that it would be permanent, and that it would serve as a precursor to ethnically cleansing. Gaza and Cairo didn't want to be complicit in that ethnic cleansing exercise. And when I say history bears this out, I do not know of any situation in modern history where Palestinians were forced to leave any part of Palestine and were allowed to return. I think that that's just know history from, you know, 1948 onwards. So the Egyptians were not unreasonable in that regard.

I don't think when it comes to Rafah as well, as I mentioned earlier, there's a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. The peace treaty has its articles. It also has its annexes. There's an annex that specifies what type of troops, weaponry, arms, artillery and so on are allowed to be in different parts of Egypt's territory and Gaza, particularly when we're talking about the Sinai because, of course, the peace treaty was signed following the occupation of Sinai by the Israelis in the 1967 war. The Sinai as well as Gaza, a part of Gaza at least, is split up into four zones.

A, B, C, D. Sinai is basically ABC. It's divided into those three zones. And then there's zone D. Zone D is what's called the Philadelphia corridor.

And the Philadelphia corridor runs along the border of Gaza and Egypt. It's a very thin corridor. You know, I think it's, you know, 100 or a couple hundred meters. It's, you know, in terms of width if not breadth. But it goes from, you know, the whole line of the border.

And it's very, very clear in the annex that Israel and Egypt cannot have much in there. Okay? It's got to be very, very light in terms of any type of artillery and so on. And of course, Israel, when it took the Philadelphia corridor and when it came to Rafah, it had huge tanks with the full range of stuff that, you know, you'd expect the IDF to have. But they moved it into the Philadelphia corridor.

So this was a. This was actually a clear violation of the peace treaty. And Egypt had said many times before that this would be unacceptable. But the Israelis went ahead and did it anyway. And they are now in control completely of the Philadelphia corridor on, of course, the gazan side, not on the egyptian side.

This has, you know, caused huge issues in Cairo. The Egyptians are furious. And as a result of this escalation vis a vis the treaty, Cairo took other measures. They were not military or anything like that, but they announced, for example, that they were going to join the International Court of Justice's case against Israel. They refused to recognize Israel's takeover of the crossing in Rafah between Egypt and Gaza.

So they're not allowing anything to go in and out of there through Egypt because they said, no, we do not recognize Israel's right to operate anything on the border crossing. So instead, now things are going through another crossing, Nev Shalom, further south. Although there have been discussions recently about restoring some sort of international presence at the Rafah border crossing in order to allow it to be reopened, which would not recognize Israel's right to be there, but would return some sort of quote unquote neutral party that wasn't Hamas or the Palestinians. And the Egyptians apparently have expressed their preference for the EU because there was an existing EU operation there some years ago. So it's just reactivating that border regime.

For some very bizarre reason. The Israelis have expressed a preference for the UN. I say bizarre because the Israelis have said all sorts of very peculiar things about the UN over the past nine months. So it strikes me as intriguing that they prefer this. I'm not sure why.

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Murtaza Hussain
Doctor Hellyer, I want to ask you a bit about this peace treaty you refer to between Egypt and Israel. Of course, it's the Camp David treaty, which was negotiated many decades ago by then egyptian President Anwar Sadat. And in many ways, it's the cornerstone of the relationship and a broader US backed regional order in the Middle east. Now, since the October 7 attacks, many people, observers have been concerned about the meltdown, so to speak, of that order in a very chaotic and potentially violent manner. And as the war has gone on, the egyptian government has threatened to suspend the Camp David treaty without entirely specifying what that would mean in practice, but suggesting that the peace treaty between itself and Israel may not be enforced any longer.

You know, this conflict, the violence of it, even on the scale of the Israel Palestine conflict to date, is perhaps the most violent it's ever been, or at least in many, many decades, since the emergence in the 1940s of the war or the split between Israelis and Palestinians. And so it really does seem to threaten everything that one would take for granted about the Middle east and how it's presently constructed politically. What is your assessment of the potential of the camp David treaty between Egypt and Israel to be suspended and what will be the consequences of that? And then finally, it's a threefold question. How does the egyptian public currently view disagreement as the war is developing?

H.A. Hellyer
I mean, that's a big threefold question. So let me take the last one first, because that's, I think, the easiest one to deal with first when it comes to the egyptian public. I'm trying to remember when the last time there was a public opinion poll in Egypt that looked at the peace treaty, and I think it must have been a very, very long time ago. I would presume that the treaty has really taken a massive hit in terms of public support for it over the last nine months. I'd be very surprised if that had not been the case.

But of course, the treaty does not hold and does not get suspended as the result of public opinion as much as it's a decision of the country's leadership. And I think the country's leadership has been very clear and this has been consistently the case and constantly the case, at least in my lifetime, where there hasn't ever been a serious suggestion under any government that the peace treaty was going to be canceled, even during the revolutionary period between 2011 and 2013. I don't think that that was ever posited as a serious policy option. I think that's always been the case since it was signed in the late seventies. And of course, when it comes to the state's leadership, I think they recognize that this is indeed, as you put it, kind of part of the bedrock of the regional security architecture which currently exists now.

The carnage, the incredible humanitarian catastrophe, the war in Gaza that we see and have seen over the past nine months. As horrific as it is, I don't think has actually changed that particular equation in terms of how at least regional governments consider the current regional security architecture. You could argue that they're thinking really badly or that they are not considering this strategically. But that's another question. I don't think that there's any serious, how should we say, proposition where people are thinking, you know what, let's just change the regional security architecture and get something new.

On the contrary, I feel that everybody, at least in government across the region, is trying to do completely the opposite. They're trying to call the United States, for example, to come in and intervene more heavily, intervene not so much in terms of a military invasion or something, but intervene, for example, with the Israelis, that they are calling on other regional powers not to inflame the situation or escalate. So you saw that, for example, when it came to the Iranians, and I think across the board, that even a country like Iran they didn't jump on the bandwagon of escalation at all. On the contrary, I feel that every major power in the region has been trying to avoid escalation, with the exception, I must say, of the Israelis, if I'm perfectly frank, I find the Israelis have actually been very reckless in quite a few different policy options over the past nine months. The Iranians were reckless in terms of how they retaliated following the attack on their consulate in Damascus.

I do think that was a reckless thing for them to do, but they didn't do more than that. Right. And the way in which we've seen other countries over the past nine months, it's constantly been this exhortation of de escalate, de escalate, de escalate, and also not to change the regional security architecture. They're trying to use the existing regional security architecture to try to bring things to a more settled outcome. Doctor Hellyer, I want to pivot a bit and ask you about a few articles you've written in the last few months, specifically about the subject of how this war is impacting global perceptions of the United States and what you can call the rules based order or international law and the institutions that support it.

Murtaza Hussain
Obviously, Israel is facing intense scrutiny from the ICC, the ICJ, over the actions of its senior officials and also allegations of genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza over the past eight months. And the US has been very obstinate in its defenses of Israel and seeming hostility to the enforcement of the same norms that calls for enforcing in cases like Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Can you talk a bit about the damage, from your perspective, that these actions by the US are doing to these international institutions and also the perception in the global south, so to speak, or non western countries, of the us patronage of Israel in the situation where it's accused of very, very serious crimes. That's a really important question. And one, frankly, I've been thinking about a lot over the past nine months, because, of course, it's important that we recognize the human cost of what's going on in Gaza to those who, you know, matter the most in that regard, which are the people of Gaza.

H.A. Hellyer
And there's been tens of thousands of civilians killed and many hundreds of thousands lives irrevocably damaged. So I think that that's very important to center our attention on. But when we think about this beyond Gaza and even beyond the region, there are lots of consequences here. And it's been very, very troubling to me to consider what sort of repercussions we're going to see and have seen already when it comes to the impact on the rules based order. Now, I want to be clear here.

When I say the rules based order, I'm not talking about some sort of tool of the United States or for that matter, any other country to try to govern the world or something like that. And I know that some people do. From my perspective, the rules based order is a way to govern the world's conflicts by referencing and prioritizing international law, that the rules in that regard are international law. And of course, the manifestation of that rules based order is pretty patchy. Okay?

And when I say patchy, I'm being polite. You know, in some places seems to hold, and in other places it doesn't. And of course, that's all about enforcement, because the rules based order does not work unless people put muscle behind it and enforce it in the same way that any law that is put into effect does not get the teeth that it needs, unless indeed there's an enforcement mechanism that people take seriously. And when it comes to international law, that's not always the case. I remember I was actually in the arab world when Russia invaded Ukraine a few years ago now, and I was very supportive of Ukraine and continue to be in terms of repelling Russia's invasion of their territory.

For me, it was very clear cut. This is an invasion of a sovereign country by another country without any justification whatsoever. And it's important that the world say as such, otherwise a very clear bedrock of, again, the rules based order, which is about national sovereignty from invasion is completely expunged. Even though I have no particular affinity to Ukraine, it's not something that I study particularly much, at least until the invasion. But the principle alone just struck me as something that was very important.

I remember having discussions in the arab world at the time, and, you know, I completely understood why many people in the region didn't see it like that. And frankly, I found it quite surprising that we expected them to. As I said, I found the case very morally compelling, ethically compelling, and very principled. I didn't think that there was any confusion about that from my perspective. But when you talk about sovereignty and invasion and occupation and you're an Arab, I'm sure what they hear, they hear Iraq and they hear Palestine, they hear, wait a minute, the west invaded Iraq and occupied, and that was okay, apparently.

And Israel, which is backed by the west, you know, this is the rhetoric and the narrative that plays out, and it's not a narrative that doesn't have basis. The reality is, is that indeed Iraq was invaded and Iraq did have an occupation and Palestine was invaded. And, you know, key western countries have backed Israel in the continuation of that occupation, even while they are very clear that this is illegal. Okay. I mean, the israeli occupation of the palestinian territories is illegal by international law, but it's also recognized as such by pretty much everybody in the international community, including the United States.

But at the same time, support for Israel at the UN arms and so on continues rather unabated. So the consistency here, I felt, was something that we just had to appreciate and understand and accept that actually the west as a complete cohesive block. Right. I mean, because we're talking several dozen countries that come under the rubric of the west. We're not talking about all of them being on quite the same page.

You had many countries that opposed the Iraq war, for example, within the west, and you had countries that have had a rather troubled relationship, let's say, with the Israelis because of the occupation of the palestinian territories. But those are nuances that people like you or me might be able to appreciate as westerners. They're not necessarily nuances that people in the arab world would necessarily know about or appreciate. They see the big power politics at play here, what the big countries are doing on this and that. And, you know, in that regard, there's a lot that hasn't been consistent.

But still, I felt that there is a way to talk about this in a consistent manner. And, you know, I had very interesting conversations with people on Ukraine, and I know that many other colleagues did as well. Once you get, however, to last year and Israel's war in Gaza, it becomes impossible almost to have discussions around the rules based order, not only the wider arab world, but across the world, outside of the west. If you're talking South America, Latin America, Africa, most of Asia, and indeed, by the way, in much of the west as well, at least in terms of public opinion, there's a lot of angst and very legitimately held about the idea that, wait a minute, you're telling us that you support a rules based order, but here is your ally, that is the Israelis, completely ignoring the rules based order, and you're not even admitting that the rules based order here, that is international law is being broken. And I think that that was a fundamental break in credibility.

You know, in other examples that I've mentioned, like when it came to the Iraq war, for example, there was a case that international law was being followed when it came to the Iraq invasion of the Iraq war. I say there was a case okay. I'm not saying that this was correct. I'm just saying that you could have argued that it was at least disputable, right. At least for a time, maybe not a very long time.

But, you know, you could have tried to make that case. You can't do anything like that when it comes to this. When it comes to this, you have the International Court of Justice investigating, or rather hearing a case on genocide. You have the International Criminal court prosecutor seeking arrest warrants for war crimes and aiming it, yes, at Hamas leaders, but also at Israel's leaders, particularly the prime minister and the defense minister. So the idea that there's any doubt about this is rather strange.

But when you go to particularly Washington, DC, this unfortunately is the biggest loss of credibility of all. Washington refuses to acknowledge that there is basis to this feeling of inconsistency. On the contrary, they've attacked the ICC tremendously. They've said that the charges at the ICJ are baseless. They insist and continue to insist that there has not been any infringement of international law in Gaza by the Israelis.

Quite astoundingly. I mean, listening to spokespeople for the State Department and the Security Council, incredible to see this sort of, how should we say, bizarre dance where the facts are so clear to everybody asking. But there's some sort of parallel universe at work here to the point where you've had people resign from the State Department and go public. This happened recently, again, go public with how internally in the Biden administration, they're purposefully ignoring their own experts on how quite a lot of things are happening in Gaza at the hands of the Israelis. So that sort of denial of these things even taking place, I think it has a huge impact on how people view the United States and its commitment to international law and the rules based order.

And that has a repercussion. The repercussion is very serious. If the strongest advocate of the rules based order refuses to recognize that actually it's not upholding the rules based order, then the incentive or the trust that the rest of the world will have in upholding that rules based order really falls. And I think that we're seeing a lot of that right now where if people even mention the phrase, people just sort of snigger and say, are you kidding? I mean, what rules based order?

How is it a rules based order when you, as the United States, are unwilling to uphold it, not against a powerful opponent like Russia or China or something like that, but against your own ally. Against your own ally. And I think this is where it really gets a lot of people very riled up that the United States has tremendous leverage over Israel, and Israel is an ally. Right. So it isn't actually that hard, materially speaking, to make a difference in terms of policy here.

But the United States has refused to do that. There's a lot of stuff out there about how DC is putting pressure on the Israelis, and Biden is not happy with Netanyahu and so on. A lot of that is perfectly true. But when we talk about pressure, we have to recognize the United States overwhelmingly supports Israel when it comes to diplomatic cover at the United Nations Security Council and with the provision of military assistance. That's leverage right there.

But it's never been touched. So how does that look to everybody else in the world? It looks like the United States will uphold the rules based order and international law when it serves their interests or when it serves their allies interests, but will not do so when it doesn't. At present, there are efforts to end the war in Gaza and mediation that Egypt and Qatar and the United States are taking part in, potentially to bring about a temporary and then permanent ceasefire. And it seems to me that the impetus behind these efforts are becoming more and more urgent in the sense of preventing a broader regional war, which has been the fear of everyone since October 7 began.

Murtaza Hussain
Currently, there's an escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and there could be a broader conflict also involving Iran or other parties as well. And of course, the tensions between Egypt and Israel and also Jordan and Israel figure part of that as well, too. What do you fear may happen if this war continues on without a diplomatic solution in the months or even more than a year ahead that could be forecasted to continue forward? Could this become a regional war, and what would the implications be for the people in the region and the broader. World if that happened since October 7 and since the war on Gaza began in October?

H.A. Hellyer
Something that not just myself, but I think many security analysts and people who watch the region. And I want to make this clear to your listeners as well. I am a scholar in the Middle east program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in DC, but I'm also a senior associate fellow in international security studies at the oldest think tank in the world, which is very concerned about defense and security issues, the Royal United Services Institute in London. I'll tell you that as somebody in that wider security arena, the concern that this could spill over and really escalate has been a really big one, not just for myself, but many, many people that I know because the reality is that when you have escalations like this take place, there's no such thing as controlling where it goes. I think people live in this mythical world where they think that if you're good at it, you can escalate carefully and delicately and precisely.

You know, you can turn it up just a little bit. You can go from 24 degrees to 25 degrees or something. This is not a remote control on an air conditioner. You can't control everything. The law of unintended consequences is very real.

And I'll be very honest with you, I expected much more of a regional conflict than what weve seen thus far over the past nine months. And I think thats a testament, frankly, to the region and to leaders in the region wanting really hard to avoid such a scenario, because really all the factors are there. You have this attempt to escalate, and the Israelis, as I said, have been very reckless in this regard. You could have easily seen much more of a really wide regional war with very little, I mean, this is a tinderbox. So again, I really think it's a testament to the region that it hasn't gone that way yet.

But I say yet because lots of things can happen and we see what's the escalation recently on the border with Lebanon between the Israelis and the Lebanese? Of course, there's still stuff to be concerned about with regard to the Houthis in the Red Sea, but I'm particularly concerned about Lebanon. And I think that if conflict does break out there, not in this sort of tit for tat sort of way that we've seen over the last few months, but much more serious, it's going to be very bad for the people of Lebanon, but also for Israelis. You know, Hezbollah is not Hamas, okay? Hezbollah has a lot more to work with in terms of weaponry and people, and I think the Israelis know that.

But as I said, they've been very reckless on multiple occasions over the past nine months. And what we've seen since October is that they've engaged in this war on Gaza without having a very clear strategic imperative at work that is achievable and lots of conflicting, I think, sort of aims involved within. So they could very easily make a really, really bad decision when it comes to Lebanon, even if from the outside it seems totally counterproductive because they've done this quite a few times over the past nine months. So that is concerning. And I think that that's one of the reasons why it's so important that international political leaders, particularly the United States, they're the ones that have the most leverage here by far, but also, more broadly speaking, really put their offices to good use and push for de escalation and really encourage, and I mean that in the nicest possible way, really encourage the Israelis to not drag the region onto a track that would be deeply, deeply damaging for the entire region, including themselves.

Murtaza Hussain
Doctor Hellyer, thank you so much for. Joining us on intercepted. Thank you. It was a pleasure. That was Doctor Ha Hellyer, a scholar in the Middle east program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a senior associate fellow in security studies at the Royal United Services Institute Institute for Defense.

And that does it for this episode of Intercepted. Intercepted is a production of the Intercept. Laura Flynn produced this episode. Rick Kwan Mixtar show legal review by Sean Musgrave and Elizabeth Sanchez. This episode was transcribed by Leonardo Fireman and our theme music, as always, was composed by DJ Spooky.

Thank you so much to our supporters and listeners. If you haven't already, please subscribe to Intercepted and our other podcasts deconstructed. Also, do leave us a rating and review whenever you find our podcasts. It helps other listeners to find us as well. If you want to give us additional feedback, email us@podcastheintercept.com.

dot thank you so much for joining us. I'm Mertazz Hossein.

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