Reports on Israeli radio Tuesday afternoon suggested that a secret envoy for the Israeli government visited Cairo on Tuesday, and that he stayed there for several hours to hold talks with the military leaders in Egypt.
The Arab affairs analyst at Yediot Ahronot newspaper, Smadar Perry, said in an interview with the Hebrew radio channel Reshet Bet that it was important for the Israeli government to announce this news to confirm the continuation of security coordination between Israel and Egypt under General Sisi’s leadership.
Perry said the security cooperation and coordination between the military leadership in Egypt and Israel would continue. She added that there are common interests between Israel and the Egyptian military, especially when it comes to the maintenance of security in the Sinai Peninsula, as well as the need to ensure a stability that maintains the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.
In this context, in recent days days Western as well as other Israeli reports have pointed to the fact that Israeli political and security leaders have been making concerted efforts to urge the US administration to stand by General Sisi and not take any punitive steps against Egypt in the light of the Raba’a Al-Adawiyya and Al-Nahda square massacres.
Moreover, Israeli newspapers have launched a media campaign over the last few days to emphasize the importance of shared security and regional interests between the US and the Egyptian security and military, primarily the fact that Egypt is the only country among US allies which allows the latter to freely use the Egyptian airspace and Suez Canal without prior coordination. This is not the case with other allied countries in the region.
During the last meeting for the cabinet’s Ministerial Security Council, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had instructed the ministers in his government not to address the explosive situation in Egypt under any circumstances.