Asher Susser: The Regional Ramifications of the Hezbollah-Egypt Conflict

On Thursday, April 23, Asher Susser, Director for External Affairs and Senior Research Fellow at Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, discussed the effects of the Hezbollah plot in Egypt to an IPF Conference call. The following is a summary of his remarks.

Egypt's discovery of a Hezbollah terror cell in Cairo illustrates that the region is transforming into something very different from what we've known for many years.

Iran has become a power with a presence in the Mediterranean via Hezbollah and Hamas. From the point of view of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, this is absolutely intolerable.

There is nothing that the Egyptian regime, or any other regime in the area, cares about more than its domestic stability. And what the Iranians are meddling with is the longevity of the Mubarak regime. This would have been a serious threat coming from another Arab state, but coming from a non-Arab state, it is even worse.

These are not the days of the Arab cold war anymore. What the Egyptians find so disturbing is that this non-Arab power, Iran, is meddling in the most sensitive of domestic Arab affairs and in the last instance, the domestic stability of Mubarak's regime through Hezbollah.

Hezbollah in Egypt

The Hezbollah operatives that were uncovered in Egypt did not yet pose a serious immediate threat. It is significant, however, that there was a group of some 50 people that were apparently engaged in subversion. It's unclear whether they were really planning on trying to overthrow the Mubarak regime. It is more likely that this was a case of Iran and Hezbollah working against Egypt and Israel through the vehicle of terrorism as a way of establishing Iranian
influence along the Israel-Egypt border. But the existence of this kind of subversive group in Cairo is seen by Egypt as an effort to subvert its regime.

Egypt believes that the cell's aim was to destabilize the country and hurt its economy through attacking two of its most important sources of income-tourism and the Suez Canal. For Egyptians, this is extremely serious stuff.

When the Hezbollah cell was first discovered, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood half-heartedly supported Hezbollah-it may have personally supported it, but did not want to clash with the regime.

Even Hamas in Gaza is being very cautious in the way it relates to Egypt these days. This is precisely because it understands how sensitive the regime would be to that kind of criticism, and how harsh they would be in coming down on either the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt or Hamas in Gaza.

Arab States Versus Iran?

Up until now, the Arab countries that feel threatened by Iran-such as Jordan and Saudi Arabia-have not been very decisive or assertive in their response. In the recent crisis, for the first time in years, the Egyptians have come out punching. This is both because this network was uncovered in Egypt and because it comes after Israel's war in Gaza.

While Israel's operation in Gaza has been condemned by many different players in the region, Arab states privately believe that Israel dealt a serious setback to Hamas, and, indirectly, left Iran with a  bloody nose. This may have given Egypt a sense of self assurance and encouraged it to take a stronger hand.

President Obama's Middle East Diplomacy

There is another issue that affects regional behavior and that is the American desire to engage Iran. While American engagement would have many positive aspects to it, it has caused a considerable amount of anxiety in the Middle East, and not just in Israel. It's unlikely that anyone in the region-in Israel or otherwise-will oppose engagement with Iran, but there are concerns that will no doubt be raised. What the Arab side might say is, "if you want to make progress with Iran you also have to make progress on the Palestinian question."  

This is obviously different from what Israel's current government would say to President Obama. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is waffling on whether his government would accept the two-state solution. However, Netanyahu is not likely to reject the two-state solution, but rather to place it within the framework of something like the roadmap. He might say that Israel accepts the roadmap and accepts all previous agreements and imply that by accepting the roadmap, he is accepting the two-state notion. If he doesn't, somehow, accept the two-state principle, then he will not last in his relationship with the international community and he will not last politically.

He is unlikely to get away with not accepting the prospect of two-states-an Israeli state beside a Palestinian one. This is not only because the Obama administration believes in the two-state solution, but also because at least
half of  all Israelis support it. It is therefore likely that Netanyahu will soften his position with time. If he chooses not to do so, Netanyahu will be in such a crisis with the international community that it will endanger his domestic position very seriously. He doesn't want to get to that point, and so will likely come to take positions that the Obama administration finds more acceptable. If he does soften his positions, his government will appear very different than it does now-it seems to be against the two-state solution and quite interested in a conflict with Iran. Those are two key issues that the Obama administration, and other parties, see Israel as taking the wrong track on. In both cases, Netanyahu has some repair work to do.

Getting to Palestinian Unity

But even if Netanyahu does shift his position, there will still be the issue of Palestinian internal division. What the Egyptians have been trying to do since the end of the Gaza operation is to create a government of national unity that will bring Hamas and the PLO together into one government. At the end of the day, it will be extremely difficult to get anywhere beyond just maintaining the day to day order of things unless there is a Palestinian national unity government. If we have two different Palestinian voices, and there is no legitimate representative of the Palestinians acceptable to all Palestinians, then we are in a stalemate.