As I slouched down in my chair during every class last week, considerably impeded by the “Goldfish Syndrome,” my mind traversed through various time periods in Middle Eastern history and managed to stumble upon the Yom Kippur War in ‘73.
Arguably the most fascinating conflict in the Cold War era (more on that later), it began with a surprise attack on Israel from the Arab coalition. For readers who are not aware, the holiest day of the year (at least, for Jewish people) occurred that day. Formally known as Yom Kippur or “Day of Atonement,” the tradition stresses retrospection, repentance and prayer, while requiring Jews to fast and refrain from many societal pleasures, among other things. Yom Kippur virtually occurs on a different day each year, and this year it started last weekend on October 3. I can honestly say, I would love to embark on an exegetical conquest into the intricacies and significance behind Yom Kippur, topped off with a comparative analysis of religions, but I have neither the time nor prestige to discuss that. But I would much rather like to embrace and employ the “retrospective” feature of the Jewish Holy Day.
Retrospection can be useful in suggesting alternative solutions to imminent problems. For example, when I stumbled upon the Yom Kippur War, I immediately thought about who the “power players” were and the war’s consequences. The “power players” consisted of a Soviet-backed Egypt and Syria, with allies, versus a U.S.-backed Israel. However, the consequences of the war may be of most importance: the historic Camp David Accords subsequently led to a treaty between Egypt and Israel. But what keeps a treaty together? Money! Since the Camp David Accords, the U.S. annually provides military aid to both Egypt and Israel to “solidify” their relationship — and has largely been a success. Now how can any of this retrospection be useful?
Surely we are all aware of the radical jihadist group named ISIS, which has secured territory in both Iraq and Syria. A U.S. led intervention is underway to push back against ISIS through the use of airstrikes, but in the event that ISIS isn’t “degraded,” there appears to be no clear contingency plan to combat ISIS. Therefore, I have two suggestions that the U.S. should utilize warranted a failure in U.S. led coalition airstrikes.
1. “Encourage” Egypt and Israel to use ground forces; if boots on the ground are necessary, then combating ISIS serves their security interests more than ours.
2. Augment Egyptian and Israeli coalition to combat the spread of further radical jihadist groups in the Middle East, Libya and Somalia.
To my first point, the spread of ISIS any further into Syria is an imminent threat to Israel. Therein lies my justification for Israeli troops on the ground, in the event the situation deteriorates after airstrikes. Egyptian intervention would be necessary to provide security within Iraq because the Iraqi military proved ineffective in preventing the insurgency of ISIS. Egypt and Israel need to advance their relationship from a “peace agreement” to a bilateral relationship that could lead the charge in fighting ISIS, even if this means that the U.S. leverages the military aid program to persuade both countries. This leads me to my second point, which takes a long-view approach: an Egyptian-Israeli coalition would be beneficial for the region and surrounding countries. Both countries have a common enemy — combating radical jihadist groups; for Egypt it’s the Muslim Brotherhood and for Israel it’s Hamas (an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.) It is time for Egypt to step back into the role as a “power player” in the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. During past Arab-Israeli conflicts (years‘48,’56,’67,’73) Egypt was far from the “paper tiger” that it is now. To be clear, I am not calling for Pan-Arabism that persisted during Nasser’s rule in Egypt, but I would like to see Egypt step-up under President El-Sissi and take the lead militarily and diplomatically. Egypt can only do this with the help of Israel and U.S. backing. An Egyptian-Israeli coalition would stabilize the Middle East and would act as a buffer to countries that view Israel as illegitimate. Recently, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Cairo to discuss ISIS, and afterward he said that Egypt is vital in combating ISIS. I would take that further and say that both Egypt and Israel play the most integral role in eradicating ISIS and other radical Islamic jihadist groups in the Middle East and surrounding areas.
