Israel-Arabs: For Israel, A Nightmare Scenario (Security-Report‪)‬

Israel is watching the turmoil in neighboring Egypt and the shockwaves of the events there and in Tunisia earlier with mounting alarm as President Hosni Mubarak's grip on power weakens in the first Arab nation to make peace with the Jewish state. The Israelis fear that the end of Mubarak's repressive 30-year rule will mean the collapse of the historic US-brokered peace treaty his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, signed on March 26, 1979, but which most Egyptians abhor. And that this could have a ripple effect in other Arab states ringing the Jewish state. "The fading power of ... Mubarak's government leaves Israel in a state of strategic distress," veteran commentator Aluf Benn wrote in Israel's liberal daily Haaretz. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on January 30: "The peace between Israel and Egypt has lasted for more than three decades and our objective is to ensure that these relations will continue to exist." The end of the peace deal with Egypt, the cornerstone of Israel's regional and economic policies for three decades, could have grave ramifications for regional stability and the balance of power, most immediately by possibly threatening the shaky Palestinian Authority, which, with the help of Mubarak's now-crumbling regime, has promoted a settlement with Israel. The PA, far from championing political reform and a new brand of liberal and transparent Arab governance, became just another corrupt and repressive Arab regime, and even collaborated with Israel against Palestinian militants. It is widely unpopular in the West Bank. The downfall of President Mahmoud Abbas' PA would undoubtedly doom the so-called peace process, and possibly open the door to large-scale infiltration by Islamic militants into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip from a more hostile Egypt.