The rules of the game have changed
In the early days of the peace agreement with Egypt, Menachem Begin would often quote Anwar Sadat: "No more war, no more bloodshed."
That was no coincidence: Begin wanted to cement the Egyptian president's commitment to ending the conflict. When I once asked Begin if he believed that peace with Egypt would last forever, he answered, "If peace agreements were eternal, there wouldn't have been 3,000 of them signed throughout human history." Perhaps he had in mind scenarios similar to those that have recently transpired in Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Thirty-two years after Israel and Egypt signed their peace agreement, and garnered two Nobel Prizes for it, the winds of war are blowing in the south. Israel may not feature prominently in the demands of the million Egyptian protesters in the street, but the IDF is still considering the possibility that the wheels of time could turn back. It is quietly preparing for a reality in which the calm that prevails along Israel's lengthy border with Egypt can no longer be taken for granted.
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Israel has plenty of reasons to be concerned: promises of a presidential election next July, a new temporary government to replace the one that just resigned, and parliamentary elections a week from now that are expected to give the Muslim Brotherhood one-third of the seats. Yet, not only is Israel worried the entire West is concerned. As is Washington, where President Barack Obama welcomed with open arms the Arab Spring, which has now become the Middle Eastern winter.
There is increasing concern that a firestorm is hovering over the Land of the Nile. The street, which ousted Hosni Mubarak, is disappointed with a revolution that has yet to accomplish anything. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces is not leading the masses. Anyone watching interim leader Mohamed Hussein Tantawi's televised speech on Tuesday could feel his weakness. He is also liable to find himself bed-ridden in a cell next to former President Mubarak.
On this issue, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer has become a kind of preacher who takes advantage of every opportunity to warn that Egypt could return to being a confrontational state. While this is true, it may not be entirely appropriate for a former defense minister to apparently be leading the black "campaign" especially considering Ben-Eliezer is quite popular with the elites along the Nile.
The crux of the matter is that the IDF needs to prepare, quietly. It must set new priorities. The new underlying assumption is no longer that Egypt is torn and not focused on violent actions on its borders, but that this is liable to happen within the next couple of years. Anyone who understands this knows that the defense budget must remain untouched.
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