For the first time in nine years, an Egyptian foreign minister made an official visit to Israel Sunday, largely to discuss the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
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At the start of the meeting, Netanyahu reiterated that almost four decades have passed since Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty.
Sameh Shoukry’s visit, the first by an Egyptian foreign minister in nearly a decade, follows a similar meeting with Palestinian officials in the West Bank last month.
That initiative offered full recognition of Israel, but only if it gave up all land acquired in the 1967 Middle East war and agreed to what was termed a “just solution” for Palestinian refugees.
According to Eran Singer, an Arab Affairs correspondent forIsraeli Radio station Reshet Bet, “the visit attests to thedeepening of relations between Israel and Egypt”.
The talks also tackled the results of the ministerial meeting in Paris on June 3 to support the peace process and Shoukry ” s visit to Ramallah on the 29th of June, the statement added.
El-Sisi recently called for the resumption of peace efforts between Israelis and Palestinians. “We are prepared to make an unprecedented multi-year missile defense commitment as part of a new memorandum of understanding with Israel on military assistance”, said the official.
Benjamin Netanyahu said today that funding will go to Kiryat Arba and to Israeli settlers in the adjacent Palestinian city of Hebron. He has instead talked about pursing an Israeli Palestinian peace through regional agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Emmanuel Navon, a Tel Aviv University political scientist who studies Israel-Africa relations, said he was skeptical that Netanyahu’s visit would lead African countries to change their United Nations voting patterns. “And the dream of peace and security moves further out of the Israeli people’s reach as long as the conflict continues”. The terrorist group, which had seized control of Gaza from Abbas’ P.A.by force in 2007, was originally established as Palestinian branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, on a platform sworn to Israel’s destruction.
U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby criticized the authorization of new homes last week as “fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution”.
Officials reported no information on the suspected attacker, except that he shot the auto the Israeli man and his family were in three times.
Mr. Sisi in May promised warmer ties with Israel if it welcomed peace talks with the Palestinians.
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There was speculation in Israel that it might be preferable to wait for a new USA administration and not sign an MOU with the current one in the hope of receiving a more generous aid package.
