Peace treaties

There is an argument over the value of peace treaties that goes like this: negotiations and agreements with Arab States are worthless because in time reactionary Arab regimes will be replaced or overthrown, as is happening in Egypt, and so the Egyptian-Israel Peace treaty is only worth the paper that it is written on. The counter-argument goes this way: we have had 40 years of peace with Egypt since the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin in 1969, and the most important aspect is not the peace itself, but the safeguards that were written into the treaty, namely a demilitarized Sinai buffer zone with an international guard force. The conclusion is that the security arrangements that are built into any treaty are more important than the actual cessation of warfare between the two sides.

Looked at from this standpoint, it matters less what regime replaces that of Mubarak, or his National Democratic Party, whether it be a truly democratic one or a Muslim Brotherhood dominated one, or even a continuation of an Army dominated regime, as long as the basic parameters of the Peace agreement are adhered to. This specifically includes an international force that sits in the middle of Sinai and monitors troop movements, to ensure that neither side can mount a sudden attack, as happened during the Six-Day war of 1967 from Israel and the Yom Kippur War of 1973 from Egypt.

Of course, Israel and most Israelis would be very happy if there were a "happy ending" in Egypt and it becomes truly democratic. Ultimately, as Sharansky has argued, only a democratic regime can ensure true peace between Egypt and Israel, because a truly democratic country, where the will of the people is sovereign, is the only one that does not want war, or at least that is the theory. But, a military dictatorship might also not want war, as Sadat and Mubarak have shown, while a democratic (or apparently democratic) system dominated by Islamic parties might indeed want war, as Iran exemplifies. Given the uncertainties and the inability of the Western nations, particularly the USA, to actually influence the outcome, we Israelis would rather have peace than democracy. Some left-wingers have criticized this choice, but for us it is more a necessity than a choice (a "Hobson's choice") and we are not the ones determining the outcome. The Egyptian people now have a chance, either they opt for truly representative Government or they pursue a course that takes them back to autocracy, but in either case we fervently hope that they retain the path of peace. If not the safeguards built into the Egyptian-Israel peace treaty may then be rendered worthless.