U.S. officials have announced that a chunk of the $1.3 billion in annual aid delivered to the Egyptian military will be suspended–and Israel is none too pleased.
The move, in response to the military’s brutal crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, comes after months of deliberations between Obama administration officials over what the U.S. reaction should be. It’s a confusing policy change, given that the most intense violence occurred in August, though last weekend violence broke out in Cairo.
“As a result of the review directed by President Obama, we have decided to maintain our relationship with the Egyptian government, while recalibrating our assistance to Egypt to best advance our interests,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. The U.S. would “hold the delivery of certain large-scale military systems and cash assistance.”
The cut off applies to $260 million in cash already appropriated, in addition to the delaying of items such as Apache helicopters and F-16 warplanes, which the military already possesses from previous buys. Aid will continue to flow to U.S. defense contractors, whose equipment will sit in storage instead of being shipped to Egypt.
Israeli officials have already cried foul. One anonymous Israeli official told the New York Times’ Isabel Kershner that the United States was “playing with fire” with the aid cut. “You cannot disassemble the peace treaty [between Egypt and Israel] and take out this part or that part,” the official said. Haaretz reports that Israel lobbied “intensely” to stave off the aid cut.
But perhaps they shouldn’t worry, at least not at this moment: the steps to suspend military aid are more a symbolic slap on the wrist than a significant turn of events. An Obama administration official told the New York Times that “this is not meant to be permanent; this is meant to be the opposite.” The administration strongly hinted that the aid could be restored if what they called a “inclusive, democratically elected civilian government” is established through “free and fair elections”–though with the Muslim Brotherhood decimated, it’s unlikely elections would be fair or free.
The Israeli worry about the move is centered on the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty. The $1.3 billion in American aid has ensured the maintenance of that treaty for decades. But the Egyptian military has no interest in breaking off the treaty. And their interests perfectly align with Israel’s. Egypt is intent on squeezing Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group close to the Brotherhood. The Egyptian military is also waging a crackdown on extremists in the Sinai who could threaten Israel. The U.S. government says that aid meant for security in the Sinai and counter-terrorism cooperation will continue to be sent to the Egyptian government.
What may worry the Israeli establishment the most, though, is the precedent this sets. The U.S. has long been reluctant to use the power of the purse to punish human rights violators, but this symbolic aid cut-off is in direct response to a brutal crackdown. As former CIA official Paul Pillar wrote in August, “the Israeli Right has to be discomfited by any thought of the United States using leverage based on a major aid relationship in that part of the world to get the recipient to change destructive policies.”
Still, aid-cuts to Israel are off the table. And with a path set for restoring the aid to Egypt, both the military and the Israeli government have little reason to worry about a major shift in U.S. posture in the region–at least for now.
Could not give a flying fig less what Israeli officials say or think about anything.
The Obama administration barely whispered about the forceful Egyptian military removal of a democratically elected President Morsi. Clearly a coup but the Obama administration could not utter that fact. Then the Obama administration barely whispered about the close to a thousand Egyptian protesters that were slaughtered by the Egyptian military for protesting the coup. We are one sick nation.
Israel did not want the Muslim Brotherhood in control of anything and so they have been struck hard.
I guess some official rules could be promulgated, like cut of 1 billion in aid for every 1 thousand of slaughtered protesters?
Simple really, If Israel is p—-d off then it must be the right thing to do.
More of the same please.
You do realize that the brotherhood is basically of the same line of thinking as the conservative Islamists in Syria– certainly not as bad as Nusra, but still pretty nasty?
I mean, look at the takfiri groups attacking the army and police in the Sinai. Look at what some of Morsi’s supporters did after he was ousted. They went and attacked, at random, Coptic churches, all the while howling and waving Salafist/Jihadist flags.
I find the Israelis trying to pretend that they’re good buddies with the Egyptian military to be pretty sickening, and there is no evidence to suggest that the Egyptian army or the majority of people who supported the ouster of the MB idiots are in love with or otherwise big fans of the Israelis. The army isn’t waging a counter-insurgency campaign in Sinai on behalf of the Israelis, but to prevent attacks on themselves and on regular Egyptian people.
It’s worth noting that the Brotherhood isn’t exactly innocent itself in terms of attacking innocent people, or torturing people, or making death threats. Actions on the Egypt-Gaza border aside (although Hamas should disavow the MB and beat down the takfiri cells in Gaza with more ferocity), the Egyptian interim government and the army are working with a very precarious situation, and it’s not as simple as it is in Israeli cases, wherein they cause the problem and then murder people for reacting to the problem(s) they caused to begin with.