Exclusive: Israel wants to retake Sinai. Palestinians are the trojan horse.
Israel is fooling everyone but the Egyptians. Ever since 1973 war, Israelis have regretted giving Sinai back to the Egyptians. After many decades of successful growth in population, Israel is nearing overpopulation and is expected to be overcrowded by 2050. To delay this scenario, Israel has rapidly annexed more land in the West Bank in the past decade. Not only that, Israel also annexed the Syrian Golan Heights. Israel still occupies part of Lebanon and is unlikely to give that up. The next step for Israel is to try to annex Sinai. But how can Israel do so while officially it is in peace with Egypt?
A decade ago, Former Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak leaked a recording in which he stated that Netanyahu has asked him in 2006 whether Egypt would be cool to move Palestinians from Gaza to Sinai as part of a broader peace deal. Egypt has refused such an ask. Fast forward to 2023, Israel has made the same ask but added that it would make the US forgive 15% of Egyptian national debt as the county drowns in unrepayable debt.
In short, Israel wants to take back Sinai by buying it from Egypt cheaply under the pretext of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to house poor refugees. The plan though has a clear hole. Moving Palestinians to Sinai will not prevent resistance. It will just mean Israel annexed Gaza and made territorial gains whilst burdened Egypt with the Palestinian question. Furthermore, Israel would have given itself the pretext to militarily intervene in Sinai continuously. This will mean Israel and Egypt will be at war yet again. The Egyptian military establishment has expressed this in recent communications with the Israeli side as revealed by Axios stating that forcing Palestinians into Sinai will result in a ripping in relationships. Egyptian people will never accept such an outcome without a fight.
For Israel, Sinai is the big prize of this war. For Egypt, it will be the end game for Camp David Accords and a call for mobilisation for war. If this war ends favorably to Israel, it will be the end of Egypt as it is known today.