Egypt continues to show it has no real interest in supporting the United States, which gives them more than $1.4 billion in foreign aid, much of it military aid.
By Adam Turner, ZOA Government Relations Deputy Director
(April 1, 2025 / JNS) Egypt released its “fantasy” plan to rebuild Gaza to international approval, but without modification to remove Hamas from Gaza, the plan is dead on arrival. It appears to be a desperate attempt to block U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza. Yet Egyptian President Fattah Abdel el-Sisi launched a behind-the-scenes diplomatic blitz to try to head off the Trump plan, and has refused Trump’s request to take in Palestinian Arabs, despite their close ethnic connection to Egyptians. (Even Hamas has admitted that half of all Palestinian Arabs are descended from Egyptians.) El-Sisi even went so far as to cancel a planned meeting with Trump in Washington, D.C.
With their actions, the Egyptians are showing, once again, that they have no real interest in supporting their key ally, the United States, even though, year after year, the United States hands more than $1.4 billion in foreign aid to Egypt, most of it in military aid. Over the years, the United States has provided Egypt with more than $100 billion in today’s dollars.
But there are other examples worth mentioning.
Egypt allowed the U.S.-designated terror group Hamas to build up its forces in the Gaza Strip, in preparation for the massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. This is even though Hamas is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, which el-Sisi fought against, and Egypt is supposedly at peace with Israel. Egypt allowed more than 200 smuggling tunnels to be dug into Rafah, with an opening on the Egyptian side of the border that allowed Hamas to smuggle men, money, arms and equipment into Gaza. Egypt also allowed above-ground smuggling.
After the Oct. 7 massacre, Egypt did not attempt to soothe tensions in the Middle East. In the endless ceasefire talks that occurred, Egypt (and Qatar) showed a clear affinity for Hamas. Also, the Egyptian Army deployed tanks near the Gaza border, reportedly to protest Israel’s continued presence in the Philadelphi Corridor and stop a mass exodus of Palestinian Arabs from Gaza into Egypt, despite many of them wishing to flee an active war zone.
Egypt is not living up to its peace accord with Israel. Allowing the construction of tunnels and other assistance to Hamas was one violation of that accord. Another is that Egypt has amassed large numbers of tanks and other military equipment and personnel, including the construction of three new airfields in the Sinai Desert, beginning even before the war.
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter has warned that “Egypt is in very serious violation of our peace agreement in the Sinai. … We have bases being built that can only be used for offensive operations and offensive weapons—that’s a clear violation.”
Cairo has also threatened Israel with war.
Egypt continues to have a poor human-rights record, especially directed at its native Christian population, the Copts, who make up between 10% and 20% of the population. Egyptian authorities routinely refuse to protect Coptic women, who are sometimes kidnapped, raped and forced to marry their captors by radical Muslim Egyptians. Egyptian police refuse to crack down on arson attacks by radical Muslims against churches. Its authorities also discriminate against the building of new churches. All this occurs because, in contrast to the Western perception of el-Sisi as a “secular moderate,” he is a religious Muslim dictator.
Egypt is also not protecting the Suez Canal—the vital waterway between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea—as the Houthis continue attacking American and international vessels there. This is something that Egypt should have already taken the lead on, as it is charged with protecting the freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal. Instead, Egypt is complaining that the U.S. attacks on the Houthis are impeding negotiations with Hamas, and ignoring the great harm from Houthi attacks to the international oil trade and to Egypt itself.
There is absolutely no reason for Egypt to avoid its duty to the world and the United States, and remove the Houthi threat to the world’s economy. Egypt has a population of more than 110 million people. Yemen’s population is 34 million, and only slightly more than a third of those people are Shia, with the Houthis making up about half of that. Egypt has a strong military. The Houthis do not. Egypt has a capable navy. The Houthis do not. Egypt has invaded Yemen in the past. And this time, Egypt doesn’t need to conquer Yemen; it just needs to destroy the Houthi threat.
It is way past time that Egypt rectifies all this misbehavior and acts to support U.S. national interests.
A good way to start would be for the Egyptians to adopt—what I call—the “Al Masri Plan.” El-Sisi should accept all Palestinian Arabs from Gaza with the family name of Al Masri. This name is quite common among Palestinian Arabs.
What is the justification for this plan? Well, “Al Masri” literally means “the Egyptian.”
This op-ed was originally published in JNS and can be viewed here.