One can be forgiven for missing the September 15 address by Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi at the extraordinary summit convened in the aftermath of Israel’s attack on Qatar. There is all too much noise in the cacophony of voices generated by Israel’s metastasizing campaign of revenge in Gaza and, to be honest, Sisi is not known for making consequential speeches.
Nevertheless, Egypt’s president has given what may be the most important address by any Egyptian leader, indeed any Arab ruler, since Anwar Sadat’s momentous speech before Israel’s Knesset in Jerusalem almost half a century ago.
Sadat’s pathbreaking remarks established the parameters of the historic Israel–Egyptian engagement that are now under threat. For all of its faults and inadequacies, peace between Egypt and Israel heralded a new, if far from pacific, era in Israeli–Arab and regional affairs, with American-led diplomacy at its center.
“If God has destined me to shoulder the responsibility on behalf of the Egyptian people,” declared Sadat from the Knesset podium,
one of the prime duties of this responsibility is to leave no stone unturned to spare my Egyptian Arab people the harrowing horrors of another destructive war, whose extent only God can know. After lengthy thinking, I came to the conclusion that the responsibility I shoulder before God and before the people makes it incumbent upon me to go anywhere in the world, even to Jerusalem, to unfold before the Knesset members—representatives of the Israeli people—all the facts. I would then leave you to make up your minds, and may God’s will be done….
I tell you today, and declare to the whole world, that we accept to live with you in durable and just peace. We do not want to encircle each other with rockets ready to destroy or with missiles of feuds and hatred….
I ask you today—through my visit to you—why don’t we extend our hands in faith and sincerity, to shatter this barrier together? … Expansion will gain you nothing. …
As for the Palestine cause, no one can deny that this is the crux of the whole problem. No one in the whole world today can accept slogans raised here in Israel, ignoring the existence of the Palestinian people, and even questioning, Where is that people? The cause of the Palestinian people, and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, are no longer ignored or denied by anybody.
I was in Jerusalem at the time of Sadat’s visit, along with scores of journalists from around the world gathered in the Jerusalem Theatre, recording this new, dramatic, and indeed, hopeful turn of events.
That world is gone.
The road so eloquently envisioned by Sadat has become a dead end, threatening the very existence of the Palestinian people (let alone the creation of a Palestinian state) and the destruction of the diplomatic and security structure constructed by the United States since the June 1967 war, with the Israel-Egypt rapprochement at its center.
At Doha, Sisi, the heir of Sadat and his legacy, issued an unprecedented warning. He described Israel as an “enemy”, warning that Israel’s policies “will not lead to new peace deals, but may undo existing ones.” He urged “decisive and sincere action” against what he called “the enemy’s” ambitions, saying only firm measures could deter “every aggressor and reckless adventurer.”
“Israel,” Sisi declared, “seeks to turn [the region] into an arena for aggression, which threatens stability in the entire region and constitutes a serious breach of international peace and security, and the stable rules of the international order.”
He continued,
Israeli practices have exceeded any political or military logic and crossed all red lines.
To the people of Israel, I say: What is happening now undermines the future of peace, threatens your security and the security of all the peoples of the region, obstructs any chances of any new peace agreements, and even aborts existing peace agreements with the countries of the region. The consequences will then be dire, with the region returning to the atmosphere of conflict, and the loss of historic peace-building efforts and gains made through it, a price that we will all pay without exception.
We are facing a pivotal moment that requires our unity to be a key fulcrum to deal with the challenges facing our region, in a way that ensures that we do not slide into further chaos and conflicts, and prevent the imposition of regional arrangements that contradict our interests and common vision.
Sisi is not waiting for the Arabs and the Islamic nations. He is taking concrete, ominous military measures at the point of potential armed conflict—the Philadelphi line separating Egypt from Gaza—and in Sinai generally, to deter Israeli moves to displace Palestinians across the frontier.
Since October 2023, Egypt has significantly increased its military presence in north Sinai, particularly along the border with Gaza. The Middle East Eye reported in August 2025 that Egypt has deployed approximately 40,000 soldiers to North Sinai, double the number permitted under the 1979 peace treaty with Israel and far beyond the increases negotiated in the last 15 years.
These Sinai deployments also include heavy weaponry and advanced Chinese-made HQ-9B air defense systems, similar to the Russian S-400.
This remilitarization of Sinai tests the relevance of treaty limitations at the heart of the Israel–Egypt peace agreement, including the U.S.-led MFO based in Sharm al Sheikh, established to monitor compliance with the treaty but apparently all but absent in the current crisis.
Satellite imagery available in the first months after the war commenced (but not currently) revealed that Egypt has constructed a walled security enclosure in Sinai alongside the Egypt–Gaza line to prepare for a mass influx of Palestinian refugees from Gaza. This construction includes 7-meter-high walls around a 20-square-kilometer area intended to accommodate more than 100,000 displaced people.
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The consequences of an Israeli decision to foment the mass exodus of Palestinians across the Philadelphi line into Egypt cannot be overstated. A Palestinian exodus into Egypt is indeed at the heart of Egyptian concerns about Israel’s assault in Gaza. As early as November 2023, Sisi described such an exodus as a “redline” that would turn Sinai into a base of attacks against Israel.
Such a calamity could well produce a 1948 moment—exposing the powerlessness of the Arabs in general in the face of Israeli military power and threatening the very survival of the Sisi regime itself.
As a matter of self-preservation in the wake of the implosion of the old order, the Egyptian leader is warning Israel that war is an option.
