Should we or should we not send out invitations for the resumption of the Cairo negotiations? This is the dilemma facing the Egyptians these days as they consider whether they should suspend the indirect talks between Israel and the Paleostinians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to the United Nations...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
General Assembly was closely followed by officials at the presidential palace in Cairo and at the Egyptian intelligence headquarters. But it contained no sensational surprises as far as they are concerned.
Egypt is the third party in the conflict between Israel and the Paleostinians. It is involved, it shuttles between the sides, smooths things over and is in a waiting position with the hopes of gaining some kind of international bonus.
It's true that all of a sudden, after Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
' "genocide speech" and Netanyahu's frontal assault which followed, it seemed that everyone had stopped playing by the rules. Who will turn on a green light here to talk to a delegation led by a "Holocaust denier" who has even been defined as a liar?
Netanyahu basically pulled out a new road map on Monday evening, when he revealed without blinking the names of the Arab capital Israel maintains open-secret relations with: Cairo, Amman, Riyadh, the emirate of Abu Dhabi "and elsewhere."
And after reciting the chant "I'm ready to make a historic compromise," Netanyahu dropped a bomb: First peace with Arab countries -- and only when this peace is achieved, and how knows when that will happen, it will be the Paleostinians' turn.
With the new neighborhood arrangement, with Abbas determined to appeal to the UN institutions and the International Criminal Court
... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ...
in The Hague against Israel, and with Netanyahu announcing that Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, is ISIS and the other way around and holding Abbas responsible for Hamas' war crimes, Egypt is now facing a triple dilemma: How to send out invitations to the indirect talks, how to run back and forth between the scarred sides, and mainly how to lead them to a solution which all three sides -- in Jerusalem, in Ramallah and in Gazoo -- will accept.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and intelligence chief Mohammed al-Tuhami really couldn't care less about the negotiations. The war on Islamic terror and the intelligence coordination are their top priority. Their opinion about Hamas is exactly what Netanyahu says and they have no problem declaring, in closed forums at least, that Abbas delivered a "delusional and stupid speech."Back to the Cairo talks: The Egyptians got lucky with the Moslem holiday of Eid al-Adha and the series of Jewish High Holidays. Egypt is not even thinking about giving up on its status as a regional mediator. It will let the harsh words die down, and hold a round of talks in Jerusalem and Ramallah.
The Egyptians see Abbas as the partner, not Khaled Mashal and his gang. After the holidays, you'll see, they will set a date and send out invitations. But the main question is: What for? There is a pessimistic wind blowing in Cairo as well, and they understand very well that after all the hot air, there is no Paleostinian state in the horizon.