Recent security events against Israeli soldiers on the northern border and against the Egyptian military in Sinai are seemingly unrelated, but it would still be wise to link them together.

The tensions on the Israel-Syria border began when a delegation of senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders visited the Golan Heights. The successful targeting of that delegation resulted in Hezbollah’s attack on IDF troops in Shebaa farms, in which two soldiers were killed and seven others were wounded. The attacks in Sinai and Suez, in which 25 Egyptian military personnel were killed and 58 others were wounded including civilians, security and medical personnel, were carried out by the Islamic State group’s Egyptian wing.

The incident on the northern border was carried out by Shiites, and the attacks in Egypt were the work of Sunnis. Israel is their enemy in the north, and Egypt is their enemy in the south.

Although these incidents were different, , they have several things in common – they attest to the disintegration of regional regimes and states, and prove that radical groups operating in areas where the actual regime has become defunct are waiting in the wings, ready to exploit this disintegration.

Israel cannot create order out of the Middle East’s characteristic chaos. It can (and should) recognize the most dire threats and neutralize them. This is what Egypt has been doing – focusing on the elements threatening to undermine the Cairo regime and on the terrorist groups running rampant in Sinai, not on the regional wars outside its borders.

Cutting the Gaza Strip off from Sinai by creating a substantial buffer zone and razing the smuggling tunnels running between Egypt and Gaza, are part of the extensive Egyptian effort to curtail terrorism. Israel benefits from these efforts, but Cairo is motivated solely by Egyptian interests.

Read the article in full at BESA.