NEW EGYPTIAN TEXTBOOK PORTRAYS ISRAELI-EGYPTIAN PEACE TREATY IN POSITIVE LIGHT:

A textbook introduced this semester by the government of President Abdul-Fatah al-Sisi requires Egyptian pupils to memorize the provisions of the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty and delineate the ”advantages of peace for Egypt and the Arab states.” The assignments from the ninth grade book, The Geography of the Arab World and the History of Modern Egypt, are part of a change to a more robust and positive treatment of peace with Israel than that manifested in books during the three decades in power of al-Sisi’s predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

The changes come in the context of an overall improvement in Egyptian-Israeli relations. In late February 2016, Egypt’s new ambassador, Hazem Khairat, presented his diplomatic credentials to Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, becoming Cairo’s first senior emissary to Israel since 2012. Earlier that month, amid reports of Egyptian-Israeli security cooperation against ISIS in the Sinai Peninsula, al-Sisi praised Israeli PM Netanyahu’s leadership abilities to a delegation of visiting American Jewish leaders in Cairo. Israeli analysts say that shared enmity towards the Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip is helping to bring the two countries closer. But direct ties with Israel are still frowned upon within Egyptian society. In March, 2016 more than two-thirds of the Egyptian parliament’s members voted to oust MP Tawfiq Okasha after he hosted a dinner for Israeli ambassador Haim Koren. (Ynet) Intercede that peaceful relations between Israel and Egypt will continue to unfold and to grow towards prophetic fulfillment: "In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria - a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, ‘Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.’” Isa 19:24-25