By Abdel-Rauf Arnaut and Ali Abo-Rezeq
JERUSALEM
Relations between Egypt and Israel have been seen improving in recent months, particularly since last year's inauguration of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.
The warm ties between the two neighbors, however, have not gone down to the peoples of the two countries, who still look at each other with suspicion.
As a sign of the improving ties between the two states, Israel reopened its embassy in Cairo last week, four years after it evacuated its diplomatic mission after protesters tore down the Israeli flag and ransacked the building following the cross-fire killing of five border guards by the Israeli army in Sinai.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon termed Israel’s relations with Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous state, as “good and strategic”.
“We see the embassy inauguration [as] a very important step, which is part of [Israel’s] best-ever relations with Egypt,” he said. “We are now waiting for the arrival of the Egyptian ambassador to Israel.”
Egypt was the first Arab country to recognize Israel following the signing of a peace treaty in 1979.
Israel opened its embassy in Cairo in February 1980. Egypt opened its embassy in Tel Aviv one month later. In 1982, Israel completed its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, which it occupied during the 1967 Middle East war.
Israel and Egypt have developed economic relations following the signing of their peace treaty.
However, Israeli-Egyptian trade volume has drastically declined since 2000, when the Palestinian uprising broke out following a controversial visit by politician Ariel Sharon to the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
In 2001, Israel's exports to Egypt amounted to $47 million, down from $58 million in 2000. Israel's imports from Egypt, meanwhile, reached $20 million in 2001, down from $20.7 in a year earlier.
Best-ever ties
Israeli analyst Danny Rubinstein described Israel’s current relations with Egypt as their “best-ever”.
“After 36 years of signing their peace treaty, there is a complete coordination between Israel and Egypt as they face a common enemy, which is terrorism,” he told Anadolu Agency.
He argued that Israel’s relations with Egypt during the era of former president Hosni Mubarak “were exposed to the media”.
“But this is totally different under Sisi,” he said, citing regular meetings between Egyptian and Israeli officials. “[These meetings] have greatly helped improve relations between the two sides.”
In 2012, former President Mohamed Morsi withdrew Egypt’s ambassador from Israel in protest of an Israeli offensive on the blockaded Gaza Strip.
But in June, Sisi, who came to office following Morsi’s ouster by the military, decided to send in a new ambassador to Israel.
Public apathy
Rubinstein, however, believes that relations between the Egyptian and Israel peoples are not yet up to the warm ties between the authorities in both countries.
“There are repeated accusations of conspiracy against Israel and the Jews,” he said, going on to cite the legal pursue of Egyptians travelling to Israel.
Israel is viewed in a negative light among much of the Egyptian public due to its heavy-handed treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Rubinstein, however, cited a “shift” in how Israel is viewed in the Egyptian media, citing a recent TV series about the life of Jews in Egypt during the 1950s.
