CAIRO — As the foundations of Israel's relations with post-Mubarak Egypt and Assad's Syria continue to be shaken, the contrasting fortunes of the US-led Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) in Sinai and the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan offer a revealing window into an uncertain future.

The MFO is proving that it can adapt and remain relevant in this new, more violent and insecure environment and in the process reaffirm Egypt, Israel and the United States' continuing interest in maintaining the strategic relationship forged by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, US President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin more than three decades ago. After a series of cross-border attacks against Israel last September, Israel and Egypt quickly agreed to enable Cairo to fly regular reconnaissance missions over Sinai. For the first time since 1973, the Egyptian air force now patrols the skies over Sinai. Its planes fly out of al-Arish, from where the MFO has been tasked with certifying whether Egypt complies with the terms of the new agreement, which excludes Egyptian intelligence gathering “over the horizon,” into Israel.

The contrast with UNDOF could not be greater. Israel and Syria have never directly engaged with each other to maintain the integrity of the organization, which, as a creature of the United Nations, lacks the leadership and imprimatur provided by a committed strategic backer like the United States. Syria's ability to ensure an environment in which UNDOF can operate is eroding, resulting in an environment characterized by metastasizing local and jihadi militias arrayed against Damascus forces. Israel considers the region east of the border to be ungovernable and is preparing, without reference to Damascus, to protect its forces and settlements west of the disengagement line.

Both organizations were at the heart of a structure of relations that grew out of the results of the October 1973 (Yom Kippur) war and produced a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt and a decades-long cease-fire between Syria and Israel. Both were expressions of international support for this postwar state of affairs in an era marked by military regimes in Damascus and Cairo fully in control of their respective territories, committed to and capable of assuring that international monitors had little to do other than certify the parties' continuing adherence to agreed-upon rules of the game.