“Sixty-four long years passed until it became clear to the masses of Eastern Europe that communism couldn’t provide the goods. It couldn’t feed the citizens and provide for their welfare, so they had to find some other system.” This observation was given on June 30 by an experienced Israeli security official. He continued, “It took the masses in Egypt exactly one year to understand the same thing about the Muslim Brotherhood.” Then he added, “On the one hand, it’s rather impressive and encouraging, on the other hand, it could also be startling and terrifying.” 

The Middle Eastern roller coaster is whizzing forward at full steam as it zigzags over the abyss. It goes up and down, speeds up and slows down, while the passengers who are stuck on board try not to look down or think ahead. Israel’s security establishment is in the initial stages of adapting to the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a scenario which has been considered the ultimate nightmare for as long as the Jewish state existed. Yet now, while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the security establishment are finally starting to get used to it, they are finding out that the "Ikhwan" — as the Brotherhood is known in Arabic slang — has already been cast onto the garbage heap of history. Today, Mohammed Morsi is president. Tomorrow, he could be pacing a cage right next to former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, gaping all around him in terror, without understanding how it could have happened to him.

In the past few days, both Tel Aviv and Jerusalem have played host to a number of security and diplomatic discussions about the situation in Egypt. The truth of the matter is that no one in Israel knows whether to celebrate or fret, whether to fear or hope. Only one thing is sure. They are leaving all the options open. Israel’s initial Pavlovian response after the surprising and rapid fall of Mubarak was to air out its emergency warehouses and determine whether it was at all possible to re-establish the “Southern Column” — a group of armored divisions that was dismantled after the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt was reached. That was what then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman suggested to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for example.

Then, after a few months had passed, it became quite clear that the demon wasn’t quite as bad as they had imagined. The Muslim Brotherhood stepped back from everything to do with Israel. Once Morsi was elected president, he transferred responsibility for Israel to the army. Having recognized their limitations — the “Brotherhood” could never maintain direct contact with Israel because of a religious prohibition — the movement’s leadership decided to act like they didn’t and feel like they did. They gave former Defense Minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi — and later Gen. Abdul Fatah al-Sisi — total freedom when it came to managing affairs along the border with Israel, while they went about dealing with their own business.