Poll: Trump voters don't want US involved in Israel’s war on Iran

In early August, Israeli energy company NewMed announced a record-breaking $35 billion deal to supply natural gas to Egypt, nearly tripling its current imports and binding Cairo’s energy future to its neighbor until at least 2040.

Though Egyptian officials were quick to frame this not as a new agreement but as an “amendment” to a 2019 deal, the sheer scale of the deal — the largest in Israel’s export history — is indicative of a deepening and dangerous dependence on its neighbor for its energy needs.

The pact is driven by the mutual, if asymmetric, political needs of two deeply entangled governments. For Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the deal provides the energy needed to prevent domestic unrest. For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the benefits are especially outsized. The $35 billion pact provides a massive, long-term revenue stream and solidifies Israel’s status as a critical energy player in the Eastern Mediterranean. Furthermore, it delivers a strategic victory by binding the most populous Arab state into deep and lasting economic dependency.