The Arab League issued a remarkable condemnation of Israel: it objects to the “expansion of new Jewish communities in the Negev and Galilee and increasing their Jewish populations.”

These are not settlements in the West Bank. They are areas inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders.

Further, Israel is described as “1948 territories.”

That makes the statement difficult to reconcile with the Arab League’s simultaneous support for a Palestinian state based on the June 4, 1967 lines. Under that formula, the Negev and Galilee remain part of Israel. And why suggest that Israel is just part of Palestine, calling the entire state “1948 territories?”

The question is particularly relevant to Egypt.

Egypt was the first Arab country to recognize Israel and signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, ending the two countries’ state of war. Nearly fifty years later, Cairo continues to endorse a two-state solution: a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines alongside a secure Israel.

That position should carry a simple implication: Israel’s right to develop its own communities within its own territory.

Egyptian officials should therefore answer a straightforward question: Does Egypt believe Israel has the same right to develop Jewish communities within its territory that a future Palestinian state would have to develop its own communities?

If the answer is yes, Cairo should say so.

If the answer is no, then the issue is not simply the borders of a future Palestinian state. It is whether Jewish demographic and community development inside Israel is itself considered illegitimate. It reeks of antisemitism.

But is their another way to think of these hateful remarks?

Egypt made peace with Israel nearly half a century ago to get back the Sinai Peninsula it lost in the 1967 Six Day War. Is Egypt deliberately opening cracks in that treaty? Is it preparing to push Israel to hand some of the Negev to Gazans now – alongside its own contribution of part of the Sinai – as Gazans hope to rebuild the strip after its failed war on Israel?

Is the Arab League simply being antisemitic or is it deliberately setting the course for a new map for Gaza?