NEW YORK — When President Trump moved last month to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, an Egyptian intelligence officer quietly placed phone calls to the hosts of several influential talk shows in Egypt.
“Like all our Arab brothers,’’ Egypt would denounce the decision in public, the officer, Captain Ashraf al-Kholi, told the hosts.
But strife with Israel was not in Egypt’s national interest, Kholi said. He told the hosts that instead of condemning the decision, they should persuade their viewers to accept it. Palestinians, he suggested, should content themselves with the dreary West Bank town that currently houses the Palestinian Authority, Ramallah.
“How is Jerusalem different from Ramallah, really?’’ Kholi asked repeatedly in four audio recordings of his telephone calls obtained by The New York Times.
“Exactly that,’’ agreed one host, Azmi Megahed, who confirmed the authenticity of the recording.
For decades, powerful Arab states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have publicly criticized Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, while privately acqui- escing to Israel’s continued occupation of territory the Palestinians claim as their homeland.
But now a de facto alliance against shared foes such as Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic State militants, and the Arab Spring uprisings is drawing the Arab leaders into an ever-closer collaboration with their one-time nemesis, Israel — producing especially stark juxtapositions between their posturing in public and private.
Trump’s decision broke with a central premise of 50 years of US-sponsored peace talks, defied decades of Arab demands that East Jerusalem be the capital of a Palestinian state, and stoked fears of a violent backlash across the Middle East.
Arab governments, mindful of the popular sympathy for the Palestinian cause, rushed to publicly condemn it.
Egyptian state media reported that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi had personally protested to Trump. Egyptian religious leaders close to the government refused to meet with Vice President Mike Pence, and Egypt submitted a UN Security Council resolution demanding a reversal of Trump’s decision.
The United States vetoed the resolution, although the General Assembly adopted a similar one, over US objections, days later.
The hosts Kholi called all heeded his advice, and most other voices in the state-owned and progovernment news media across the Arab world were also strikingly muted, even unemotional, about the status of Jerusalem.
Such a response would have been all but unthinkable even a decade ago, much less during the period between 1948 and 1973, when Egypt and its Arab allies fought three wars against Israel.
Shibley Telhami, a scholar of the region at the University of Maryland and the Brookings Institution, called the Arab states’ acceptance of the decision “transformational.’’
“I don’t think it would have happened a decade ago, because Arab leaders would have made clear they wouldn’t live with it,’’ he said.
Instead, he said, preoccupied by concerns about their own stability, the Arab leaders signaled that — while they may not like the decision — they “will find a way to work with it,’’ and “with a White House that is prepared to break with what had been taboos in American foreign policy.’’
Two spokesmen for the Egyptian government did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Kholi could not be reached.
Television talk shows play a formative role in shaping public debate in Egypt, and Egyptian intelligence services often brief the host about messages to convey to the public. The hosts typically prefer to characterize the conversations as journalists talking to sources.
In addition to the call with Megahed, three other audio recordings of strikingly similar telephone conversations with the same intelligence agent, Kholi, were all provided to The Times by an intermediary supportive of the Palestinian cause.
Megahed said in an interview that he had agreed with Kholi based on his personal assessment of the need to avoid a fresh outbreak of violence, not on the orders of the intelligence service.
