CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi recently called for expanding the 40-year-old peace process between Egypt and Israel to include more Arab countries. In a Sept. 26 interview with the Associated Press, Sisi said peace between Egypt and Israel was achieved despite great doubt. He added that solving the Palestinian crisis would change the face of the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saw Sisi’s call as an opportunity and welcomed it on the same day. Netanyahu called on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) to return to the negotiating table to resume the peace process and move forward.

Abbas surprised almost everyone when he announced in his Sept. 30 speech to the United Nations that the PA "cannot continue to be bound" by the Oslo Accords, a set of peace agreements signed by Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993 and 1995 in Washington, D.C., and Taba, Egypt, respectively. Abbas said the statement came in response to Israel's failure to fulfill its commitments toward ending the Israeli occupation.

Sisi’s call has sparked controversy between two opposing viewpoints.