you have to keep in mind that israel interprets gaza as a province of egypt because it's not a part of historical israel (it's where the "philistines", who were probably greek settlers, lived). their ideal solution is to convince egypt to annex the region. but, egypt just sees an expensive problem.

this insistence of israel to negotiate with egypt is more than an anti-hamas thing, or a convenient way to generate pretexts.

also, vijay, i think you want to look into israeli arms sales to china. the americans don't like this, of course. but it happens. and the russians help keep it a little under the radar.

on top of that, bringing israel into the syrian conflict would be a headache for everybody - including israel.