Egyptian President Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi is no Zionist, as senior Israeli interlocutors like to point out, but his vision of state sovereignty and Egyptian national security often closely aligns with the interests of Israel. When Sinai’s Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, Egypt's most lethal jihadi group, recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, perhaps the most interesting response was the non-response by the governments of Egypt and Israel. From the view of both, the origins and ideologies of Islamist groups are all the same. Therefore, what a group calls itself or the formality of ties is, for them, irrelevant. Israel has for years referred to the broad phenomenon of “global jihad.” For its part, Egypt has called on the international coalition against the Islamic State to counter a broad spectrum of what it considers radical Islamist groups across the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood.