Mohammed Morsi. Photo: Jonathan Rashad.

Israel currently does not have, and is unlikely to have in the future, any top-tier political ties with the Egyptian regime so long as Mohammed Morsi is in power, the head of the Israeli Defense Ministry’s Diplomatic-Security Bureau Amos Gilad said Nov. 2, Israel Hayom reported.

“If there is one thing that worries me, it is the Muslim Brotherhood,” Gilad said at an academic gathering on strategic issues in Herzliya, referring to the Islamic movement that has effectively sidelined all other power brokers in the populous Arab country. Gilad has had a long history of working with the Egyptian military and political class and is well-versed with the politics of the region owing to his past service as the head of the Research Division of the Israeli Intelligence Corps. Gilad holds the “Egypt file” at the ministry of defense.

Gilad, who called Islamic President Mohammed Morsi’s rise to power a “tectonic shift,” lamented the adverse developments in Egypt in the wake of former President Hosni Mubarak’s overthrow in Feb. 2011. “A desire to create a democracy resulted in a terrible dictatorship,” Gilad said, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood’s strong showing in the parliamentary and presidential elections over the past year. “They are driven by ideology that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist, and this ideology won’t change.”