Once they control Gaza, the Egyptians will be able to establish on Israel’s southern border an enclave similar in purpose to the one Syria maintains in southern Lebanon. Palestinian military factions in Gaza, then under total Egyptian control, could fulfill for Egypt the role Hizbullah serves for the Syrians.

After a brief period of calm, Egypt can then continue to foment, even more successfully than it has done so far, the low-level war between Israel and the Palestinians. Gaza could also serve as a springboard for enhanced terrorist operations from the West Bank. This will serve well Egyptian strategic interests of maintaining itself as a dominant force in the Arab world while ostensibly acting to calm the situation. Egypt can then expect to be even more courted by the US and be offered increased rewards in the form of American aid.

For many years now, Hamas has been protected by Egypt. It provides Hamas with logistical support and political assistance, explains Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee. Egypt, Steinitz points out, rescued Hamas several times from Yasser Arafat when it seemed to the PA boss that Hamas was seriously challenging his authority.

When president Bill Clinton pressured Arafat in 1996 to arrest Hamas leaders and close their mosques, the Egyptians made Arafat desist. Cairo warned Arafat against opening an internecine war with Hamas – namely not to treat Hamas the way Cairo handles its own Muslim extremists.

The Egyptians have brokered talks between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Such negotiations always managed to secure Hamas’s continued growth.

In a bid to control the Palestinian national movement so that it could be effectively used against Israel without threatening a larger conflagration, Egypt has been skillfully playing a game of divide and rule, exactly as Syria did in Lebanon. Both pretend to come and establish peace between warring factions, when in fact they are the ones fomenting division and strife by protecting the most radical elements, Steinitz concludes.

AS PROTESTS mounted about the free transfer of arms from Egyptian-controlled Sinai to Hamas in Gaza, Cairo retorted that it was impossible to stop. This is laughable. The massive amount of dirt removed by smugglers digging dozens of tunnels under the Philadelphi Route can’t be hard to spot. The Egyptians could arrest the ringleaders, who are anyhow familiar to them, as some are reputedly in their employ.

The Sinai is a closely scrutinized wilderness controlled by the Egyptians. Granted there is drug and prostitute smuggling, but these do not threaten Egyptian interests, while bribery provides an additional perk to its Sinai proconsuls.

Massive arms shipments cannot be carried on a few camels. Trucks must convey the guns and explosives over the few Sinai roads that the Egyptians totally control.

So now Mubarak confirms that he can, if he wants, guarantee the cessation of terrorism from Gaza. The price? Israel must vacate Gaza and effectively hand over control to Egypt by allowing the deployment of elite Egyptian units to “secure the peace.”

But such assurances were already given in the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. It stipulated that the parties would not allow hostile acts to be mounted from territories they control. If Egypt brazenly flouted obligations undertaken in a peace treaty, what makes anyone believe it would respect mere “arrangements” now?
It is interesting to consider why the government and security establishment does not seem aware of what Egyptian actions, rather than promises, portend.

In a comprehensive 1998 analysis of the massive Egyptian military build-up, with which the Americans readily cooperate, Haaretz’s Amnon Barzili came to the conclusion that it is openly directed against Israel. Realizing this danger, Israeli security chiefs nevertheless think that the threat is of low probability. Israeli decision-makers believe that since Egypt is engaged in extensive agricultural and economic development, it is not likely to jeopardize its gains by engaging Israel in an all-out war.

Others point out that after Oslo and Israel’s participation in the notorious Casablanca Economic Conference, Egypt became fearful that Israel would dominate the Middle East economically. Cairo worried that its underdeveloped and stagnant economy would be overshadowed by Israel’s. It therefore decided to freeze Israel out of the region by engaging in vitriolic anti-Israel propaganda. At the same time, it built up its military might to enhance its prestige at home and among other Arabs.

Maybe. But just maybe Israel is being lulled by a new strategy that blinds it to the true dangers emanating from Egypt: Not total war, but the continuation of a prolonged war of terror to bleed Israel, divide and weaken it, and force it to make dangerous concessions until such time as it will be ripe for the taking.

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