Egypt gets its foot back in Gaza's door

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By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
May 24, 2005

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Monday said Israel was ready to relinquish control over the Gaza-Sinai border to Egyptian forces if Cairo halts all ?Palestinian? arms smuggling in the area.

Leftist elements in Sharon's government have been pressing the prime minister to surrender the volatile border as part of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza planned for this summer.

Security officials, however, have consistently opposed the move, cautioning that without IDF supervision over the border, Gaza would likely become a heavily armed terrorist haven.

Speaking to the Associated Press Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had already entered into talks with Egypt over control of the border.

?We hope the Egyptians will take it over,? Olmert said. ?We are negotiating with the Egyptians? to take control over the border no more than three months after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.

The PA-controlled Palestine Media Center quoted Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Gheit as saying Cairo planned to deploy 1,500-2,000 troops on the Egyptian side of the border and an additional 750 on the Gaza side upon Israel's departure.

That deployment would violate Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, and members of Sharon's Likud Party are pressing for a Knesset vote on the matter before the prime minister allows the Egyptians to abrogate the agreement.

Chief among the opponents to giving Egypt anything that could be used as a military advantage is Likud MK and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee head Yuval Steinitz.

Steinitz has been a longtime critic of Egypt's failure to curb arms smuggling by anti-Israel terrorists, remove anti-Semitic material from its state-controlled media, and normalize ties with Israel beyond the act of sending an ambassador to Tel Aviv.

Earlier in the month, he pointed out that Egypt is the only regional power maintaining active plans for a future war with the Jewish state.

?Egypt is the only country in the region that is preparing for the possibility of a military confrontation with Israel,? Middle East Newsline quoted Steinitz as saying.

US Congressman Tom Lantos (Dem. - California) came to same conclusion in June of last year.

At the time, Lantos had planned to introduce a bill that would cut off $1.3 billion in US military aid in an effort to stem Egypt's massive buildup of advanced weaponry.

The senior California representative noted that Egypt has no serious external threats to its sovereignty, and its ?military exercises are ominously geared toward an Israeli enemy that doesn't obviously exist.?

Steinitz pointed out that among Egypt's recent procurements were surface-to-surface and anti-aircraft missiles that, if deployed in Gaza, would pose an enormous threat to major Israeli population centers.

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