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Peace Process

Egyptian border turns 'hot'


By Ryan Jones
September 28, 2005

For the first time in decades, the IDF must treat Israel's border with Egypt as a ?hot zone? in its battle to defend the nation's citizens against Islamic aggression.

While diplomatic relations were often icy, Israel could always count on Egypt to honor the military terms of its treaty with Jerusalem, Geostrategy-Direct reported. But following Israel's departure from the Gaza Strip, ?everything has changed.?

Originally touted as the dawn of increased cooperation, the amendment of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty allowing Egyptian forces to take up positions on the Gaza-Sinai border quickly became a nightmare for the Jewish state.

For more than 72 hours following the withdrawal of the last IDF soldier, tens of thousands of people, and reportedly large quantities of weapons, flowed freely over the border, despite Egyptian and Palestinian Authority promises to seal off the frontier.

Additionally, intelligence officials believe Hamas cells slipped into the Sinai Peninsula intent on infiltrating Israel along its long and desolate border with Egypt, turning the once quiet area into a ?hot zone? in Israel's war on terror.

Geostrategy-Direct quoted IDF commanders as saying these developments brought into question Egypt's true intentions.

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz has long warned of an Egyptian policy of letting Israel and the ?Palestinians? slowly bleed one another, while Cairo prepares for its next war against the Jewish state.

Steinitz points to the fact Egypt is the only nation in the region still actively training for war against Israel.

Meanwhile, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak Tuesday slammed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for demanding the PA reciprocate Israel's surrender of Gaza by honoring its commitment to disarm and dismantle the ?Palestinian? terrorist infrastructure.

Sharon's demand that the PA combat terror, while simultaneously refusing to surrender all of Israel's biblical homeland, were ?negative steps that are thwarting peace contacts and undermining negotiations,? Mubarak said in an interview with Egypt's Roz al-Yusuf newspaper.

Mubarak said he would look to counter Sharon's position by accelerating contacts with the so-called ?Middle East Quartet? and bringing greater international pressure to bear on Israel to enter into immediate final status negotiations with the PA.

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