EDITORIAL: EGYPT'S REVOLUTION ON THE BRINK

PART ONE:

EGYPTIAN PROTESTERS CALL

FOR EXPELLING ISRAELI AMBASSADOR

 

Egyptian protesters burn an Israeli flag outside the embassy in Cairo on Friday. (Daily News Egypt Photo / Hassan Ibrahim)

By Omnia Al Desoukie

Special to Daily News Egypt

August 19, 2011

CAIRO: Around 300 people protested in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo after Friday prayers, calling on the ruling military council to expel the Israeli ambassador in response to what they said was a deliberate attack on Sinai.

“We want a reaction to teach Israel to keep away from our lands,” said Israa Salama, a 21-year-old student at Al-Azhar University who came to the protest with no invitation from any political group.

A similar protest was held at the Israeli consulate in Alexandria.

Security sources said that five policemen, including an officer, were killed on the previous day as Israeli and Egyptian troops combed the border area following attacks in Israel that killed eight.

Egypt lodged a formal protest to Israel over the death of members of its security forces, and demanded an investigation into the deaths, an Egyptian army official told Reuters.

“I came here and I feel that this is a game by the military council to divert our thoughts from our calls for a civil state,” Taha Hussein, 23, said.

A group of protesters said the Egypt’s dignity will depend on its response to Israel.

Protesters paint the pavement outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday. (Daily News Egypt Photo / Hassan Ibrahim)

“Turkey expelled the Israeli ambassador because of the flotilla, Egyptians’ blood is not cheaper than that of the Turkish,” said Fathi Ahmed Hussein, head of the Labor Party, who was sent to military court after traveling to Gaza a few years ago.

Noha Salama, an activist, said they are not only calling on Egypt’s military to protect the borders, but also to work towards easing Palestinian suffering and taking action against Israel.

Protesters called for halting gas exports to Israel and ending the Camp David accords.

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PART TWO:
EGYPT-ISRAEL TIES STRAINED 

AFTER BORDER INCIDENTS, SAYS ANALYST

Israeli female soldiers man an army checkpoint at the borderpoint between Israel and Egypt, north of the Red Sea town of Eilat on August 19. (AFP Photo/Menahem Kahana

By   Marwa Al-A’sar

Daily News Egypt

August 19, 2011

CAIRO: Relations between Egypt and Israel are likely to deteriorate following this week’s border incidents which resulted in the death of five Egyptian policemen, political analyst Emad Gad told Daily News Egypt.

Instead of apologizing for killing Egyptians on the border, he added, the Israeli side presented the issue as Egypt’s fault.

Security sources said that five policemen, including an officer, were killed on Thursday as Israeli and Egyptian troops combed the border area following attacks in Israel that killed eight.

Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak blamed in media statements the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip for the assault, criticizing Egypt for losing control over security in North and South Sinai and along the border with Israel.

Barak was quoted by Israel-based Jerusalem Post as saying,

"The attacks demonstrate the weakening of Egypt's control over the Sinai Peninsula and the expansion of terrorist activity there.

"These attacks originate in Gaza and we will act against them with full force and resolve.”

The attacks prompted Israel to chase infiltrators along the border and launch an air strike against the blockaded Gaza Strip that killed eight Palestinians and left tens injured.

South Sinai Governor Khaled Fouda denied that the gunmen who carried out the attacks in Israel had fired from Egypt.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Egypt to follow through on its pledges to ensure security in the Sinai.

"This violence only underscores our strong concerns about the security situation in the Sinai Peninsula," Clinton said in a statement.

"Recent commitments by the Egyptian government to address the security situation in Sinai are important and we urge the Egyptian government to find a lasting resolution," she added.

According to Gad, a senior researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies who specializes in international relations, two factors contributed to the current situation: the existence of extremist militants in Gaza and the return of Egyptian militants to Sinai amid a security vacuum in the peninsula.

"The resolution of this situation is the responsibility of the army and the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)… by seeking to amend an article in the 1979 peace treaty with Israel that would allow for adjustments in its terms after reaching consensus," he added.

SCAF has been running the country since former president Hosni Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11 following an 18-day nationwide uprising that demanded his ouster.

Based on the peace accord, Egypt can only deploy 750 army soldiers across the borders where neither choppers nor boats are allowed in the zone. "This led to the infiltration of militants and the trafficking of weapons across the borders [over the past years]. But it seems Israel wants the situation to remain at a standstill," Gad said.

This week, however, around 1,000 Egyptian soldiers were deployed for a special operation targeting militants in the area.

A number of factors have led to the state of tension between the two countries over the past few months including the detention of an alleged Israeli spy in June, the recent conviction of agents who spied for Israel and the Egypt’s former foreign minister sponsoring reconciliation talks between Fatah and Hamas in May.

Egypt’s desire to review the contract under which it exports natural gas to Israel in response to a public outcry has also chilled relations between the two sides.

The pipeline in North Sinai that delivers natural gas to Israel and Jordan was attacked by unidentified militants five times this year.

Mubarak is currently facing trial before a criminal court over several charges including the facilitation of exporting natural gas to Israel for below market prices.

Meanwhile, Egypt officially objected on Friday to the death of three members of its security forces near their border and demanded an investigation into the killings, the army said.

Egypt lodged a formal protest to Israel over the death of members of its security forces, and demanded an investigation into the deaths, an Egyptian army official told Reuters.

An army source was quoted by the official Middle East News Agency (MENA) as saying that Egypt closed the Al-Ouja border crossing until further notice. The crossing is used for trade exchange between the two countries.

POLITICIANS REACT

Egypt's political leaders and forces had earlier denounced the incidents considering them direct attacks against Egypt.

Presidential hopeful and former secretary general of the Arab League Amr Moussa said on Twitter: "The blood of the martyrs shed for the sake of their sacred duty will not be wasted."

Moussa warned Israel that gone are the days when similar incidents were ignored, referring to the era of the overthrown regime.

Another presidential hopeful, Mohamed ElBaradei, questioned the delay of SCAF's reaction.

"In view of conflicting reports, where is SCAF's statement about what occurred and what is happening in Sinai and across our borders and the measures taken to face the situation?” he tweeted.

The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) called for taking a strict stance towards what it called 

the "Zionist assault against Egyptian soldiers."

"The Zionist attacks along the Egyptian borders…require a reaction different from the case before the January 25 Revolution. Zionists must realize that Egyptian blood…is very precious," FJP secretary general Saad El-Katatny said.

El-Adl (Justice) Party called on SCAF "to take a firm stand towards such threats by summoning the Israeli ambassador to Egypt and suspending the bilateral relations as reaction to such practices." 

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PART THREE:

EDITORIAL: EGYPT'S REVOLUTION
ON THE BRINK

August 19, 2011

By   Rania Al Malky

Chief Editor of Daily News Egypt

CAIRO: It was only a matter of time before Israel entered the equation.

An attack by gunmen on a bus and blasts targeting two other vehicles in southern Israel near the border with Egypt that killed seven and wounded 25 were precisely what our neighbors were waiting for to wage an offensive of unfounded accusations that the attackers had infiltrated Israel through Egyptian territory. Egypt has lost control over security in Sinai, they said, despite having stepped up efforts to reign in radicals in the area.

In quick retaliatory attacks news reports said that Israeli aircraft bombed the Gaza Strip ~ despite denials by the ruling Hamas that the group was involved ~ killing six Palestinians and two Egyptian soldiers. And soon after, along the border of Egypt's Red Sea resort of Taba in South Sinai and the Israeli city of Eilat, the site of the initial attack on Israel, an Egyptian army officer and two security personnel were killed by the Israeli military.

Last week more than a 1,000 army and police troops were deployed with tanks and armored vehicles to quell militants claiming affiliation with Al-Qaeda who carried out an armed assault on a police station and had previously sabotaged gas pipelines to Israel.

In the meantime, back in the capital bickering political players and the military prosecutor live in the twilight zone seemingly oblivious of the immediate challenges facing Egypt and their role in further complicating an already inflamed situation.

As the military prosecution whiles away the hours questioning political activists who risked their lives during the uprising, like Asmaa Mahfouz, for criticizing the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in a tweet, accusing her of “insulting” the military and inciting violence; and Loai Nagati, who was also about to face a military trial simply for tweeting at the site of violent confrontations between protesters and police last June (not even for the content of his tweets), Egyptian soldiers and security men are dying on the border.

Even though Mahfouz and Nagati were acquitted and the charges against them dropped following a public outcry and growing accusations that the military council is stifling dissent, thousands of other Egyptians have been sentenced to prison terms in quick military tribunals that show no regard for due process under the pretext of clamping down on thugs.

And away from street action and into the air-conditioned confines of the wise ones who have embraced the “civilized” political route, an increasingly uncivilized and contrived tug of verbal war continues over the constitution and its principles with no regard whatsoever to the fact that this debate, which threatens to tear Egypt into fragmented pockets of angry mobs in suits, will only distract from the top priority of moving along in the political process for the primary purpose of ending military rule.

What better pretext for prolonging the state of emergency and keeping the military in power, or worst still plotting to guarantee a privileged status for the army in the new constitution, than the looming threat of a confrontation with Egypt’s historical enemy?

A divided political class can only exacerbate the potential for a dangerous diversion from the democratic path this nation has paid dearly for with the blood of its children.

The alternative is not an unrealistic utopian scenario where fundamentally opposed political currents erase all points of contention, but rather a transitional scenario where there is a basic agreement on the path laid out by the March constitutional amendments and the results of the public referendum as well as consensus over a non-binding charter meant to guide the constituent assembly that will draft of the new constitution.

Both internal and external challenges threaten to hijack the achievements we have made so far. How to confront those challenges is in our hands, whether we belong to the military or are ordinary civilians, so let’s make the right choice.