Terrorists cross Egyptian border; kill 6, wound 25 Israeli civilians

[Whoha]

Isn't Sinai a mostly uninhabited desert? That doesn't sound like a huge concern.

Keeping Israel's burgeoning demographics out of the Sinai should be priority #1 for the arabs if they want to have any hope of maintaining any kind of parity with Israel.

[Az]

If the roles were reversed and Egyptian military crossed into Israel and killed Israeli police or IDF, what would Israel do?

I guess we'll have to wait when a platoon of armed terrorists will use Israel as base to attack Egyptian soldiers from a line of IDF outposts.

[Az]

Basically, the anger in Egypt for the death of the soldiers is understandable. However the way Egypt's government is reacting is shows clearly that this is a pretense to escalate tensions with Israel - as the origin of this whole case was an immense **** up by Egypt. No ifs or buts about it. You are a sovereign nation, you are responsible for your own goddamn territory - you have allowed civilians to be murdered. How about some apology for this?

none. zilch. This is of course, because of the fact that "fairness" has nothing to do with the reaction by the Egyptian military regime. It is all about the fact that it is using an external perceived foe, Israel, to focus the attention of the general Egyptian public, which is only happy to oblige ( while foaming at the mouth over Israel ).

If Egypt is willing to break off the peace agreement to side with their Palestinian "brethren", so be it, it will just ensure what the public opinion in Israel "knows" for quite some time. "Agreements with Arabs are ALWAYS temporary until the next time the Arabs start feeling inadequate in the geopolitical pants section" and "The only way is eternal war - so be it"

[Zevico]

What Az said, except by Barry Rubin, a professional historian of 30 years' experience.

There is still confusion regarding some details of the terrorist assault by Gaza Palestinians affiliated with al-Qaida, from Egypt, into Israel, and then back into Egypt. Israeli survivors of the attack say the terrorists were wearing Egyptian army uniforms.

At one point, either confused or after the terrorists hid among a group of Egyptian soldiers dressed the same way, Israeli soldiers fired and reportedly killed three real Egyptian soldiers. Israel has apologized in line with international norms.

Amr Moussa, the man most likely to be Egypt’s next president and known for his hatred of Israel and strong dislike of the United States (a radical nationalist who opposes Islamism but might make a deal with the Brotherhood to get into power and to govern thereafter) gives a foretaste of his demagagic tendencies if elected. He tweeted:

“Israel has to realize that the days in which our sons are killed without an appropriate and strong reaction are forever gone.”

That sounds rather like a threat of war. Oh, he’ll be just fine running Egypt, right? For the record, let’s note that Egypt failed to guard its border, the shortcoming that made the whole shoot-out happen in the first place. Presumably Egypt won’t be apologizing to Israel. In fact, it has withdrawn its ambassador.

(A personal note. A couple of year ago, an Egyptian diplomat invited me to lunch in Tel Aviv. One of the things he said was that he had advised Israeli Arab citizens to reverse their policy of refusing to join Israel’ army. Then, he explained, they could get military training and have guns to use against Israel some day. They rejected the idea, he concluded. I’m not joking. That’s the way people really talk in the Middle East when they think it isn’t going to be reported. I should add that I never agreed on any confidentiality in that conversation.)

Nor will anyone in Egypt–not a single group, writer, or intellectual–publicly condemn the attack on Israel even though it was carried out by an al-Qaida affiliate that also wants an Islamist revolution in Egypt. Of course, the Egyptian military is attacking local al-Qaida revolutionaries within the country. But we are back to the pre-Sadat standard: Anything that kills Israelis is good.

What will happen when Hamas attacks Israel with rockets, mortars, and attempted cross-border attacks? Israel retaliates. President Moussa will again threaten war and while he probably would not go so far (“probably” does not make one feel secure), he would suspend the Egypt-Israel peace treaty or suspend the Israeli ambassador. Wouldn’t that make him a hero? And certainly Egypt would let money, Egyptian volunteers, and weapons flow freely into the Gaza Strip to help the “brothers” there confront “Zionist aggression.” The Arab world would cheer.

And what would President Obama do? One shudders to think but it might have something to do with playing golf.

Perhaps, though, Moussa won’t be president. Perhaps someone else will win the election. Either way, though, the president will have to deal with a strengthened parliament that will be around 40 percent radical Islamist, 10 percent far left, and much of the rest radical nationalist.

The New York Times has offered us, however, a definitional solution to the problem by creating a new political ideology. And I predict that we will be hearing a great deal about this new “movement” : the “liberal Islamist.”

“Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a liberal Islamist and former member of the Muslim Brotherhood, released a statement asking the ruling military council to deal with the incident as a matter of national security and demanded the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador as well as a halt of Egyptian gas shipments to Israel.”

Actually, though, Fotouh’s political role is not quite clear. He poses as a centrist nice guy who has split away from the Brotherhood. I rather suspect he is still a Brotherhood leader under cover. The Brotherhood promised not to run a candidate for president and Fotouh’s “split” give it a plausible deniability. But after all won’t the Brotherhood leaders and supporters be voting for Fotouh and reconcile with him immediately thereafter? Is there any real difference between Fotouh and the Brotherhood on substantive issues? Presumably “moderation” means going a bit slower in transforming Egypt into an Islamist state.

Of course Amr Moussa is more a representative of the old Egypt than anyone else in Egyptian politics today. But he is popular and demagoguery will make him more popular. Of course there are genuinely moderate people and parties that want to improve living standards, clean up corruption, and do other good things. The problem is, however, who will end up being in power.

If Amr Moussa is elected and the Brotherhood becomes the single biggest party in parliament we could well say “The revolution has been betrayed.” That would not be the first time in history that has happened. Others would say “The revolution has been fulfilled.” This is precisely what happened in Iran. Every day I hear from friends in Egypt how frightened or angry or upset or worried they are. I hope things will turn out well; as an analyst I must report what I see.

Incientally, even for a Middle East cynic like me the outpouring of Arab media support for the attack on Israel is surprising. After all, it is an al-Qaida operation and it would have been easy to pretend moderation, winning some brownie points in the West, by going tsk-tsk at the evil al-Qaida as opposed to the “wonderful” Hamas and Fatah.

Nope, even the official Palestinian Authority newspaper–rather than lay low to promote a nice image on the eve of the UN independence debate–praised the attack and cold-blooded murder of Israeli civilians. Presumably they don’t feel any need to pretend to be moderate since they know much of the Western media, academics, and even governments will give them a free pass no matter what they do or say.

Incidentally, NowLebanon, an excellent moderate source of news, estimates that almost 20,000 people have been killed in the “Arab Spring” (or as the Washington Post calls it, “Arab Transition,” disorders, mostly in Libya. The “Arab Spring” is not being followed by an Arab Summer, and next to come is the fall.

Sources cited by Rubin:

http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/5585.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/world/middleeast/20egypt.html

http://www.nowlebanon.com/Library/Files/ArabicDocumentation/Varieties//chartestimated.gif

rubin's article: http://pajamasmedia.com/barryrubin/2...ral-islamists/

[Az]

Barry Rubin is a Zionist shill, and so is anyone who doesn't want to rain nuclear death on the Zionist entity.

[C0ckney]

Barry Rubin is a Zionist shill and warmonger who should come with a health warning.

QFT.

[Al B. Sure!]

I guess we'll have to wait when a platoon of armed terrorists will use Israel as base to attack Egyptian soldiers from a line of IDF outposts.

Umm... Didn't this just happen? Armed IDF used Israel as a base to attack Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai?

[Asher]

Basically, the anger in Egypt for the death of the soldiers is understandable. However the way Egypt's government is reacting is shows clearly that this is a pretense to escalate tensions with Israel

There's something mildly alarming about the mentality of people in Israel. It's probably quite an interesting study in social psychology.

[Asher]

What Az said, except by Barry Rubin, a professional historian of 30 years' experience.

Isn't it fantastic reading articles from known loons that say exactly what you want to hear?

[Al B. Sure!]

What gets me is stuff like this:

“Israel has to realize that the days in which our sons are killed without an appropriate and strong reaction are forever gone.”

That sounds rather like a threat of war.

Is there any doubt what Israel would be doing if the roles were reversed? I'm amazed by the patience and restraint exercised by the Egyptians.

[Az]

Umm... Didn't this just happen? Armed IDF used Israel as a base to attack Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai?

Not really as this was not the beginning of the event. carry on.

There's something mildly alarming about the mentality of people in Israel. It's probably quite an interesting study in social psychology

If you want to post, post don't post about posting.

Is there any doubt what Israel would be doing if the roles were reversed? I'm amazed by the patience and restraint exercised by the Egyptians.

There are plenty of cases where members of our neighbors militaries have shot up our people, often civilians, without any retribution. look it up.

[VetLegion]

Israel should build a wall towards Egypt... good walls make good neighbours,
as the saying goes.

Swift and harsh retribution makes sense from a game-theoretic point of view,
but given that the enemy has a virtually unlimited supply of people, it's not
really a deterrent if you shoot 5-6.

[Az]

Yeah, we are already doing this.

[C0ckney]

Israel should build a wall towards Egypt... good walls make good neighbours,
as the saying goes.

that's working out really well in the west bank...

[VetLegion]

It is actually. The wall there has stopped most incursions. If you recall, there
used to be a nightclub going up in the air rather often... not any more.