Egypt Not Serious About Stopping Smuggling?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
06 May '10
Posted before Shabbat

Time and again both analysts and officials have claimed the Egypt genuinely wants to stop the smuggling into Gaza. Yet after close to two years the much touted American tunnel detecting gizmos haven’t put a dent in the smuggling between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. And today BBC News correspondent Jon Donnison revealed that Gazans are already cutting through Egypt’s multi-million dollar steel barrier at the affordable cost of $1,000 a tunnel hole.

Related: Gazans cut through Egypt's border barrier using high-powered oxygen fuelled blow torches

So what’s the real story? Is Egypt serious about stopping the smuggling or just going through the motions?

One thing is certain: if Egypt wanted to it could readily detect and stop the tremendous flow of material reaching the miniscule Egypt-Gaza border. After all, we aren’t talking about a few sacks of contraband being whisked through the desert in the middle of the night on the backs of camels. We are talking about literally hundreds of truckloads making their way to within at most a few hundred yards from the border. A fleet of trucks that can be detected, stopped, inspected and seized.

There is no question about it. If instead of investing in gizmos and steel walls the Egyptians bulldozed a sterile border zone running a few thousand meters in from the Gaza border the remaining tunneling operations would require a magnitude of activity that any serious Egyptian intelligence operation could readily detect.

So is Egypt serious about stopping the smuggling or just going through the motions? And if Egypt isn’t serious about stopping the smuggling, why is Israel essentially silent on the matter?

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