Accountability in Egypt: The Beginning?

Shoshana Bryen..
American Thinker..
09 August '12..




Here's an odd story:

On 2 August, the government of Israel publicly warned Israelis to leave the Sinai because it had information about potential terrorist activity. On the 4th, the U.S. government followed suit. On the evening of the 6th, the attack came - not against Israel at first, or against Americans, but against an Egyptian military outpost where soldiers were having their Iftar dinner. Sixteen Egyptian soldiers were killed, their vehicles commandeered and the terrorists set off for an Israeli Bedouin military base in the Negev, hoping to draw Israel and Egypt into war. Israel thwarted the attack.

That's not the odd part.

In the aftermath, one of the most interesting developments came from Egyptian blogger Dalia Ziada. Ziada, a liberal political analyst and activist in Cairo, is Executive Director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, one of the oldest and largest human rights/civil liberties NGOs in the Arab world. She wrote in her blog that Israeli authorities had shared their information with Egyptian intelligence, but the intelligence agency had failed to act. Why, she wondered aloud, did the Israeli government take care of its citizens and the Egyptian government did not?

Their Real Enemies: Egyptians Reevaluate

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary/Contentions..
08 August '12..

As I noted yesterday, the Muslim Brotherhood is busily propagating conspiracy theories about Israeli guilt for Sunday’s terror attack in Sinai, which killed 16 Egyptian soldiers. But there’s a bright side to this story: For the first time ever, many Egyptians aren’t buying it.

True, dozens of demonstrators converged on the Israeli ambassador’s house Monday to demand his expulsion, asserting that Israel was to blame. But the real mob scene occurred at the slain soldiers’ funerals – where crowds chanted slogans denouncing not Israel, but the Muslim Brotherhood, and physically attacked a representative of the Brotherhood-led government, Prime Minister Hesham Kandil.

Nor did the media blindly regurgitate the usual conspiracy theories of Israeli guilt: They duly reported the Egyptian military’s assertion that the attack was perpetrated by terrorists from Sinai aided by Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. Prominent Egyptian commentators even criticized the army for ignoring the intelligence warning Israel had shared, and President Mohammed Morsi for pardoning thousands of radical Islamists and freeing them from jail. And both in television interviews and on social media sites, many ordinary Egyptians blamed the attack not on Israel, but on Morsi, for having reopened the Gaza-Egypt border.

The Sinai: Israel's Dilemma

P. David Hornik..
frontpagemag.com..
08 August '12..

On Sunday night, terrorists at the Egyptian-Israeli border stormed a checkpoint and massacred 16 Egyptian border guards there. They then drove two vehicles toward Israel with the aim of perpetrating a mass-casualty attack against Israeli civilians—thwarted by the combined efforts of the Israeli ground forces and air force.

Yet, according to official statements of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and of Hamas, the rulers of Gaza, the attack was carried out by—Israel.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denounced such claims as “nonsense” and added: “Even the person who says this when he looks at himself in the mirror does not believe the nonsense he is uttering.”

There’s evidence that Palmor is right. Immediately after the attack, Hamas sealed off tunnels from Gaza into Sinai—since it’s suspected that small, non-Hamas, Gaza-based terror groups took part in the attack. Hamas, of course, does not really think Israeli operatives somehow got into Gaza, reached Sinai through the tunnels, and massacred Egyptian policemen before trying to ram one or two suicide vehicles full-speed into Israeli border villages.

The Egypt-Israel Cross-Border Attack: Its Meaning

Barry Rubin..
Rubin Reports..
07 August '12..

A 35-man seemingly bedouin terrorist team invaded an Egyptian army base in eastern Sinai, stole a truck and armored personnel carrier, and tried to crash the Israel border gate. They killed about 16 Egyptian soldiers but those who tried to cross the border–at least five–were quickly wiped out by Israeli forces.

You will be reading a lot of accounts of this event mostly saying the same things. But what’s really important?

–The incompetence of the Egyptian military. That a whole platoon size unit of terrorists–one of the largest such forces every assembled for such an attack–could plan, organize, and come together without warning for the Egyptian army speaks poorly for its intelligence capability. That they could break into a base doesn’t bode well for the Egyptian military’s competence. Presumably one reason why they wanted Egyptian vehicles–as happened with uniforms on a previous occasion–is to make Israeli soldiers hesitate to shoot or to end up getting Israelis to mistakenly kill Egyptians and set off a wider conflict.

–The attack was probably carried out by an al-Qaida type group allied with counterparts in the Gaza Strip. These organizations don’t care about the well-being of Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood. By hitting Israel they seek to promote their image to carry out their goals. Yet the more they make enemies of the Muslim Brotherhood branches the more incentive those forces have to suppress them.

–To what extent, however, do these groups have backing from Egyptian Salafist forces or the Palestinian equivalent, Islamic Jihad? Such an alliance could greatly raise the level of violence and internal conflict, especially within Egypt. Is there a chance for the Brotherhood and Salafists to work together or will they clash?

Kushner - From Israel: Read This...

Arlene Kushner..
18 June '12..





"Read This..."

And weep.

A new two-day round of "negotiations" with Iran regarding its nuclear capacity began today in Moscow. A Russian media source refers to this as a "round table discussion," which tells us more than a little. "Russia hopes that it will help restore trust between Iran and the West."

Iranian National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalili heads the team representing Iran. Catherine Ashton, foreign affairs head for the EU, leads the delegation of six nations facing off against Iran: Russia, the UK, China, the US, France, and Germany (the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany).

As of late today, there was discontent expressed by a member of the Iranian negotiating team: "So far the atmosphere is not positive. Setting up the framework [for negotiations] is the main problem."

~~~~~~~~~~

Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writing in the Washington Post, says (all emphasis added):

"...a subtle shift is emerging in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear calculus. Officials in Tehran increasingly sense that it may be easier to get the bomb through an agreement than by pursuing it outside the parameters of a deal. But for this strategy to succeed, Iran has to get the right kind of an accord, one in which it trades size for transparency. Namely, the deal must allow Iran to construct an elaborate nuclear infrastructure in exchange for conceding to intrusive inspections...

"...they stress that it has to be predicated on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In Iran’s telling, the treaty grants it the right to construct an extensive nuclear apparatus featuring a vast enrichment capacity. In exchange for such a presumption, Tehran is willing to concede to inspection of its facilities...

"...such an agreement may yet prove Iran’s most suitable path to the bomb.


"As Iran’s nuclear facilities grow in scope and sophistication, the possibility of diverting material from them increases regardless of the parameters of an inspection regime..."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/irans-cagey-nuclear-strategy/2012/06/15/gJQAnMjofV_story.html

Tobin - Living With Routine Terror

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary/Contentions..
18 June '12..

It appears that what amounts to a military coup has removed the threat of a Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt. That’s a great relief to many who feared that such an Islamist state abutting Hamas-ruled Gaza would overturn the situation that had simplified Israel’s strategic equation for more than 30 years. Whether the new military dictators in Cairo will help maintain the relative stability that existed under Hosni Mubarak is yet to be seen. Another question is whether the rage of frustrated Islamists and the others who fueled the country’s Arab Spring protests will bubble over into a bloody civil war that would also impact Israel.

But while the prospects of such spectacular disasters move to the back burner, Israelis must continue to cope with more routine horrors. This morning, a Gaza-based terror squad crossed Egyptian territory to launch an attack on Israel. They ambushed cars carrying civilian workers with rifle fire, anti-tank weapons and explosives. One Israeli, an Arab from Haifa, was killed. Israeli forces quickly pursued and killed two of the terrorists. The attack was reminiscent of a similar terrorist operation carried out further south near Eilat last year.

Roth - They're attacking on Israel's Egyptian border again this morning

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
18 June '12..

Two Israeli vehicles, carrying construction workers who are engaged on the construction of the new higher-security fence along the Israel-Egypt border, came under lethal semi-automatic and anti-tank fire this morning (Monday) from an Arab terrorist group that evidently infiltrated the border area with plans to cause serious trouble.

The details of what happened are still not entirely clear at this point. But it does appear one of the Israeli civilian workers was killed by the infiltrators.

Soldiers from the IDF's Golan Brigade were scrambled to the area in the initial response. A fire-fight resulted and (three) two of the armed terrorists were killed. Initial reports say two Israeli soldiers were wounded in the shoot-out. At this moment (9 am), additional forces brought to the area are carrying out a search for the remaining terrorists.

Meanwhile civilian residents of the area - Kadesh Barnea and other towns in the immediate region - remain on high alert and have been instructed to remain in their homes. School buses have been told to return to their points of origin.

(The IDF re-opened roads in the area and lifted the order for residents to stay at home after confirming that the threat of additional terrorists in Israel had been removed. 12:50 Y.)