By Barry Rubin
As I predicted in early February, it is now clear that Egypt no longer tries seriously to stop weapons and terrorists and money from flowing into the Hamas arsenals in the Gaza Strip. Western newspaper headline statements by the military that it will keep the treaty with Israel but Egypt is already an ally of Hamas.
Haaretz reports:
“Egyptian security forces’ diminished control in Sinai has allowed the Palestinians to exponentially increase their weapons smuggling into Gaza, senior Israeli defense officials say. In the past few months, Hamas has acquired improved high-trajectory rockets, ready-made explosive devices, anti-tank missiles and possibly anti-aircraft missiles, the sources told Ha’aretz….”
“Former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter told Ha’aretz: “The Sinai went from being an area through which they smuggle weapons to an area through which they simply transfer weapons….No Egyptian security official dares to confront the Bedouin anymore.” Dichter said parts of the steel fence on the Rafah border, which Egypt began to construct last year, were already being dismantled by the Bedouin. He said Iran and Hamas want to concentrate large stores of weapons in Gaza and, when the opportunity arises, to deliver them to the West Bank.
But there’s more! The article continues:
“After the Libyan army lost control of vast weapons stores in the east of the country, local arms dealers made contact with Gaza smugglers, and new weapons began to flow by a much shorter and easier route.”
In other words, the Libyan rebels capture Libyan army weapons, then sell them to arms dealers who sell them to Hamas.
Do you know what that means? It means that the NATO and U.S.-backed Libyan rebels have now become the main source of arms for Hamas.
LOL. Well, it’s not really funny, just kind of, in a bleak ironic sort of way. But wait! I have a solution! Let’s agree right now in advance to withdraw to the pre-1967 armistice line, so they’ll maybe agree to negotiate with us. I’m sure if we’ll give them all of Judea & Samaria before they even start talking to us they will never transfer all those new shiny rockets and missiles there and will never use it as a launching pad to fire on Tel Aviv and shoot down airplanes taking off from and landing in our international airport. Isn’t that a brilliant idea? But I have a feeling I’m not the first to think of it. Oh yeah, I remember now – it was president Obama that first came up with this idea, as well as with the other brilliant components of this new, creative policy we now see in action in the Middle East. Isn’t the US lucky for having such a genius for president?! With the US being our strongest ally and all, I sure am grateful for everything the American president has done for us, and for his own country, and the rest of its allies.
LOL. You sound like Haaretz. Have you ever considered a career in journalism?
Obama is such a moron you can’t help but think that all this is on purpose, no one could be this incompetent but of course, we in Israel have the stupidity of our Left as an example. Anyway, I don’t worry about Obama, I worry about our own idiot politicians, that spineless collection of opportunists & party hacks.
No, I haven’t considered a career in journalism, but I just might. All I have to do is say the opposite of what I think. That should be easy enough.
I think one forgets that the rebels stated early on they would accept help from Israel and recognize the Jewish State of Israel. Barry, what proof do you have that the rebels themselves are agreeing to transfer the weapons to Hamas. Local arms merchants? Well, I do not know how genuine the rebel’s comments are towards Israel, but they do not show the same hate for Israelis we see elsewhere in the ME. NATO didn’t break into Qaddafi’s storage areas and let the weapons out.
As for Egypt, it is a mess and the Egyptian military doesn’t appear ready to take control of the Sinai. In fact, there are agreements with Israel that limit Egyptian forces. Now I’m not trying to make excuses for anyone, but there is a huge dynamic going on beyond the control of America or even NATO. What this means for the people of Gaza is that when the rockets start to fly, the counter-attack is going to be very harsh.
I would think the MANPADS present the same serious threat to European aviation. And of course, the Egyptian military is worried about these arms falling into the hands of those who might want to cause trouble, like firing them at Suez shipping or even at the Egyptian soldiers themselves.
Erdogan isn’t too thrilled with Gazan internal security. Hell, Hamas is being targeted by AQ, who originally had people in those Libyan storage areas. I believe the Sudanese army is near Libyan oil facilities. They have arranged transfer of weapons to Gaza for some time.
I have reworded the article to make it clear that the rebels capture the arms and then sell them to the dealers. They know what they are intended for. I am not arguing that this is some deliberate political decision but this is the result of events. The rebels’ backers might suggest they use the arms themselves or turn them over in exchange for support. Of course the composition of the rebels is still rather unknown. I have no doubt that they will be anti-Israel but that’s not the important issue. The important issue is whether they would be revolutionary Islamists who would spread instability or not. We don’t know but this is an indication.
In the Egyptian case, I don’t think that this reflects a high-level decision but after all what is the motive for an Egyptian officer, who is probably receiving bribes, to stop the arms flow when the government doesn’t see this as against its interests and there is a lot of sympathy for Hamas in both nationalist and Islamist terms.
Maxtrue.
That was a pretty naive view.
First, I was personally not in favor of advanced weapons to the rebels until there was C and C over their nascent forces, but this is the report that I read in June: http://www.france24.com/en/20110602-french-writer-passes-libya-rebel-message-israel#. The rebels appear a mixed bunch but there are obviously those that lean towards the West and those who don’t. Operatives of AQ were identified among those who raided the storage lockers. Sudan has operatives in the East as well. I don’t think anyone here can claim they know leadership in the rebel camp is selling the very weapons they say they need to Hamas as though all of MENA is in their terrorist pocket. I would be more worried about Salafists and AQ. These people say Democracy is a plot to destroy Islam. Does anyone here think that Assad is above arming extremists with far more advanced weapons? Tell me Terry, who ambushed those 13 Turkish troops? al-Islam working as a sub contractor?
As for Egypt, they are a mess. Terry, Debka predicted more than a month ago, the army would go in to the Sinai and disarm everyone. I didn’t see that come true. Did you? Sudan, Syria, Iran, Turkey have all sought to supply Gaza, even on the Dead Sea hxxp://www.rttnews.com/Content/GeneralNews.aspx?Id=1673271&SM=1
Despite Egypt’s former attempt to destroy the tunnel systems, weapons flowed into Gaza. Did that work Terry? Iran is building subs that are designed to make special ops and “deliveries” easier to accomplish along the Read Sea. AQ is alleged to be operating in Gaza. I suspect that Israelis are preparing the systems that will be need when violence begins. If Dubai and KSA are paying to keep Egypt running, I don’t see anyone make the case that from their viewpoint, threatening Israel from the south is to their advantage in staring down Iran. The Egyptian military is likely to understand the long term threat of Hizb’Allah and extremism is a threat to their own asses. Much of the positioning by the Egyptian military so far has been to blunt the anger of the street. When they are forced to crack down harder than this last weekend and send troops to the Suez, I expect extremists will again target Egypt, striking at soft targets first. Who hasn’t gotten burned playing with Hamas?
Barry, I don’t think the “rebels” taken by the behavior of their “leadership” have indicated any of the radical desires of the Egyptian street. Yes, we all know that Eastern Libya was where some men left from to attack US troops in Iraq. And we also know some NATO strikes killed some rebels. I think this is a complex game and old weapons from Qaddafi’s storage bins are the least of Israel’s worries right now. They may in fact, be a bigger worry to Europe. As we saw with the Kharg incident, more advanced weapons are coming from Iran, China and Syria with a little help from Turkey. If you are suggesting we support a stalemate in Libya at this point, that will increase militancy on the rebel side in Libya. For all these reasons I advocated a long time ago to terminate Qaddafi.
But let’s be distracted by the debt drama here and the suggestion we reduce military spending by 800 billion over ten years. Let’s hope the money’s there to complete production of the assets we’ll need come fight time. The same can be said of Israel, who doesn’t have an unlimited source of cash and resources.
Despite Egypt’s former attempt to destroy the tunnel systems, weapons flowed into Gaza. Did that work Terry?
It’s a matter of both quality and quantity. For instance, large missiles are more difficult to smuggle through the tunnels than to just drive across the border, and they are more difficult to smuggle through the tunnels under the watchful eyes of at least some soldiers who are motivated to prevent them from passing than it is when no one cares and you can dig all the tunnels you want unmolested and pass whatever you want through them. The same goes for qauntity. Sure, Hamas already has a large quantity of Grad rockets (that have longer range than Kassams), and before Cast Lead were in the prcoess of getting Fajrs (that can reach Tel Aviv), but it was difficult for them to get the Iranian made Fajrs into Gaza. But if, say, Iranian ships could cross the Suez Canal and the border between Egypt and Gaza will be more or less open it’ll be a breeze.
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