This morning we have two interesting… and superficially contradictory… reports from the Gaza War in the Israeli press. Ynet tells of Egyptian foreign minister’s disdain for a US Israeli border security agreement:
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said on Saturday his country was not committed to the US-Israeli pact to halt arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip.
“We have no commitment towards this memo whatsoever,” Aboul Gheit told reporters. “We do not know anything about this memo and it does not concern us in anything,” he said.
He added that Israel was the main obstacle to the “Egyptian efforts” to end an agreement by the war in Gaza. Questioned by the press on the main obstacle to the Egyptian mediation underway, Aboul Gheit said: “Israeli intransigence”.
“Israel is drunk with power and violence,” he acknowledged.
Ho-kay…. Meanwhile, over at Haaretz:
A government source emphasized that there has been great progress with Egypt in reaching an agreement on fighting arms smuggling. The deal would require the combined use of technological measures on the border between Gaza and Egypt, operations against smugglers in the southern Gaza town of Rafah and the use of international experts to identify smuggling tunnels on the border.
The deal would also call for cooperation between Israel and Egypt on matters relating to the Gaza Strip in which they have shared interests, without the interference of Hamas.
Egypt is at the moment considering whether to organize a summit in the near future in Cairo between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Egypt’s state-run news agency MENA reported on Saturday that Mubarak has invited French President Nicholas Sarzoky and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for talks on how to end the Gaza offensive.
Liar’s poker, anyone? My sense here is that Israel is holding most of the cards. The Egyptians seem to do be doing what they can to defuse Hamas while keeping their gonzo public as quiet as possible. The Israelis will take a propaganda hit, but that’s the price of victory for them these days. Their allies only like them when they are down.
My non-expert take on the Gaza operation is that its main purpose is to restore Israeli credibility and deterrence. Comments like the one you cite here, and some items floating about the news last week that had Arabs saying the Israeli’s had “gone crazy,” seem to hint at a mission accomplished.
Jamie Irons
Have to go Ynet on this. I think Haartz is betting on the come. After reading this NYT article, I think the very first paragraph spells out the situation:
The next stage of the agreement to be worked out is about having international monitors at the tunnels:
And just who were the signatories of this agreement?
The understanding was between the U.S. and Israel, NOT between the U.S., Israel and Egypt.
Egypt will be under a tremendous backlash if they sign on to the tunnel monitoring agreement worked out between the U.S. and Israel. I’m not surprised that the Egyptians are acting very cool towards it. It’s…how do you say it…politically expedient?
I agree that Israel has the strong hand. Support within Israel (which is all that Olmert really has to worry about) for Cast Lead seems to be running 90%+. Casualties have been very low, which was my main worry — military reverses would erode domestic support, which is what seemed to happen with Lebanon ’06. The IDF seems to have acquitted itself pretty well, which presents the rest of the world with a fait accompli.
The al-Reuters story I read this morning claimed 10 Israeli soldiers killed during the entire operation (and some of those, IIRC, were friendly fire). And even if you buy the MSM claim that half of the Palestinian dead are civilian (Strategypage puts it at no more than 1/3), that gives the IDF a very impressive casualty ratio and makes it exceedingly difficult for Hamas to claim any sort of victory, except among the people who are nutters and would take any Hamas claim at face value. And remember, being the strong horse matters a lot in that part of the world.
It sounds like the cease-fire today was the result of the IDF not having any more targets to hit. That’s a good problem to have, politically and militarily. They can write their own terms. Does that make them “drunk with power and violence?” Well, maybe. But in a good way.
The damage and death toll in this particular war has been decidedly one-sided, but it helps to remember that thousands of rockets shot by Hamas into thousands of Israeli homes is what caused this latest operation. Read this article for a human sympathy play for the Palestinians:
In Homes and on Streets, a War That Feels Deadlier
And the MSM begrudges Joe the Plumber walking through a few bombed out Israeli homes. The bastards.
Meanwhile, the Saudis are whining that those wicked Jooze have the Arab world on the ropes:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129497
Boo hoo.