Egyptian Mediation for Israel?

AT A TIME, when a lot of hopes were created for Palestine-Israel settlement and peace in Middle East, Israel deliberately resumed its air-strikes on Palestinians and declared that it would go ahead with its plan for settlements in Jerusalem. The intention obviously is to drag the peace discourse indefinitely. However, Israeli Defense Minister and former PM, Ehud Barak attempted to lower tensions that have arisen in recent days over the issue and made a quick visit to Egypt to seek its help in influencing Hamas.

Barak headed on 26 December to Egypt for talks with President Hosni Mubarak and top security officials amid renewed tensions over alleged arms smuggling into Gaza. Barak raised Israel's demand that Egypt to crack down on alleged arms smuggling from the Sinai desert into the Gaza Strip, controlled by the Islamist Hamas since June.  Barak flew to the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for his first meeting with Mubarak since assuming the defense portfolio in June. He is also due to hold talks with his Egyptian counterpart Mohammed Hussein Tantawi and intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman.

Egypt has accused Israel of interfering in its relations with the US by causing Congress to suspend $100m (£50m) of its annual military aid. Congress has frozen some of the aid while US officials check Egypt is making efforts to stop the smuggling. But it is clear the Egyptians are angry the US Congressmen have ordered a freeze on $100m of aid until they are satisfied Cairo is doing all it can.

Cairo strongly rejected accusations by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni that Egypt's actions along its border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip were "problematic." The Egyptian foreign ministry said in a statement that the Israeli minister would do better to concentrate on negotiation efforts with the Palestinians... instead of speaking without weighing her words about things she should not deal with without having enough information. Israel has often accused Egypt of doing too little to counter alleged arms smuggling via tunnels dug from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into Egyptian territory. Cairo has denied the charge.

Israel says Egypt is not doing enough to stop smugglers' tunnels. Tension between Egypt and Israel has been rising in recent days also over the smuggling issue. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni had said the Egyptians were doing what she described as a terrible job policing their border with Gaza. Cairo accused her of speaking of matters she did not know about.

Barak and Hosni discussed, among other issues, how to stem the flow of smuggled weapons through tunnels under Egypt's border with Gaza. A spokesman for the Egyptian president said Cairo was exerting every effort to stop weapons smuggling to Gaza but it could not, as he put it "guarantee 100% results".

Barak has said that relations with Egypt, the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty for the Jewish state, are "a strategic asset for Israel," and "Israel and Egypt have had disagreements before and we know how to settle these questions around the table of talks". During a visit by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to Sharm el-Sheikh in November, Cairo has asked Israel to renegotiate the two countries' 1979 peace treaty so that Egypt can deploy more troops along the border in a bid to stem the arms flow. But Israel has refused to do that as well.

Earlier two of the Olmert’s cabinet members asked Olmert to go for peace with Palestinians without seeking recognition of Israel by them. However, Olmert seems to have rejected that sensible suggestion too and determined to construct Jewish settlements in Palestine. Hopefully Israel and Egypt would find a common language for the sake of peaceful settlement of Palestinians in Palestine.

AN OBSERVATION

Middle Eastern Peace would be unthinkable if Israel continues to pursue its destructive policies in Palestine and refuses to accept the genuine and legitimate rights of the Palestinians for whom the Hamas are the elected representatives, to establish an Independent Palestine state. Obviously Egypt, like the UK and USA, has to play a pro-Palestine role to secure a Palestine state. So also the UK, without its constructive involvement in the stalemate, peace process could even be delayed indefinitely. It is strange that when it has been unleashing terror on the Palestinians with arms of its own and got from the USA, Israel should also insist that none should supply weapons to Hamas to defend itself from Jewish aggression. Israel has tactfully prolonged the conflict causing innumerable problems for the Palestinians and the Lebanese with its intermittent wars on fictitious pretexts. And it is crudely unfortunate that USA and UK, irrespective of the ruling dispensations there, have protected Israel all along against the legitimate interests of Palestinians. First off all Israel should be restrianed, once for all, by the USA and its allies from its awful settlement plans in Palestine.

Dr.Abdul Ruff Colachal is a Researcher, freelance Analyst & Columnist based in New Delhi,India