Israel Matzav

Why Egypt will never fight arms smuggling

Efraim Inbar and Mordechai Keidar have an important article in Friday's JPost that explains why Egypt will never - and indeed cannot - fight arms smuggling on Israel's behalf. It's partly about the fact that Egypt isn't really interested in peace with us because they view us as a rival. But there are other factors involved.

EGYPT'S double game is also the result of a complex reality in the Sinai Peninsula. As with other Third World states, the Egyptian government is not fully in control of its territory. Thus, an international agreement on ending arms smuggling from Sinai into Gaza will face considerable problems of implementation, even if the Egyptian regime wants it to happen.

Notably, most of the smuggling is led by Egyptian Beduin who live in the northern Sinai. These tribes do not speak Egyptian Arabic, they are not really an integral part of Egyptian culture, and they do not subscribe to Egyptian political ethos. They make a living by smuggling women and drugs to Israel, as well as arms, ammunition and missiles to the Gaza Strip.

Egyptian attempts to extend law and order to Beduin areas has met armed resistance. Every time the Egyptian regime attempts to curtail the Beduin smuggling activities, they carry out a terrorist attack on a Sinai beach, as has happened in Taba, Sharm e-Sheikh, Nueiba and Ras al-Satan. Such attacks negatively influence tourism to Egypt, an important source of income, and seem to be an effective way of "convincing" the Cairo authorities to live and let live.

BRIBERY, AN important element in the Egyptian ways of doing business, also facilitates the smuggling of weapons. The low-paid Egyptian officials in Sinai can hardly resist hefty bribes. A $100 bill does wonders in the case of an Egyptian police officer at a Sinai roadblock who intercepts a truck packed with "pipes." The likelihood that a policeman at Egyptian checkpoints would stop taking bribes from trucks transferring arms to Gaza is even lower - unless the Egyptian government was to decide to heavily punish such behavior. Such an Egyptian government decision is also unlikely.

Another hindering factor in any attempt to stop smuggling is the bureaucratic culture of Egypt. The cumbersome Egyptian bureaucracy is hardly effective. Even presidential decisions are watered down as they pass through the ranks of the administration. The chance that a presidential decision on a total curb in smuggling would be fully implemented at Sinai checkpoints is slim. This is Egypt.

To illustrate the point: Several weeks ago, the Palestinians published a report that the Egyptians had started to seriously combat the smuggling tunnels between the Egyptian and Palestinian sides of Rafah. The Egyptians initiated an inquiry to discover "who" suddenly became so motivated, and discovered that it was an Egyptian official who did not receive a big enough reward from of the tunnel operators and decided to teach them a lesson. The Egyptians immediately found a different posting for this hyperactive official.

All of this has to make you wonder why Egypt ever wanted the Sinai back in the first place. During the 1979-82 negotiations, they insisted on the return of every grain of sand, right down to an international arbitration over the Taba border crossing. Obviously, getting it all back was a matter of pride for the Egyptians. The 'Arab street' would settle for nothing less.

In retrospect, the Israel-Egypt treaty was a bad deal for Israel. The precedent Israel set by giving Egypt everything that Israel won in the 1967 war has made it impossible to reach any kind of compromise with Syria or the 'Palestinians,' even if they choose leadership that has other priorities aside from destroying us, which is unlikely in any event.

The economic advantages that Israel gained through its treaty with Egypt went up in smoke with the assassination of Anwar Sadat.

If Israel still controlled Sinai, there wouldn't be any weapons smuggling into Gaza from Sinai.

Inbar and Keidar's lesson from the Egyptian experience is that Israel must control the Philadelphi corridor if it is to prevent arms smuggling. While that is correct, there's also a broader lesson that can be learned from the Egyptian experience: Peace can only be made when both countries' leaders and people want to live peacefully. Israel made peace with Anwar Sadat. The Egyptian people have never made peace with Israel. Israel made peace with King Hussein of Jordan. The Jordanian people have never made peace with Israel. We'd be fools to go down the same path with Syria or the 'Palestinians,' both of whom are in a much stronger position to make our lives miserable.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:28 AM