With the tent protests, missiles falling on population centers, yet another neighbor-state (Syria) in turmoil, and the brouhaha surrounding a Palestinian state grab at the UN and possible Arab riots, it's been one hot summer and fall in Israel.
But the action in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula--from the terror attack that took eight Israeli lives, next to an Egyptian outpost in the demilitarized peninsula--has us starting to realize that while summer might be receding, things are just starting to get hot.
After the coordinated terror attack that took place near Eilat several weeks ago, the Israeli leadership finally woke up to a major threat. The Sinai Peninsula represents 23,000 square miles of nearly ungovernable space. For years the terror threat has been increasing, but with the downfall of the Mubarak regime, it has deteriorated into the kind of desert no-man's-land, similar to parts of Sudan and Pakistan's Waziristan region, that makes rife soil for Islamist terror cells.
Of course, Israel learned its lesson--which everyone already knew--too late. Now in the aftermath, the man charged with protecting Israel's borders, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who failed to anticipate the threat in the first place, has unilaterally declared that the Egyptian army can and should return to the area.
But this move is a distinct violation of the 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, the one formalized by the famous handshake between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, and with a smiling Jimmy Carter between them. The broad strokes of that treaty called for Israel to return the peninsula, which it had conquered for the second time in 1967, to Egyptian sovereignty and control, and in return Egypt would normalize relations with Israel and maintain a demilitarized peninsula to serve as an Israeli security buffer.
Ehud Barak's recent call to re-militarize the peninsula represents is a thunderbolt to the Middle East political equation. As the first "successful" land-for-peace deal ever made by Israel, the Sinai Peninsula was the model of not just how to execute such an arrangement, but of its validity and feasibility. For years, proponents of this sort of peace--Barak chief among them--have pointed to Egypt as the proof that land for peace works.
Coming from Barak, a move of this magnitude made with such a careless air is no surprise. Israel's current defense minister and one-time prime minister has long shown a stubborn preference for short-term expediency over long-term vision. Barak is in fact unabashed about this, telling The Economist this week that: “Sometimes you have to subordinate strategic considerations to tactical needs.”
While this is not altogether untrue in fragile situations that require a great degree of flexibility, when put into this particular Egyptian context--which is as strategic a context as there is--it shows a lack of vision that borders on recklessness.
Given the tumult in Egypt this past year, Barak’s stated policy becomes even more unreasonable. A massive political transformation in Egypt that has yet to reveal its true nature is no time to be making radical changes to previous agreements. And yet by advocating an abrogation to a frigid peace on Israel’s tense southern borders without knowing the true attitude of Egypt’s revolution is more than mere folly but potentially disastrous.
Moreover, it calls into question all other agreements of this sort because Barak forces Israel to ingest an untenable slippery slope of political conveniences erode the security clauses crucial to the cogency of the land peace equation.
By uttering such a policy unilaterally, Barak encourages Egypt to only compound the pressure already on Israel. Egypt’s temporary government sees a militarization of the Sinai as an easy win. It can sell this as a reversal of the peace accords to quell its vast anti-Israeli constituency. 
Begin on demilitarized Sinai: “... strategic depth, in case the other side has taken the first step towards a war of aggression, as happened in Europe only three years after the abrogation of the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland.”
It should be noted that Egypt has done very little to stem the tide of weapons and terrorist in the Sinai, despite the enlarged force (an additional 750 troops) which Ariel Sharon permitted so that it could effectively control the Gaza border after disengagement. Indeed, Egypt has been unable to secure its own pipeline infrastructure, which have been repeatedly attacked over the past few months. In light of Hamas’ control of Gaza and a security vacuum on its southern border, Israel should be hugging tight to its security agreements with Egypt.
If Israel wants Egypt to do more with it Sinai forces it already has it should be using diplomatic triggers built into the agreement that forces Egypt to act not for Israeli interests but for its own interests. This treaty has many carrots to leverage, allowing Egypt to obtain the latest in military hardware, international credibility, a billion plus in annual US aid, all of which Israel could effectively call into question if Egypt continues to close its eyes to what is happening within its own borders.
Speaking to a class of military graduates in 1983, Menachem Begin clearly pointed out the importance of a demilitarized Sinai peninsula, saying that it provided the “attainment of strategic depth, in case the other side has taken the first step towards a war of aggression, as happened in Europe only three years after the abrogation of the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland.”[1] In other words, without this buffer zone, Israel could face a situation in which, by the time in knew of an invasion, its enemy would already have crossed into Israeli territory.
Rather than taking the fight to Israel’s aggressors, Barak is choosing to outsource Israel’s security to an ominous Egyptian state. T
he same strategy is employed with the Iron Dome system, which leaves the fight in the hands of Israel’s enemies and provides the façade of calm. At a time when Israel is under missile attacks from Gaza, and terror attacks coming out of Sinai, Israel can ill afford leaders of its defense that are expert in posturing and fixed towards negotiation, instead of retaking the initiative and offering innovative strategies to bring the battle to the enemies.
In short, Israel needs a dynamic defense minister unwilling to sacrifice long-term security for short term calm, who won’t solve smaller problems by creating bigger problems.
Thankfully, in democracies power is checked, the speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin announced that a decision in changing the Egyptian-Israeli peace accords requires the Knesset’s approval. Netanyahu attempted to water this down by claiming that such treaty changes requires only cabinet approval.
In any event, Egypt’s military is kept at bay, at least for now. What all this should mean for us paying attention is that we are observing the first clear call to backtrack from the Sinai accords and with it the land for peace paradigm it has fathered. That such declarations are coming from the left makes it even more noteworthy, forcing Israel to seriously rethink the land for peace equation in future diplomatic negotiations with any of its neighbors.
[1] Address by Prime Minister Begin at the National Defense College, 8 August 1982