The government may therefore allow Egypt to deploy soldiers in the Sinai.

It is widely felt that a key component of Prime Minister Sharon's proposed withdrawal from Gaza is the matter of control of the Egypt-Gaza border. Terrorists have dug hundreds of tunnels in the area, through which they have smuggled thousands of weapons and rocket launchers from Egypt into Gaza. Israel refuses to leave the Palestinian Authority in control of the area, and the Sharon government does not want to retain control itself. This leaves only Egypt.

Many Israelis feel that Egypt cannot and should not be trusted in this regard. Likud MK Yuval Shteinitz, Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, has long warned that Egypt's designs on Israel are far from friendly. He further feels that as the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty of 1978 forbids Egyptian troops from deploying in the Sinai, no such soldiers may be invited to the Sinai without the Knesset's approval. Shteinitz was supported in this position by the committee's legal counsel, Miri Frankel-Shorr, as well as an 8-2 committee vote on the matter two months ago.

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, however, rejected this approach, and said today - just as Sharon had hoped - that Knesset approval for the change is not necessary.

"The new arrangement [along the Egypt-Gaza border] is not in the category of an international treaty of special importance," Mazuz stated in his opinion, and is not a "material change in the peace treaty."

Both Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin and Shteinitz expressed strong opposition to the decision. Rivlin said he would call a Knesset session on the issue, and Shteinitz said he is considering various steps, "including judicial ones." Shteinitz said that Mazuz's decision is "a great blow to Israel's parliamentary democracy, and is scandalous on the face of it."