Eilat will become Egyptian when Egyptian Arabs, who conquered Egypt in the 7th Century CE from native Copts and Nubians (who predated Arabs by millennia) return Egypt to the native peoples whom they continue to subjugate, murder and forcibly Arabize.

And we won't even mention anything about Egypt's ancient Jewish population, which also predated the Arabs by millennia and which is virtually non-existent today. Most of Egypt's last 100,000 Jews were forced to flee during the last century. (The Egyptian Jewess, historian Bat Ye'or, is one of the leading experts to consult on such matters.)

One of my favorite journalists, David Bedein, had a piece in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin on December 22nd in which he reported on a debate over Eilat in Egypt's parliament. Among other things, during the debate it was stated that, "Eilat belongs formally to Egypt and administratively to the Palestinians."

Eilat, the southernmost city of Israel, is located on the north shore of the Red Sea and is named for the Hebrew Bible's Elath, which is believed to have actually been located across the border in Aqaba, in what is now Jordan. Eilat's importance to the Jews came via its connection to King Solomon: "King Solomon also built a fleet of ships at Etzion-Geber near Elath on the shore of the Red Sea." (I Kings 9:26) It was (and is) an important port located on the trade route to the East. The 1956 and 1967 wars largely started over Egypt's blockade of Eilat.

Several facts related to all of this are worth noting.

First of all, the Ottoman Turks ruled the entire area in question from 1517 until after World War I, when the Sinai was awarded to Egypt. Prior to that, the Roman and Byzantine Empires ruled it from the 1st through early 7th Centuries CE.

There were others, as well. And the Arabs only acquired Egypt via their own massive imperial conquests, after exploding in all directions out of the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th Century; at the same time and in the same way that they came to acquire the land of Israel.

So, for Egypt to pretend that the Sinai itself is its assumed birthright, let alone adjacent Eilat, is a stretch. This is especially so, since nations and empires who have waged war against their neighbors and lost territory as a result rarely get rewarded with a return to the status quo ante.

But the Jews did just that - and after developing oil fields, some of the world's most advanced air bases, and so forth in the Sinai. Egypt lost Sinai in '67 because of its blockade of Israel - a casus belli - and other blatant and overt hostile actions. In return for what was a very cold peace, especially after President Anwar Sadat's assassination, Israel gave up all of the above. Israel also got a massive Egyptian arms build-up (largely courtesy of the United States), huge quantities of arms being smuggled to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror groups via the Egyptian Sinai, government-sponsored anti-Semitism, which ranks with Hitler's propaganda machine, and more.

The PLO was created in Egypt under Gamal Abd El-Nasser's watch, back in 1964 (Yasser Arafat was born in Cairo), as a tool to further Egypt's agenda. Egypt continues to bleed Jews via the same organization and other proxies today.

Eighty million Egyptians. Hundreds of millions of other Arabs - not to mention non-Arab Muslims.

Five million Israeli Jews.

Do the math. The Arabs certainly are.

Egypt, like the others, is merely biding its time; and the results in Lebanon not long ago don't help matters any. Reports have it that the Syrians are already making their moves, and not only in Lebanon.

Unfortunately, new rabbits must repeatedly be invented by Jews to be pulled out of their collective hat of survival. The new year ahead will certainly be no exception.