Wild Card: 'Egypt Double Dealer'

Egypt is the key to any plan to end smuggling of arms into Gaza, but two university experts say that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is a double dealer who cannot be trusted. They warn that smuggling will continue despite the international community's vow to stop it.

"Egypt… is playing a dangerous double-game in its ties with its neighbors, Israel and Hamas, according to a FrontPage.com interview with Dr. Michael Widlanski, a research fellow at the ShalemCenter in Jerusalem and teacher at HebrewUniversity.

"Egyptian officials have actually encouraged attacks on Israel [and] have condemned Israeli retaliation against Hamas, calling it aggression, without ever condemning a single Hamas attack," he added.

Dr. Widlanski noted that after the beginning of the IDF's Cast Lead counterterrorist campaign in Gaza, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak "criticized Hamas for goading Israel into the kind of military action which would hurt Hamas and all Palestinians," but he justified Hamas attacks, while excoriating Israeli 'aggression' no less than 11 times in a ten-minute speech.

"Mubarak is basically saying that the attacks themselves are okay and legitimate, but that they bring Israeli reprisals…. Mubarak ended his speech by saying that 'the Palestinian case will never ever die.' This kind of terminology again suggests the Arabic rhetoric of Arafat-Abbas-Hamas that no Israeli withdrawals will ever satisfy the Arab opponents of Israel but that diplomatic agreements or truces are nothing but a transitory stage in the ultimate erasure of 'the occupation.'"

Mubarak has been worried that Israeli attacks on Hamas will cause an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood, the major opposition party in Egypt. "Hamas, though currently supported and trained by the Shi'ite regime of Iran, is actually the outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood organization inside Egypt," according to the researcher.

He called on Israel "to attack the terrorist organizations mercilessly and ceaselessly by physically killing or capturing their members, preferably killing them. And no truces or ceasefires ever—not for Ramadan, not for Christmas and not for Rosh HaShanah."

Cairo holds several cards up its sleeve against Western efforts to place international forces along its border to try to stop smuggling, although Egypt claimed on Monday that arms enter Gaza by sea and not through tunnels under the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Bedouins and Bribery

Egypt's problems with Bedouin smugglers, a culture of bribery and Cairo's own complex administration are obstacles that will thwart any international attempt to stop arms smuggling to Gaza, according to Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a lecturer at Bar-IlanUniversity's Department of Arabic Culture.

"No agreement or decision that includes a component of ending arms smuggling will be implemented, even if the Egyptian regime wants it to happen," he wrote in the Hebrew-language Yediot Acharonot daily newspaper.

No agreement or decision that includes a component of ending arms smuggling will be implemented.

Dr. Kedar pointed out that the source of smuggling usually is Bedouins, whose culture and language are as separate from that in Egypt as they are from the culture and language of Jews in Israel.

"They make a living by smuggling women and drugs to Israel, as well as arms, ammunition, and missiles to [Gaza], he explained…. Every time the Egyptian regime attempts to press them, they carry out an attack on a Sinai beach…. This is how they "convince" the government in Cairo to let them be and continue the smuggling.

"The likelihood of the Egyptian government overtaking them is similar to the likelihood that the Israeli government will be able to eliminate polygamy among the Bedouins in the Negev. The Bedouins in the Sinai will continue to smuggle regardless of agreements or decisions that bound Egypt," Kedar said.

He added that the culture of bribery and the multi-leveled Egyptian bureaucracy are further insurmountable obstacles to well-meaning Western intentions. "Mubarak may want it [a halt to smuggling], but his decisions are not carried out. This is not about malice; it's merely Egypt."