Following his meeting in Israel today with Foreign Minister Peres, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said, \"Egypt is against Israel\'s military activities against the Palestinian Authority. We [Peres and I] don\'t agree on several things, we don\'t agree on the way to reach a cease-fire, but we do agree on the need to see two states, Palestinian and Israeli, living peacefully side-by-side.\" Maher, who is visiting Israel for the first time - no Egyptian foreign minister has visited Israel since December 1998 - also met with Prime Minister Sharon, to continue yesterday\'s secret talks with a high-ranking Israeli government representative in Cairo. Maher, who has often attacked Israel sharply, met later with Arafat in Ramallah. American mediator Anthony Zinni met Arafat today as well.
Various interpretations of Egypt\'s new eagerness to take part in the diplomatic process have been suggested:
Voice of Israel\'s Yoni Ben-Menachem said that Egypt is interested in preventing the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, lest that lead to a further deterioration in the region and possibly even a threat to the Egyptian regime.
Likud MK Yuval Shteinitz objected to allowing Egypt to fill the role of mediator between Israel and the Palestinians because, he said, \"Egypt wants only to acquire a moderate image in order to tone down Washington\'s objections to selling it new ship-based missiles.\"
Dr. Aryeh Stav, Director of the Ariel Center for Policy Research, takes another approach. Talking with Arutz-7 today, he first provided some information on the missile in question: \"We\'re talking about the Harpoon-2, which has a range of 130 kilometers, and is very accurate and very fatal. For instance, Israel\'s two power stations in Hadera and Ashkelon will be within the missile\'s range. If Egypt acquires this missile, it will make it hard for Israel to deal with the arming of the Egyptian Navy, the purpose of which, of course, is to prepare for war with Israel. There are objections to the sale in Congress, and in Israel, but it is reasonable to assume that in the end the sale will go through... Neither Peres nor Sharon are active in trying to stop this dangerous development.\"
Arutz-7\'s Haggai Segal asked, \"Maybe they don\'t think that the threat is as concrete as you seem to think it is.\"
Stav: \"Look, I head a center that takes a long-range, strategic view. Egypt is one of the poorest nations in the world, yet it spends 20% of its budget on re-arming. It has one of the largest armies in the world, with 450,000 soldiers, and another 400,000 in auxiliary frameworks, and is outfitted with some of the most modern weaponry. It has no viable enemies anywhere else, and therefore the conclusion is that this army is being built up to fight a war against Israel. They announce this openly: Egyptian [Defense Minister] Tantawi said recently that the army is preparing for the fight with the \'Zionist enemy.\'\"
Segal: \"President Mubarak, though, says very different things. He even mocks those Arab countries that think that they can fight and defeat Israel.\"
Stav: \"Egypt is modeled after the Nazi pattern, which as is known was famous for saying, \'Just give me this-and-this and then there will be peace.\' Sadat, too, [made all sorts of threats], but we didn\'t want to hear. But the truth is that in dictatorships, it doesn\'t matter what the rulers say; what matters is only what they do. Egypt stands at the center of the campaign to de-legitimize Israel diplomatically, as we saw in Durban three months ago; what happened in Durban was planned two weeks beforehand in Cairo. In addition, Egypt stands behind the campaign of Arab terrorism in Israel today. Arafat was born in Egypt, as was much of the PLO leadership… The terrorism today is designed to damage Israel as much as possible in order to make the coming war against Israel that much easier.\"
Segal: \"I have heard commentators say the opposite, that Egypt is worried about the recent terrorism against Israel, lest it spill over into Egypt itself.\"
Stav: \"Egypt is worried only about one thing: that Israel may seriously strike out at the Palestinian Authority, which would ruin the long-range Egyptian plan. This is why Maher is here - almost certainly, by the way, at the behest of Shimon Peres - in order to threaten and convince Israel not to retaliate against the Arab terrorism, and that\'s all.\"
It was reported afterwards that Egypt\'s Gen. Tantawi said today, \"The new developments in the region require our armed forces to maintain a high level of military readiness, in order to be prepared to meet the new challenges and threats.\"
Various interpretations of Egypt\'s new eagerness to take part in the diplomatic process have been suggested:
Voice of Israel\'s Yoni Ben-Menachem said that Egypt is interested in preventing the collapse of the Palestinian Authority, lest that lead to a further deterioration in the region and possibly even a threat to the Egyptian regime.
Likud MK Yuval Shteinitz objected to allowing Egypt to fill the role of mediator between Israel and the Palestinians because, he said, \"Egypt wants only to acquire a moderate image in order to tone down Washington\'s objections to selling it new ship-based missiles.\"
Dr. Aryeh Stav, Director of the Ariel Center for Policy Research, takes another approach. Talking with Arutz-7 today, he first provided some information on the missile in question: \"We\'re talking about the Harpoon-2, which has a range of 130 kilometers, and is very accurate and very fatal. For instance, Israel\'s two power stations in Hadera and Ashkelon will be within the missile\'s range. If Egypt acquires this missile, it will make it hard for Israel to deal with the arming of the Egyptian Navy, the purpose of which, of course, is to prepare for war with Israel. There are objections to the sale in Congress, and in Israel, but it is reasonable to assume that in the end the sale will go through... Neither Peres nor Sharon are active in trying to stop this dangerous development.\"
Arutz-7\'s Haggai Segal asked, \"Maybe they don\'t think that the threat is as concrete as you seem to think it is.\"
Stav: \"Look, I head a center that takes a long-range, strategic view. Egypt is one of the poorest nations in the world, yet it spends 20% of its budget on re-arming. It has one of the largest armies in the world, with 450,000 soldiers, and another 400,000 in auxiliary frameworks, and is outfitted with some of the most modern weaponry. It has no viable enemies anywhere else, and therefore the conclusion is that this army is being built up to fight a war against Israel. They announce this openly: Egyptian [Defense Minister] Tantawi said recently that the army is preparing for the fight with the \'Zionist enemy.\'\"
Segal: \"President Mubarak, though, says very different things. He even mocks those Arab countries that think that they can fight and defeat Israel.\"
Stav: \"Egypt is modeled after the Nazi pattern, which as is known was famous for saying, \'Just give me this-and-this and then there will be peace.\' Sadat, too, [made all sorts of threats], but we didn\'t want to hear. But the truth is that in dictatorships, it doesn\'t matter what the rulers say; what matters is only what they do. Egypt stands at the center of the campaign to de-legitimize Israel diplomatically, as we saw in Durban three months ago; what happened in Durban was planned two weeks beforehand in Cairo. In addition, Egypt stands behind the campaign of Arab terrorism in Israel today. Arafat was born in Egypt, as was much of the PLO leadership… The terrorism today is designed to damage Israel as much as possible in order to make the coming war against Israel that much easier.\"
Segal: \"I have heard commentators say the opposite, that Egypt is worried about the recent terrorism against Israel, lest it spill over into Egypt itself.\"
Stav: \"Egypt is worried only about one thing: that Israel may seriously strike out at the Palestinian Authority, which would ruin the long-range Egyptian plan. This is why Maher is here - almost certainly, by the way, at the behest of Shimon Peres - in order to threaten and convince Israel not to retaliate against the Arab terrorism, and that\'s all.\"
It was reported afterwards that Egypt\'s Gen. Tantawi said today, \"The new developments in the region require our armed forces to maintain a high level of military readiness, in order to be prepared to meet the new challenges and threats.\"