Report: Egypt Won’t Stop Gaza Smuggling

Despite Western pressure, Egypt will not block the arms flow to the Gaza Strip, a report said.

BESA, the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, based at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel has issued a report that states Egypt quietly supported the delivery of weapons to the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip.

The report, titled “Egypt Is Not Going to Stop the Smuggling into Gaza,” asserted the regime of President Hosni Mubarak has been under domestic pressure to support Hamas.

“Conventional wisdom posits that Egypt must and will play a central role in halting the smuggling of weapons from Sinai to Gaza,” the report said.

“Yet this is unlikely – for strategic, political and Egyptian domestic reasons. Egypt does not mind if Hamas bleeds Israel a little; it gains domestically by indirectly aiding Hamas; gains internationally by playing a mediating role in a conflict which it helps maintain on a low flame.”

The report, authored by BESA Center director Efraim Inbar and researcher Mordechai Kedar, concluded Egypt was incapable of stopping Bedouins in the Sinai Peninsula from smuggling weapons and ammunition to Hamas. The authors cited lack of central government control over Sinai as well as massive official corruption.

“Egyptian attempts to extend law and order to Bedouin areas have met armed resistance,” the report said. “Every time the Egyptian regime attempts to curtail the Bedouin smuggling activities, they carry out a terrorist attack on a Sinai resort, as has happened in Taba, Sharm e-Sheik – twice – Nueiba, and Ras Al Satan. Such attacks negatively influence tourism to Egypt, an important source of income, and seem to be an effective way of convincing the Cairo authorities to live and let live.”

The report said the Mubarak regime regarded Hamas as a strategic tool against Israel. Messrs. Inbar and Kedar said Egypt, despite its 1979 peace treaty, has encouraged the continuation of Hamas missile strikes against the Jewish state.

“At the strategic level, Egypt sees Israel as a competitor in the quest for hegemony in the Middle East, and has for years turned a blind eye to the arming of Hamas via the tunnels,” the report said. “Simply put, it had, and still has, an interest in bleeding Israel. In contrast to its rhetoric, Egypt is not interested in a resolution of the Arab-Israel conflict that will free Israel from an immense security burden and will allow the Jewish state to become even stronger than it is nowadays.”

The report also assessed that Egypt’s support of Hamas has continued despite Cairo’s fear of the Islamic regime. Messrs. Inbar and Kedar said Cairo has been concerned that Hamas could provide weapons to Egypt’s Islamic opposition and that Iran could take over the Gaza Strip.

“Nevertheless, Egypt appears to have reached the conclusions that it cannot prevent Hamas rule in Gaza, and that Hamas’ continuing rule actually is useful both against Israel and at home,” the report said. “Everybody in Cairo understands that the government is facilitating the arming of Hamas; and turning a blind eye to the tunnels weakens the argument of the Islamic opposition that the government is cooperating with the Zionists.”

The report urged the Israeli government not to depend on Egypt to stop Hamas weapons smuggling. Another recommendation was that the Israeli military sustain attacks on the estimated 800 tunnels that span the Gaza-Sinai border, known as the Philadelphi corridor.

“An important policy implication of this reality is that Israel must maintain freedom of action to bomb tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor, or to destroy them by ground operations,” the report said. “This must be made crystal-clear to friends and foes alike.”

David Bedein can be reached at dbedein@israelbehindthenews.com