Israel, Egypt : a common enemy
NATHAN JEFFAY
WERE it not for the quick and effective response from the Israeli military, it is likely that dozens of Israeli families would have been sitting shivah this week.
On Sunday, terrorists, apparently Jihadists, killed 16 Egyptian soldiers stationed on the Egyptian-Israeli border. Hoping for a double score against both Egyptians and Israelis, they then sped in two vehicles, laden with explosives, towards Israeli civilian areas.
The terrorists in one vehicle exploded it, but the other vehicle made considerable progress, and the attackers were headed towards what they would have considered a success – entrance to an Israeli town or village. It was only stopped due to a precise Israeli operation that included a decisive airstrike. The damage that this vehicle could have caused if explosives were detonated in a populated area is unthinkable.
It seems likely that the attackers are trying to place Israel and Egypt, which is under the leadership of its new president Mohammed Mursi, on a collision course. Mursi is an Islamist – but too moderate for Jihadist tastes, as he is widely expected, at least in the short term, to uphold the Egyptian-Israeli peace.
How would such an attack set Egypt and Israel against each other? After all, it was the very same terrorists targeting Egyptians and trying to target Israelis, in a sense uniting them against a common threat. “I think it is clear that Israel and Egypt have a common interest in keeping the border between us peaceful,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the attack.
But what counts here is the responses of Israel and Egypt. Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak said on Monday: “Perhaps this will be a necessary wake-up call for the Egyptians to take matters in their hands in a more serious way.”
The terrorists’ strategy is based on the assumption that they won’t – or at least they won’t to Israel’s satisfaction.
If the terror threat from the Sinai grows but the Egyptian response is not what Barak considers “serious”, Israel could take its own steps in the Sinai, working covertly or overtly to reduce the dangers.
But Egypt will respond severely to any perceived infringement of its sovereignty in the Sinai, and such steps could lead to outright conflict between Egypt and Israel.
Terror in and around the Sinai, whoever the targets, can be seen in part as a meddling designed to decrease the lifespan of Israeli-Egyptian peace by increasing Israeli alarm about the situation there. Because there is a certain logic to the strategy, and because as the terrorists hoped this latest attack extracted a high death toll from the Egyptians, we can expect more attacks over the coming weeks and months.
And sadly, following the Israeli military’s swift response this time, attackers on future occasions are likely to come even more determined to reach Israeli civilians.