CAIRO: Yasser Othman, Egyptian envoy to the Palestinian Authority, has said that Israel may be planning a takeover of the Sinai Peninsula, according to Palestinian news agency Ma’an.
Othman suggested that Israel is trying to make the post-revolution Egyptian government appear unable to maintain security on the border region with Israel, as part of a larger campaign to make the post-Mubarak government look ineffective.
"I do not believe that," said Emad Gad, analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. "That is an exaggeration. Israel cannot take over Sinai again because they know it will be war."
Gad explained that in the current regional environment, in which Turkey and other countries are stepping up diplomatic pressure on the conservative Israeli government, a decision to resort to military action would isolate Israel further.
Although Othman’s suggestions were rejected by Israeli officials in a matter of hours, several recent developments created the context for the suggestion.
On Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Maariv that "Sinai is an important asset for every Egyptian leadership, but I don’t think that the leadership is in full control."
That same day, Reuters reported that "assailants blew up an Egyptian pipeline" transporting gas to Israel.
On Wednesday, the Jerusalem Post published an interview with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he told an interviewer that militants might "use Gaza as a staging area for attacks from Sinai."
"We are taking action on our side of the border — principally by erecting the border fence, to reduce the danger of this happening," he said.
An Al Jazeera blog reported Thursday that Egyptian security forces discovered weapons, including mortars and aircraft missiles, in a Sinai mountain.
According to the source, the Egyptian interior ministry stated that the weapons were left over from previous wars, not new weapons to be smuggled into Gaza.
News agency Agence France-Presse reported that Israel has "raised concerns that weapons smuggled from Libya…were finding their way" to Gaza through Egypt.
In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty widely cited as a "land for peace" deal in which Israel gave the Sinai back to Egypt in exchange for a full peace treaty. Over the years that treaty slowly grew into what historians called a "cold peace."
Gad suggested that Israeli comments are taken more seriously now because of increased nationalism in Egypt.
Some politicians have started to "play without control," sounding alarm bells for political gain.
"They are looking at the conflict with Israel as a zero-sum game," he said, meaning that Israeli efforts to discredit the new Egyptian leadership must be reciprocated in an ongoing media battle.
The exaggeration, Gad said, was the product of the political moment.
"We are suffering from insecurity in the streets of Cairo," he said. "After the parliamentary elections and the presidential elections, I think the Egyptian army will focus again on controlling Sinai."
Until then, however, the rhetoric may continue to escalate as the peace with Israel becomes colder.
