CAIRO: Israeli media was quick to place the blame on Egypt for losing its grip over security on the border post-Mubarak, allowing the recent attacks on Israeli buses that killed seven people.
Media outlets such as the Jerusalem Post, Ynet and Haaretz unanimously agreed that a security vacuum followed the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak and that the Egyptian military do not have strong control over the border.
“Upon Mubarak’s fall the situation in the peninsula reached a reckless state,” Ynet said.
A recent Ynet editorial said that Thursday’s attack “serves as further evidence that Egypt has lost control over the peninsula.”
It added that since the ouster of Mubarak “Al-Qaeda terrorists have been boosting their activity in the area.”
“Israel contends that the new Egyptian military regime is not sufficiently committed to maintaining security and is not in control of Sinai as [former] president Hosni Mubarak’s government was,” a Haartz editorial titled “Israel must maintain neighborly relations with Egypt” read.
The editorial said that although security was under control during Mubarak’s tenure, it was not that “absolute.”
“The tragic terrorist attacks in the past on the Sinai coast, the smuggling tunnels that have operated between Gaza and Sinai, the attacks on Egyptian state institutions by disgruntled Bedouin and the development of a presence of radical Islamic organizations in the country did not begin under the new Egyptian regime.”
In her editorial titled “Blood in the streets,” in the Jerusalem Post, Caroline B. Glick wrote that Israel cannot keep expecting to receive “serious cooperation” from the Egyptian military in combating the enemy forces coming from Sinai.
“It is unclear how effective the latest Egyptian military deployment had been until Thursday’s cross-border attacks on Israel had been,” she said.
In an analysis piece titled “Sinai a terror hotbed,” in Ynet, Roee Nahmias wrote that in the past months “Egypt’s army lost its hold on parts of the Sinai after local Bedouins took over main roads in the framework of the uprising against Mubarak’s regime.”
As the Egyptian army deployed around 1,000 soldiers to patrol northern Sinai, a Jeruslaem Post editorial called it “a regiment is a drop in the ocean.”
The Jpost column said that Mubarak protected Sinai’s borders sealing the official land border from Egypt to Gaza at Rafah, defending Egyptian police stations and other security installations and vital infrastructure such as the gas pipeline from attack.
It added that forces from his interior ministry kept a “firm grip” on the Bedouin tribes.
The column also said that Israel has many enemies including the Egyptian military and security forces in the area, “whose intentions towards Israel are at best unclear.”
The Haaretz editorial said that accusations against Egypt will do no good, since Israel did not do enough to prevent the terrorist attacks either.
“The new regime is committed to maintain security in Sinai not as a favor to Israel, but because it recognizes the threat posed by those same organizations and their Bedouin collaborators,” Haaretz said.
Israeli press however expressed concerns regarding the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.
MENA news agency reported on Saturday that Israel violated the 1979 peace treaty when it entered Egyptian territory and killed five Egyptian security officers.
Haaretz’s editorial warned that “Israel must not again be thrown into games over matters of prestige, which will play into the hands of those who oppose the peace accord Egypt forged with us.”
In another Ynet editorial titled “Israel has no strategy,” Nahum Barnea said that the commitment to the peace treaty exists, but is under daily assault.
“We can assume that the next regime will further minimize its commitment to the agreement,” he wrote.
Barnea added that the Camp David Accord is a “vital security asset. Israel must not give it up.”
“The Israeli government must draw lessons from its failure to manage the crisis with Turkey,” he said. “We must not lose Egypt.”
Haartez latest editorial urged that the cooperation between the Israeli-Egyptian governments must continue, which it “must view as an ally in advancing the same goals.”
“Egypt is not a terrorist cell, but rather a neighbor and a fellow partner in facing the threat,” it said.
