Why Egypt Plays the Terror Card

David offered a persuasive analysis for why Hamas permitted yesterday’s multipronged terror attack across the Israeli-Egyptian border. But since Hamas rarely needs an excuse to attack Israel, the more interesting question is why Egypt permitted the attack. And “permit” seems to be the operative word: The attack took place in broad daylight right in front of an Egyptian army outpost (thus surprising Israel despite intelligence warnings, as it expected the attack to hit an unguarded part of the border), and even when the ensuing firefight moved into Egyptian territory, Israeli news reports offer no indication that Israeli forces ever saw any Egyptian troops in action; they merely note that Egypt later claimed its soldiers had killed two terrorists.

One possible answer, of course, is simple incompetence, which is worrying enough: If Egypt can’t maintain security in Sinai, Israel will have to vastly increase its own troop presence along the border. A more worrying possibility is that the new government, beset by growing domestic unrest, has decided to distract its citizens’ attention by permitting anti-Israel terror from Sinai – which would presumably be popular, given Egyptians’ widespread loathing for Israel (around 90% consistently view Israel as an “enemy” or a “threat”). But there’s a third, equally worrying possibility: This is a deliberate Egyptian tactic aimed at pressuring Israel to annul the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty’s central provision — the demilitarization of Sinai.

Back in March, I noted that Egypt’s opposition was virtually unanimous in wanting to renegotiate the treaty (unsurprisingly, given that 54% of Egyptians want it scrapped entirely), and especially the demilitarization provision. Since then, Cairo has successfully gotten Israel to do exactly that, negotiating two agreements to let in more troops.

The first increase occurred after three attacks (one unsuccessful) closed the Egyptian-Israeli natural gas pipeline for weeks on end between February and May, leaving Israel without gas. At that point, Cairo claimed it couldn’t protect the pipeline with existing troop levels. And even though Hosni Mubarak’s regime had managed to do so — not a single attack disrupted the supply from 2008-2011 — Israel acquiesced, allowing Egypt to station additional forces in Sinai.

But despite the additional forces, two more successful attacks occurred in July. So Cairo again demanded more troops, saying they were necessary to protect the pipeline. And Israel again acquiesced: Just last week, it let Egypt send 2,000 additional soldiers into Sinai, accompanied by tanks.

Now, yesterday’s attack gives Cairo the perfect excuse to demand even more troops: Without additional forces, it will claim, it can’t protect the border (never mind that Mubarak did it successfully for decades). And Israel may well acquiesce once again; deeming more Egyptian troops preferable to having to increase its own troop levels along the border.

This process could repeat itself ad nauseam. And unless Israel halts it, the result will be the erosion of the peace treaty’s greatest achievement, the demilitarization of Sinai. That would leave Israel right back where it was in 1967: facing military annihilation at any moment from an army much bigger than its own.