Anarchy in Sinai and No Solution in Sight

(Jerusalem Post) Zvi Mazel - While Israeli radars tracked the Grad missiles launched from Sinai at Eilat, their interception by the Iron Dome anti-missile system likely would have taken place in Egyptian airspace and, at this stage, Israel is unwilling to violate its neighbor's sovereignty. There is another conflict brewing in Sinai between the Bedouin and the Muslim Brotherhood. The former supreme guide of the Brotherhood, Muhammad Mehdi Akef, told the Kuwait daily Al Jarida last week that all Bedouin are collaborators: One third collaborate with state security services, another third with army intelligence, and the final third spies for Israel. Hundreds of angry Bedouin demonstrated in front of Brotherhood headquarters in Sinai, threatening to turn it to rubble unless Akef apologized. It can hardly be expected that Bedouin will help the central government fight terror, considering so many of them earn their livelihoods by smuggling drugs, people or arms on behalf of those terror groups. The writer is a former ambassador to Egypt.


2013-04-24 00:00:00

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