Shifting Truths In Sinai: Who Stands To
Gain From Carnage?
12 August 2012
By Ramzy Baroud
Two Toyota Land Cruisers filled with about 15
well-built gunmen in ski masks and all-black outfits
appear seemingly out of nowhere. Behind them is vast,
open desert. They approach a group of soldiers huddled
around a simple meal as they prepare to break their
Ramadan fast. The gunmen open fire, leaving the
soldiers with no chance of retrieving their weapons.
This is not an opening scene of a Hollywood action
movie. The massacre actually took place at an Egyptian
military post in northern Sinai on August 5. The
description above was conveyed by a witness, Eissa
Mohamed Salama, in a statement made to The Associated
Press (AP; Aug 8). The gunmen were well trained. Their
overt confidence can only be explained by the fact
that "one militant got out a camera and filmed the
bodies of the soldiers".
One is immediately baffled by this. Why would the
masked militants wish to document the killings if they
were about to embark on what can be considered a
suicide mission in Israel? "The gunmen then approached
the Israeli border," with two vehicles, one reportedly
a stolen Egyptian armored personnel carrier. The
British Broadcasting Corp, citing Israeli officials,
reported that one of the vehicles "exploded on the
frontier", while the other broke through the Israeli
border, "travelled about 2 kilometers into Israel
before being disabled by the Israeli air force" (BBC
News Online, Aug 7). According to the BBC report,
citing Israeli sources, there were about 35 gunmen in
total, all clad in traditional Bedouin attire.
Their mission into Israel was suicidal, since, unlike
in Sinai, they had nowhere to escape. But who would
embark on such a logistically complex mission,
document it on camera, and then fail to take
responsibility for it? The brazen attack seemed to
have little military wisdom, but it did possess a
sinister political logic.
Only 48 hours before the attack, the media were awash
with reports about the return of electricity in the
Gaza Strip. The impoverished Strip's generators have
not run at full capacity for about six years, since
Hamas was elected. The Israeli siege and subsequent
wars killed and wounded thousands, but they failed to
bend Gaza's political will. For Gazans, the keyword to
their survival in the face of Israel's blockade was
"Egypt".
The Egyptian revolution on January 25, 2011, carried a
multitude of meanings for all sectors of Egyptian
society, and the Middle East at large. For
Palestinians in Gaza, it heralded the possibility of a
lifeline. The nearly 1,000 tunnels dug to assist in
Gaza's survival would amount to nothing compared with
a decisive Egyptian decision to end the siege by
opening the Rafah border.
In fact, a decision was taking place in stages. Hamas,
which governs Gaza, was a branch of Egypt's Muslim
Brotherhood. The latter is now the leading political
force in the country and, despite the military's
obduracy, it has managed to claim the country's
presidency as well.
In late July, a high-level Hamas delegation met in
Cairo. All the stress and trepidation of the last 16
months seemed to have come to an end, as Hamas chief
Khaled Mashaal, his deputy Musa Abu Marzouq and other
members of the group's politburo met with President
Mohammed Morsi. Egypt's official news agency reported
Morsi's declarations of full support "for the
Palestinian nation's struggle to achieve its
legitimate rights". According to Reuters, Morsi's top
priority was achieving unity "between Hamas and Fatah,
supplying Gaza with fuel and electricity and easing
the restrictions on the border crossing between Gaza
and Egypt".
Juxtapose that scene - where a historical milestone
has finally been reached - with an Agence France-Presse
photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
his defense minister, Ehud Barak, standing
triumphantly next to a burned Egyptian vehicle that
was reportedly stolen by the Sinai gunmen. The message
here is that only Israel is serious about fighting
terror. Israeli newspaper Haaretz' accompanying
article started with this revelation: "Israel shared
some of the intelligence it received with the Egyptian
army prior to the incident, but there is no evidence
Egypt acted on the information." This was meant to
humiliate Egypt's military further.
Naturally, Israel blamed Gaza, even though there is no
material evidence to back such accusations. Some in
Egypt's media jumped on the opportunity to blame Gaza
for Egypt's security problems in Sinai as well. The
loudest among them were completely silent when, on
August 18, 2011, Israel killed six Egyptian soldiers
in Sinai.
Then, Israel carried out a series of strikes against
Gaza, killing and wounding many, while claiming that
Gaza was a source of attacks against Israeli
civilians. Later the Israeli media dismissed the
connection as flawed. No apologies for the Gaza
deaths, of course, and AP, Reuters and others are
still blaming Palestinians for the attack near Eilat
last year. Then, Palestinian factions opted not to
escalate to spare Egypt an unwanted conflict with
Israel during a most sensitive transition.
None of that seems relevant now. Egypt is busy
destroying the tunnels, continuing efforts that were
funded by the US a few years ago. It also closed the
Gaza-Egypt crossing, and is being "permitted" by
Israel to use attack helicopters in Sinai to hunt for
elusive terrorists. Within days, Gaza's misfortunes
were multiplied and once more Palestinians are
pleading their case.
Israeli officials and analysts are, of course, beside
themselves with anticipation. The opportunity is
simply too great not to be utilized fully. Commenting
in Egypt-based OnIslam, Abdelrahman Rashdan wrote that
according to the Israeli intelligence scenario,
"Iranians, Palestinians, Egyptians, and al-Qaeda
operatives all moved from Lebanon to attack Egypt
[and] Israel and defend Syria."
In Western mainstream media, few asked who benefits
from all of this - from once more isolating Gaza,
shutting down the tunnels, severing
Egyptian-Palestinian ties, embroiling the Egyptian
military in a security nightmare in Sinai, and much
more.
The Muslim Brotherhood website had an answer. It
suggested that the incident "can be attributed to the
Mossad". True, some Western media reported the
statement, but not with any degree of seriousness or
due analysis. The BBC even offered its own context:
"Conspiracy theories are popular across the Arab
world," ending the discussion with an Israeli
dismissal of the accusation as "nonsense". Case
closed. But it shouldn't be.
Before embarking on a wild goose chase in Sinai,
urgent questions must be asked and answered. Haphazard
action will only make things worse for Egypt,
Palestine and Sinai's long-neglected Bedouin
population.
- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net)
is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the
editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is
My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold
Story (Pluto Press, London.)
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