Egypt's warming - and enabling - cooperation with Hamas - Haaretz

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Egypt's warming - and enabling - cooperation with Hamas

By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff

Is Egypt happy when Israel bleeds?

The flood of smuggled arms into the Gaza Strip from Sinai raises the suspicion that the answer is yes. Israel's casualty count from Gaza-based terror is still relatively low, but the impression is that Cairo has no great desire to stop the smuggling - and that 30 years after making peace with Israel, Egypt has no real objections to attacks continuing on southern Israel from Gaza.

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Information recently obtained by Israel arouses suspicions that Egypt has allowed additional terrorists to enter Gaza from Sinai, despite Jerusalem's protests after it allowed 85 Hamas men - including several terror experts - to cross the border earlier this month.

Israel's security services have been continually upping their estimates of the quantity of arms smuggled into Gaza in recent months. Granted, it is hard to imagine how they could be certain that precisely 1,650 rocket-propelled grenades have been smuggled since the start of the year, and 73 tons of explosives since June. But knowledgeable Palestinian sources also say that the floodgates have burst since Fatah's security personnel were expelled from the Gaza-Egypt border four months ago.

The growing cooperation between Hamas and Cairo reflects a worrying trend: Egypt, by commission or omission, is becoming one of the Islamic organization's strategic partners. Hamas owes the Egyptian security services, for turning a blind eye to the arms smuggling and helping Hamas build up its forces.

Until recently, Egypt has insisted that it was trying to stop the smuggling, albeit unsuccessfully. But its decision to allow 85 Hamas operatives into the strip a few weeks ago, along with talk about bringing wounded Hamas members for treatment in Egypt, cannot be similarly explained away.

It is unclear why Egypt has suddenly reversed its former hostile attitude toward Hamas. Since June, Cairo has essentially frozen talks between Israel and Hamas on a prisoner exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit, in which it served as the chief mediator. Ostensibly, this was to deprive Hamas of an achievement that would earn it public support. But since then, Egypt has been assisting Hamas both openly and secretly.

Possible explanations for Cairo's behavior include its need to reduce unrest among the Bedouin population of the Sinai, and to blunt criticism of President Hosni Mubarak's "pro-Israel" policy by the Muslim Brotherhood.

But perhaps the most likely explanation is an internal Egyptian disagreement over what course to follow. Israeli sources say there is a clear dispute between Egyptian Intelligence - headed by General Omar Suleiman - which favors a conciliatory policy toward Hamas; and the Foreign Ministry, which wants to take a hard line against the Islamic organization. Currently, Suleiman and his people appear to be setting the tone.

Israeli officials do not rule out the possibility that this reflects a struggle over who will succeed Mubarak.

Washington and Ramallah are also very upset over Cairo's behavior - the United States and the Palestinian Authority have been shocked by the zigzags in Egypt's policy toward Hamas. Washington has been openly critical, and in closed forums, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has also lambasted Egypt's double standards.

A senior official in Abbas's Fatah party commented that Egyptian Intelligence, "which knows about every husband who cheats on his wife in Cairo," has been demonstrating surprising helplessness in the face of the arms smuggling from Sinai.

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