Egypt’s de facto interim military regime has attacked Hamas terrorists in the Sinai, killing more than 30 and placing approximately 200 others under arrest, according to the often reliable London-based Arabic-language al-Hayat newspaper
It quoted an Egyptian security official as admitting that the military is far from controlling the virtual anarchy that has reigned in the Sinai since the beginning of the revolutionary movement against the regime of Hosni Mubarak.
Even though the Muslim Brotherhood founded the Hamas movement as an offspring, the ousted government of Mohammed Morsi was wary of Hamas, which is rivaled by other Islamic terrorist groups who are dead-set on creating chaos in Egypt as well as in Israel.
Dozens of terrorists from the Muslim Brotherhood movement, incensed by the military ouster of Morsi and the subsequent massacre of dozens of Muslim Brotherhood supports, have joined Hamas terrorists in the Sinai.
“They enter Sinai through the tunnels to carry out attacks, along with others, and then return to Gaza through the tunnels. They take advantage of the surface and hide in the mountains,” he was quoted as saying.
Terrorist in the Sinai have frequently attacked Egyptian soldiers, killing more than dozen in one onslaught and kidnapping seven others as recently as last May.
The ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood is, so far, the best of both worlds for Israel. Still hated by most Egyptian leaders as well as the people, Israel can rely on a more stable government, democratically elected or not, than the Morsi regime that was running the country into the ground and creating a fertile ground for terrorists to exploit a vacuum of political strength.
Israel now has an undeclared ally against Hamas and is allowing Cairo to deploy heavy arms in the Sinai, a move which requires Israel approval as outlined in the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty of 1979.
TIME quoted Washington Institute for Near East Policy David Makovsky on Thursday as saying, “Israel sees the Egyptian military as a pro-peace lobby inside the Egyptian political system.”
There is one big and dirty fly in the ointment for Israel. What would happen if Hamas were to collapse in Gaza and Fatah, headed by chairman Mahmoud Abbas, were to rule as it did before the Hamas coup in 2007?
The division of Judea and Samaria from Gaza , both politically and geographically, makes a Palestinian Authority country virtually impossible. If Abbas were to regain popularity there, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the European Union would have the ammunition to load up the guns of the “peace process” again.