Is Sharon an Egyptian Mole?
Crazy idea, huh? But the way he has been acting lately, a Jew from Mars might be forgiven for thinking so. On a day like today, when two Labour activists seriously suggested Sharon should stand as their party’s candidate in the next election, anything is possible.
Perhaps Sharon’s famous head bandage - recently auctioned by EBay - covered not a war wound but some brain surgery carried out by the Egyptians during his brief foray across the Suez Canal in 1973.
First he abandons his party’s electoral platform to adopt his Labor opponent’s manifesto of unilateral disengagement. This policy he bulldozes through the Knesset in a way that no Labor prime minister would ever have had the guts or the chutzpa to do.
To achieve this he takes Labour into his cabinet and appoints Oslo’s architect Shimon Peres as his deputy. His other deputy Ehud Olmert hardly lets a day pass without promises of further unilateral withdrawals and could not possibly be doing so without his PM’s approval. Sharon fires any military or security staff who dare to caution against giving up strategic depth or rewarding terror. He now seems to trust Arabs more than the Jews in his own Likud party.
And now, without any mandate from his electorate, he plans to open up the Sinai to the Egyptian army. He thinks Egypt has done such a good job protecting Cairo and Sharm from terrorist attacks, they can be relied upon to protect our new southern border from terrorist infiltration and weapons smuggling.
The fact that Egypt has never stopped rehearsing canal crossings for the past 20 years is just incidental. That Egypt has never stifled the rabid anti-Jewish incitement in its official media – which even blamed Israel for the Sharm bombings - seems to make no difference to their trustworthiness in sitting right at our border. It’s okay for Mubarak’s helicopter gunships ostensibly patrolling Rafah to be in rocket range of Ashkelon. It’s also okay for the Egyptian navy - considered superior to Israel’s - to control a seaport in Gaza where its top-of-the-range missile boats would be in striking distance of Ashdod. And equally no problem for the new Egyptian garrison in Sinai to have almost total oversight of our defense facilities and bases in the Negev.
And all this largesse and trust from a canny general whose mother lectured him well into her eighties: “Never trust Arabs”.
Even if Sharon thought Mubarak was the most trustworthy Arab in the world, he could surely not forget what happened to Sadat and realize what might happen if a re-militarized Sinai fell into the hands of a more radical Islamist opponent. Not for once has a new king arisen over Egypt who did not know Joseph.
Perhaps Sharon’s famous head bandage - recently auctioned by EBay - covered not a war wound but some brain surgery carried out by the Egyptians during his brief foray across the Suez Canal in 1973.First he abandons his party’s electoral platform to adopt his Labor opponent’s manifesto of unilateral disengagement. This policy he bulldozes through the Knesset in a way that no Labor prime minister would ever have had the guts or the chutzpa to do.
To achieve this he takes Labour into his cabinet and appoints Oslo’s architect Shimon Peres as his deputy. His other deputy Ehud Olmert hardly lets a day pass without promises of further unilateral withdrawals and could not possibly be doing so without his PM’s approval. Sharon fires any military or security staff who dare to caution against giving up strategic depth or rewarding terror. He now seems to trust Arabs more than the Jews in his own Likud party.
And now, without any mandate from his electorate, he plans to open up the Sinai to the Egyptian army. He thinks Egypt has done such a good job protecting Cairo and Sharm from terrorist attacks, they can be relied upon to protect our new southern border from terrorist infiltration and weapons smuggling.
The fact that Egypt has never stopped rehearsing canal crossings for the past 20 years is just incidental. That Egypt has never stifled the rabid anti-Jewish incitement in its official media – which even blamed Israel for the Sharm bombings - seems to make no difference to their trustworthiness in sitting right at our border. It’s okay for Mubarak’s helicopter gunships ostensibly patrolling Rafah to be in rocket range of Ashkelon. It’s also okay for the Egyptian navy - considered superior to Israel’s - to control a seaport in Gaza where its top-of-the-range missile boats would be in striking distance of Ashdod. And equally no problem for the new Egyptian garrison in Sinai to have almost total oversight of our defense facilities and bases in the Negev.
And all this largesse and trust from a canny general whose mother lectured him well into her eighties: “Never trust Arabs”.
Even if Sharon thought Mubarak was the most trustworthy Arab in the world, he could surely not forget what happened to Sadat and realize what might happen if a re-militarized Sinai fell into the hands of a more radical Islamist opponent. Not for once has a new king arisen over Egypt who did not know Joseph.
posted by Zalmi | 9:44 pm
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