Israel Hits ISIS in Sinai as Ties With Egypt Intensify By P. David Hornik
https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/2016/07/12/israel-hits-isis-in-sinai-as-ties-with-egypt-intensify/
“A former senior Israeli official,” Bloomberg reports, “said his country has conducted numerous drone attacks on militants in Sinai in recent years with Egypt’s blessing. He spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential military activity.”
“Militants in Sinai” refers primarily to ISIS, which has a branch there called Sinai Province. The Sinai Peninsula is a part of Egypt that Israel, after wresting it from Egypt in the 1967 Six Day War, handed back as part of the 1981 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty.
In light of the fact that, since Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took power in 2013, Israel and Egypt have maintained tight security cooperation, such Israeli drone strikes come as no surprise. ISIS in Sinai has mounted dozens of attacks on Egyptian security personnel there, and threatens Israel as well.
Sisi, who in 2013 overthrew Egypt’s short-lived Muslim Brotherhood government, has also moved aggressively against a Brotherhood offshoot, Hamas, in Gaza—again with Israeli cooperation.
But with a visit to Israel this week by Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry, the Israeli-Egyptian relationship appears to have taken an important step beyond the security sphere. It was the first visit to Israel by an Egyptian foreign minister in nine years. By all accounts, Shoukry’s talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were held in a good atmosphere and went well.
Aside from discussing and further enhancing the security cooperation—which Israel’s deputy chief of staff told Bloomberg is at a “level…we’ve never experienced before”—what’s in it for the two sides?
For Netanyahu, it has to do with fending off initiatives, or possible initiatives, to tackle the Palestinian issue without Israel’s consent and with a likely pro-Palestinian bias.
One of those initiatives comes from France, which in June held an international conference on the Palestinian issue that Israel strongly opposed, and which neither Israeli nor Palestinian representatives attended.
Considering France’s longstanding pro-Palestinian bias, and President François Hollande’s Socialist government’s electoral dependence on France’s Muslim population, Israel sees France’s involvement as unwelcome and likely to lead to pro-Palestinian resolutions, potentially in the UN Security Council, and pressure on Israel. CONTINUE AT SITE
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