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Cairo Ignored Israeli Warnings about Gaza Arms Smuggling
(Ha'aretz) Anonymous - For years, we ignored the weakness of the government in Egypt, the corruption of the country's military elite, and the refusal to see how that enabled the arming of Hamas. In my decades of service in the Mossad and Military Intelligence, I visited Cairo hundreds of times for meetings at General Intelligence Service headquarters. We warned dozens of times about arms being brought into Gaza and that it will eventually lead to a war that will harm Israel and also endanger Egypt. Since the beginning of the current war, countless antitank missiles have been fired at our forces, causing considerable casualties. These missiles came from Egypt. The government in Cairo is chiefly responsible for building up Hamas' military power. Egypt is not in control of Sinai. There are Egyptian policemen but their wages are low and they are bought with bribes. For $100, or less, they'll turn a blind eye to anything. The heads of the Egyptian military also benefit personally from the bribery. Sinai is ruled by Bedouin gangs that transport weapons to Gaza by land and from the sea, at El-Arish. Egyptian intelligence officials knew about the arms smuggling and about the Hamas members who left Gaza to train abroad, but they thought that if they did not confront Hamas, they would buy peace cheaply. Big mistake. If we want to solve the problem of Gaza, we must demand that the Egyptian government seal the tunnels under the border at Rafah and deal with the smuggling routes. Israel withdrew from Sinai on condition that it not become a territory that would threaten the existence of the state. That is the basis of the peace treaty. Egypt is not meeting this condition. Its inaction allowed Hamas to ready its attack against Israel.