(Institute for Contemporary Affairs/Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) Ehud Yaari - While Abu Mazen may want to do a Sadat, Sadat had the army and the Egyptian state bureaucracy behind him. None of the PA security organizations carry the weight of the Egyptian army, and the present Palestinian bureaucracy does not count for much in terms of power and control. Ever since the peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, the Egyptians have initiated all sorts of formulas for the containment of Israel, to scale Israel down to an acceptable size, thereby eliminating the need to strive for its destruction. This is the whole thesis of the peace process of Egypt, and the intellectual breakthrough that allowed Sadat to come to Jerusalem. Once the Egyptians reached the conclusion that the Israelis were leaving Gaza, they wanted to help arrange it, or at least restructure it in a way that is not detrimental to Egyptian interests. The writer is the Middle East commentator for Israel's Channel 2 Television.
2005-01-21 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive