The threat of a wider Middle East conflict is growing, with extreme-right Israeli minister Avigdor Lieberman calling on his government to treat Egypt as "an enemy state," and Egypt mulling sending tanks into the Sinai Peninsula if Israel re-takes the Occupied Territories, according to press reports on Sunday.
The "Sinai option" of moving the 3rd Armored Army into the peninsula was confirmed by a senior Egyptian security source, who told the English paper the Sunday Times that the Israelis had to be deterred from "destroying" the Palestinian Authority and President Yasser Arafat.
Meanwhile, AFP quoted Lieberman as accusing Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of "wanting to destroy the state of Israel."
In recent weeks Egypt has come under increased pressure from the Palestinians to help them, said the Sunday Times report.
But under the terms of a 1979 peace agreement, Israel withdrew from the Sinai, which it had conquered in the Six-Day War of 1967, while Egypt agreed not to keep substantial military forces there, said the paper.
Palestinian sources were quoted as saying that last month, Arafat reminded Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that the country had other obligations: as a signatory of the Arab League's defense treaty, it had a duty to give military support to any fellow member coming under attack.
Palestinian Minister for International Cooperation Nabil Shaath called on Arabs last week to meet their commitments to the joint Arab defense pact, although Palestinians have yet to be included in the agreement.
Arafat reportedly urged Mubarak to implement the treaty, but the Egyptian president has so far taken no action.
For his part, Mubarak has said that as long as Ariel Sharon is prime minister of Israel, there will be no peace in the region.
However, in an interview with Israel's Channel 2, Mubarak stressed that there was still hope of peace if Israel respected its commitments and stopped its rumors and hardline rhetoric against Arabs, and Egypt in particular.
He was referring to threats by key Likud Party figures of destroying the Aswan Dam in Egypt, and continuous references to an alleged medium-range missile program undertaken by Cairo.
The de facto leader of the Arab world also made reference to the reported Israeli plan to overthrow Arafat and the PA.
Days before a Jane's Information Group report disclosed the plan, Mubarak had warned that it would be a mistake on the part of Israel to try to dispose of Arafat.
The Israeli cabinet, in a widely reported meeting, had discussed bringing an end to Arafat's political career, even as Sharon characterized him as a "murderer" and "pathological liar."
On July 17, the Lebanese Arabic daily An Nahar Arabic quoted a diplomatic report, allegedly authored in Washington, as saying the Israeli army was expected to follow the plan put forward by Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz as early as August 1.
The paper said that the information was leaked to a Gulf country, thought to be Saudi Arabia, and that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) foreign ministers subsequently called for an urgent meeting of the follow-up committee on the Intifada formed at last October's Arab Summit in Cairo.
Up to 40,000 Palestinians could be killed or flee from their homeland in the reported operation, according to the July issue of the British weekly Foreign Report by Jane's.
The Israeli press printed excerpts of the report by the group, one of the world's most authoritative sources of information on military hardware and intelligence, along with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres' dismissal of the of the article as "baseless...and fantasy."
According to the article, after the next major bomb attack inside the Green Line marking Israel's pre-1967 borders, the Jewish state will launch a massive military blitz against the PA to erase it from the map and disarm its security forces.
However, a deadly suicide attack by a Hamas resistance fighter last week, in which at least 16 were killed, did not trigger the attack plan. Instead, there was a "routine" bombing of a PA security post in Ramallah, and the occupation of 10 Palestinian institutions in occupied east Jerusalem, including Orient House, the PLO's headquarters.
Israeli security sources told the Sunday Times that the possibility of Mubarak's intervention was now being factored into military planning.
Any incursion into the Sinai would be viewed as a violation of the peace accord, according to the report, and Israel would send a substantial force to defend its southern border, raising the prospect of the first confrontation with Egypt since 1973.
Any encounter now would be no pushover for the Israelis. The Egyptian army has improved dramatically in the past 30 years, and is one of the most modern in the world, according to the Sunday Times.
Its hardware is advanced and almost entirely American; its air force is well maintained and its navy bigger than Israel's, and stronger, according to the report.
Israel's northern border is no less tense. Mubarak's special adviser, Osama Al Baz, said last month that if Israel attacked Syria, the Syrians would not be alone.
Israeli military intelligence warned in a recent report to the government that confrontation could follow on all borders if relations with the Palestinians deteriorated sharply, according to the English paper, which reviewed the possibility of attacks on Israel on other Arab fronts.
With the anniversary of the Palestinian uprising approaching, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbollah, has promised full military support to the Palestinians, "when the correct time comes."
Intense Hizbollah preparations observed by Israeli intelligence over the past week have increased speculation about the group's intentions. According to the paper, the group, which spearheaded resistance against the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon, has built 20 to 30 outposts along the border between Lebanon and Israel. Iranian army units are keeping long-range rockets on standby in southern Lebanon, capable of striking northern parts of Israel, said the paper.
The Israeli military also has to take another foe into consideration: Iraq. Iraqi forces have advanced a tank division from a Republican Guard barracks near Baghdad towards the Jordanian border at least twice since the beginning of the Intifada.
Senior officers say an Iraqi expeditionary army arriving on the Jordanian border would be a casus belli for Israel, although they hope "allied" air strikes would deter any such move.
"We are sure they would be tackled by the Americans," one Israeli officer told the paper.
However, the report did not say how the US would react to any Egyptian move against Israel.
Egypt is the number two recipient of US military and economic aid, which totals $2.2 billion per year.
The US Congress is keeping an eye on all Egyptian actions that would harm Israel, and the Arab country has never felt secure regarding the aid, in light of the overwhelming influence of the pro-Israeli lobby on Capitol Hill.
Israeli sources have been quoted as saying the alleged missile program is not dangerous to Israel, and other observers have shown confidence that both Egypt and Jordan will respect their peace treaties with the Jewish state.
Egypt was the first Arab country to make peace accords with Israel, in 1978, and signed a peace treaty the following year.
However, Israel's hard right appears bent on portraying Mubarak as the single biggest threat to national security.
"Egypt is the most hostile country to Israel within the international community and it should be treated as an enemy state", the infrastructure minister told military radio on Sunday, according to AFP.
"This man (Mubarak) passionately wants the destruction of Israel, but he knows he would lose in the event of an all-out war. This is why he is trying to destroy us piecemeal," he added.
"So far, our behaviour towards Egypt has harmed our national honour," Lieberman added - Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
