Tag Archives: Egypt

International news

It's Egypt's turn to express outrage

Islamic State terrorists are doing a marvelous job … of uniting theĀ Arab world against them.

The latest expression of outrage comes from Egypt, which this morning launched a series of air strikes against ISIL targets in Libya. Egyptian air force pilots were striking in retaliation for yet another hideous video, this one showing the decapitation of 21 Egyptians, all Coptic Christians, apparently being held captive in Libya.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/egypt-bombs-is-in-libya-after-beheadings-video/ar-BBhCHE6

Egypt has struck back hard at the terrorists, joining Jordan — which this past week suffered its own tragedy with the immolation death of the young Jordanian air force pilot, which also was video recorded and broadcast around the world.

The U.S.-led coalition needs more of this outrage, although we shouldn’t wish more death and misery to bring our Middle East allies into the fight with us.

In a televised address, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi described IS as “inhuman criminal killers.” He added: “Egypt and the whole world are in a fierce battle with extremist groups carrying extremist ideology and sharing the same goals.”

The Egyptians already are fighting ISIL-sympathetic terrorists operating in the Sinai desert, so they’ve already been battle-tested.

It might be too much to hope for at this moment, given that the struggle ahead appears to have no end. However, ISIL’s brand of ghoulish and ghastly murder against captives well could be the sort of galvanizing series of events that finally — finally! — brings the Arab world fully into a fight that it should have joined at the beginning.

Welcome aboard, friends.

 

Intgernational news

Bibi declares victory over Hamas

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is right to declare victory in his country’s fight with the terror group Hamas.

What’s more, Hamas would do well just to accept the prime minister’s claim of victory and then it should start thinking about how it’s going to stop provoking the kind of response it got from the pre-eminent military powerhouse in the Middle East.

http://news.msn.com/world/israeli-leader-declares-victory-in-gaza-war

A vague ceasefire has fallen over the region. Hamas started the mayhem by firing rockets into Israel. The Israelis responded the only way they could, with overwhelming force that sought to defend Israeli neighborhoods against the rocket fire reining down on them.

I continue to believe that Israel was the more righteous combatant here. Yes, the loss of civilian life was tragic. It also was avoidable, given that Hamas had positioned so many of its weapons among innocent bystanders. That’s the Hamas way. It’s also the modus operandi of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Is the ceasefire going to lead to a permanent peace agreement? Cynics say “no.” Don’t count me among the cynics. My inherently optimistic temperament makes me hold out hope that a third-party broker — say, Egypt — can bring the sides together to cobble some form of a peace agreement that begins to lay the foundation for something even more meaningful.

The Israelis have declared their intention repeatedly over many decades to seek permanent peace agreements with their neighbors. Hamas, however, has declared its own intention with equal fervor its desire to eradicate Israel.

Flash to Hamas: Israel isn’t going to vacate its land, so it would do everyone in the region well to seek peaceful means to live next door to each other.

This is where I hope the next step will lead the two sides.

Are the Israelis and Hamas finally — finally! – growing tired of war?

I pray that’s the case.

Ā 

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Launch a tunnel offensive

Egypt has ratcheted up its campaign against the tunnels that burrow from the Sinai Peninsula into Gaza.

Now, finally, we might be getting somewhere.

http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-army-destroys-13-more-gaza-tunnels-093712884.html

The Egyptian army reports it has destroyed 13 more tunnels through which Hamas terrorists are transporting arms — such as rockets — from Egypt into the region governed by the Palestinian Authority. It’s also the origin of the rocket attacks that have resulted in the violence that has killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians and Israelis.

As Yahoo.com reports: “The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is the main power in Gaza, reportedly uses the tunnels to smuggle arms, food and money into the blockaded coastal enclave.”

Let’s look for a moment at a key element in this struggle.

Israel signed a peace agreement with Egypt during the Carter administration. As such, the treaty bound Egypt with Israel as a de facto ally in the Middle East. To my way of thinking, it then becomes incumbent on Egypt to do what it can to help Israel protect itself.

Doesn’t it make sense, then, for Egypt to do all it can to destroy these passages through which Hamas — one of the world’s most notorious terrorist organizations — wages war against Israel?

That the Egyptians haven’t yet declared their intention to destroy all the tunnels and to do what they can to prevent future construction of them speaks to my own distrust of Egypt’s commitment to the peace agreement it signed with Israel.

It’s good that Hamas’s ties to Egypt have worsened since the ouster of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, an ally of Hamas. Now that Morsi is out of power, the Egyptians will make good on that treaty that should help Israel protect itself against the terrorists who seek to do them so much harm.

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No moral equivalency in this struggle

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A Democratic senator from New York tonight laid out with stunning clarity who are the bad guys in the latest eruption of violence in Israel.

Chuck Schumer said the bad guys are the Hamas terrorists. The Israelis who are defending their country against rocket attacks aimed at civilians are doing what they must to survive, Schumer said on MSNBC’s “Hardball” talk show.

I couldn’t possibly agree more with the senior senator from New York.

Yet we keep hearing from those who try to blame “both sides” of this conflict.

How can they say such things with a straight face?

Hamas is the terrorist organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction. The Palestinian Authority governs the Gaza Strip; Hamas is part of that governing authority. Hamas has been shelling Israel for several weeks now. They place their missile batteries among civilians. The Israelis must respond with its military might against the attacks. How, then, do the Israelis avoid inflicting some civilian casualties?

Schumer also noted that Israel has accepted two cease-fire deals brokered by Egypt. Hamas has rejected both of them.

The senator also spelled out that it’s Hamas that started this conflict and that Hamas has never backed away from its desire to see Israel eradicated.

The Israelis are doing what they must.

I believe Sen. Schumer has spelled out where our national allegiance must rest in this conflict. It belongs squarely with Israel.

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Make peace or deal with Hamas?

Put yourself in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoes.

You govern a country of some 8,000 square miles surrounded by nations that at one time or another vowed to exterminate you and your constituents. Yes, you’ve made peace with a couple of those nations — Jordan and Egypt. The rest of the region remains iffy.

You’re in the middle of peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and then you learn that the leader of that government has brokered a deal with one of the world’s most ferocious terrorist organizations, Hamas. That organization has orchestrated terrorist attacks on your country from the Gaza Strip, which the Palestinian Authority governs.

The PA now wants to form a “unity government” that includes Hamas.

Do they want peace with Israel or not? Netanyahu has called off peace talks because the PA has formed that arrangement with Hamas, which still vows to exterminate Israel.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-calls-peace-talks-after-palestinian-deal-n88726

Can you really blame the Israeli prime minister? I cannot.

Netanyahu is furious with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for agreeing to the Hamas deal.

Having seen some of the damage that Hamas has inflicted on southern Israel myself, I understand fully why Netanyahu has called off the peace talks. I was part of a group that toured Israel in the spring of 2009 and we saw damage done by rocket fire in Sderot and Ashkelon, near the border with Gaza, which had erupted in violence prior to our arrival in Israel.

It’s a blow to Secretary of State John Kerry, who persuaded the sides to talk to each other after they didn’t speak for five years. Kerry still believes a path to peace is still open, but it’s now been littered by the presence of Hamas in this arrangement with one of the principals in the talks.

ā€œHe canā€™t have it both ways,ā€ Netanyahu said of Abbas. ā€œHe has to choose: Peace with Israel or a pact with Hamas.ā€

Netanyahu is right to be angry.