Hamas in Gaza, Hezbullah in Lebanon
'Egypt letting Hamas build an army'
By SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1192380792234&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Egypt effectively condoned Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip in June
2007, and has since stood by and allowed Hamas to build an army, MK
Yuval Steinitz (Likud) wrote in a letter to the US Senate on Sunday.
Steinitz wrote the letter at the request of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona),
with whom he chairs a joint US-Israeli committee on defense and
foreign policy.
"As long as Egypt is not required to pay a real price for this
behavior, weapons and financial aid will continue to flow into the
hands of Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza," he wrote.
Steinitz asked the Senate to approve a bill recently passed by the
House of Representatives to freeze $200 million of the approximate
$1.3 billion in annual US aid to Egypt each year until the Egyptian
government changes its policy toward smuggling near and across its 14-
kilometer border with the Gaza Strip.
According to the IDF, Hamas has smuggled 20,000 rifles, 6,000 antitank
missiles and 100 tons of explosives into the Gaza Strip since last
summer.
Steinitz said efforts by the Egyptians to stop the smuggling were
ineffective and half-hearted.
"Egypt's claim that it is doing its best to end this situation by
uncovering smuggling tunnels into Gaza is simply an insult to the
intelligence... it is almost ridiculous for the Egyptians to focus on
finding the tunnels, since it would be much easier for them to
intercept the smugglers before they get anywhere near the border," he
wrote.
Steinitz included a map of the Egypt-Gaza border in his letter.
"All they have to do is to erect a number of roadblocks along the very
few roads that run from mainland Egypt to the Gaza region, in order to
intercept heavily loaded trucks carrying hundreds of rifles and
missiles from reaching the border," he wrote. "Alternatively, they can
declare the border area a closed military zone, with a depth of two to
three miles into the interior of Sinai, and prevent any movement in
it."
Steinitz said both of those alternatives had been presented to
Egyptian officials in the past, but the Egyptian army continued to
focus on routing out tunnels.
"The only conclusion is that the Egyptians believe that it is in their
interest to derail the peace process between Israel and the
Palestinians and create an army in the Gaza Strip in order to try and
weaken Israel," he wrote. "As long as Israel is getting weaker the
Egyptians can get stronger."
Steinitz also accused the Egyptians of receiving aid, and possibly
supplies, from Iran and Syria.
"There is always that argument - that if the US cuts aid to Egypt they
will just get more money from Iran and Syria," he wrote. "But it is
impossible to continue in the current way."
The Egyptian government has called the accusations against them
"baseless" and harmful to Egyptian-American relations.
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