Cairo is going out of its way to push Israel into accepting one of the worst deals it has ever been offered, even if the prize on offer is membership of the Sunni bloc Egypt is building with Saudi Arabia and the UAE.The latest Egyptian draft embraces the Palestinian Hamas’ corruption of Israel’s offer of “calm in return for calm.” Holding the truce deal up for ransom, Hamas may be getting away instead with “calm in return for cash.” Long dealings have taught counter-terror authorities everywhere that yielding to terrorists’ demands for payouts is fraught with every kind of danger – even when, as in the case of the Gaza Strip, the deal is wrapped around with “humanitarian considerations,” as some Israel ministers have tried to maintain.
In the hope of bringing Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) aboard after many failed attempts, Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi invited him to be the guest of the World Youth Forum meeting on Nov. 3 at the Sinai resort of Sharm El-Sheikh. He was given the opportunity to present the Palestinian case to the 165 attendees. To secure the event, the Egyptian military was placed on high alert in all of southern Sinai and roads to the town were blocked. A police cordon was thrown around the airport for the incoming visitors and explosive detection devices were diverted to Sharm away from their regular duties of combating the major ISIS peril in Sinai. All these measures were taken for the sake of El-Sisi’s determination to achieve a long-term truce for a three-year pause in Gaza violence staged by Palestinian terrorists who are hand in glove with ISIS, the terrorists plaguing Egypt from Sinai, next door to the Palestinian enclave. READ MORE
