[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA:

A force of 2,500 Egyptian force deployed to invade Israel within kilometers
of the Jewish State.

It took time, patience and allowing a lot of weapons to smuggle across into
Gaza (with the bonus of the bribe money) to convince Israel to forfeit the
critical feature of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty that was designed to
offset Israel's withdrawal from Sinai.

But Egypt had patience.

Now here is the puzzler: Sen. George Mitchell's marching orders gave
priority to first making sure that there were arrangements to stop the
smuggling in Gaza.

"Aggressively" (read "forcing Israel to accept terms come-what-may")
pursuing peace was only second on the agenda.

Israel could have let Mitchell spend a considerable amount of time working
on the smuggling, putting the onus on him to first demonstrate that he can
deliver the goods before he earns the credibility to starts pushing some
house-of-cards-photo-op-peace-plan.

But no. Instead Israel agreed to an incredibly dangerous yet profoundly
unworkable plan even before Mitchell reached the neighborhood.

By the way. There will be no smuggling.

At least that's what the Egyptians will swear.

And even if we broadcast a live feed showing the smuggling underway they
will still claim that there is no smuggling. They will explain that the
camera feed is a fake and threaten that if we broadcast any more photos it
could undermine our relations.

This is hardly speculation. This is exactly what happened when we wanted to
show Congress videos of smuggling.]

Israel to allow Egypt to boost force on Gaza border to fight smuggling
By Barak Ravid and Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz Correspondents Last update -
14:43 23/01/2009
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1057965.html

Israel has taken a favorable view of an Egyptian request to increase the
force of its border guards along the Philadelphi Route by at least 750 - and
possibly as much as 1,500 - according to a senior Israeli political source.

Meanwhile, the head of the political-security bureau at the Defense
Ministry, Amos Gilad, discussed the matter of expanding the Egyptian border
force with Omar Suleiman, head of the Egypt's intelligence, in Cairo last
night.

In Rafah, residents told Haaretz that the Egyptians had deployed 1,200
regulars whose mission is to secure the border and prevent smuggling.

The senior Israeli political source said that Gilad had also updated Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert as well as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense
Minister Ehud Barak on his talks with Suleiman. The source added that even
though it is not clear what the precise number of additional soldiers to be
deployed will be, Israel will agree to a larger force.

It is also unclear whether the broadening of the Egyptian border force will
become part of the Israeli-Egyptian peace accords, or whether it will be a
tacit agreement between the two. If the agreement is to be anchored in a
written deal, the cabinet and the Knesset will need to approve it because it
will alter the peace agreement of 1979.

"Increasing the Egyptian force will not constitute an obstacle to the
understandings between the two countries on the issue of smuggling," a
political source said yesterday in Jerusalem. "This is not what will make
this deal fail."

Regarding possible numbers of Egyptian troops, the senior political source
said that currently there are 750 troops along the border and Egypt had
asked to double that number in the past. However, now tripling the force is
being considered, raising the number to 2,250, and enabling 750 soldiers to
patrol in three shifts 24 hours a day.

The issue of expanding the Egyptian force had been at the crux of a loud
debate between the Foreign Ministry and the Defense Ministry. Following the
breach of the Rafah crossing by Hamas in January 2008, a cabinet meeting was
held at which time officials of the Foreign Ministry recommended that
Egypt's proposal for a larger force should be accepted.

The Defense Ministry, and particularly Amos Gilad, opposed the Egyptian
request, and the matter was tabled.

However, following Operation Cast Lead and the understandings reached
between Israel and Egypt to stop smuggling, it appears that there has been a
change of heart at the Defense Ministry on the matter.

Yesterday there were reports that Egypt had deployed regular troops - as
opposed to border guards - along the border with the Gaza Strip near Rafah,
even though there are clauses in the peace agreement with Israel that
prevent large numbers of regular army troops so close to the border with
Israel.

The deployment of the troops, along with a small number of armored personnel
carriers, appears to be an effort to prevent Hamas from breaching the border
wall like it has done in the past.

Local residents in Rafah told Haaretz that the new Egyptian force numbers
about 1,200 men, mostly stationed in Rafah, a few kilometers from the
border. Entrances to Rafah are blocked by Egyptian police from the unit
charged with public order and whose main task is to prevent non-residents
from entering the town. In the town itself army vehicles are a common sight
and roadblocks have been set up in roads and alleys leading to the border
fence.