Israel Boosts Ties With Egyptian Army as U.S. Mulls Cuts
By Calev Ben-David - Aug 19, 2013
Israel is working closer with Egyptian forces to fight militants in Sinai even as top ally U.S. weighs cutting aid to Egypt over a crackdown against Islamists that has killed almost 1,000, former diplomats and officials said.
Attacks on Egyptian security personnel in Sinai on the border of Israel’s southern tip have intensified in the weeks following Islamist President Mohamed Mursi’s July 3 overthrow, with gunmen killing 26 policemen there today alone. Islamist militants also claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Israel’s resort city of Eilat.
“Over the last month we’ve seen both a rise in Jihadist elements operating in Sinai and improved cooperation between the Israeli and Egyptian militaries to counter this,” Ephraim Kam, a retired Israeli army intelligence colonel and senior research fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, said in an interview.
Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, a wedge of mountainous desert bounded on the west by the Suez Canal, has attracted militants in recent years. Their attacks on Israeli and Egyptian targets have had economic as well as military consequences because the area is home to Red Sea resorts and is a transit route for gas.
Shared Interests
Israel’s relationship with the Egyptian military “is clearly going very well at the moment, especially as regards Sinai,” said Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Cairo. A crackdown “is as much in Egypt’s interest as ours. Their security forces are also being targeted, and they have to be worried by the possibility that rockets being fired on Israel could the next day be aimed at the Suez Canal,” he said.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-19/israel-boosts-ties-with-egyptian-army-as-u-s-mulls-cuts.html