Ordinary Nothing

Last night there were several terrorist attacks in Sinai, the major one practically demolishing the Hilton hotel in Taba. There were many dead and wounded. I’m not about to talk of the incident itself in here



What seems to me very odd are the complaints that Egypt delayed the rescue forces from Israel, and the accusations that more lives might have been save if the people and equipment were allowed to get there sooner.



Is this factually correct, and did the Egyptians delay the Israeli rescue efforts? I don’t know, but it seems quite plausible.

Is this a cause to attack them, blame them, or anything of the sort? Of course not! That’s totally absurd.



Sure, from the point of view of a common Israeli person, Israel is nice and honorable, and much better equipped, with more well trained rescue personal. So if there’s such an incident, involving Israelis, it seems elementary that Israel should send forces to the rescue.

And if the Egyptians don’t let us, and keep their less trained and hardly equipped personal dealing with it alone, then they must be doing so in purpose, and be guilty of whatever the delays cause.

But that’s hardly a point of view that Egypt would share. Israel and Egypt are officially at peace, but that hardly implies close friendship and trust. To expect the Egyptians to allow Israeli military personal to enter Sinai at all, that’s quite a lot as it is. If they indeed took four whole hours to do so, the amazing thing is that they agreed so quickly.



Probably, had the infrastructure in Taba better, and they could handle it with their own resources, they wouldn’t have at all. And that would have been… normal. What sovereign state would allow a neighboring country, with which it has a strenuous relationship at best, to send military forces inside its borders, without giving the matter some consideration?

Israel knows it’s only sending rescue forces, and has no intention to do anything else. Egypt can’t know that, only agree to assume that for the time being. That takes some faith. And time to realise that they’re really not equipped to handle the problem as well, and that they want to handle the problem (Not doing so would be a PR nightmare, even if someone assumes that they don’t care at all about the city or the people hurt. Personally I don’t think it’s a likely assumption, but sadly enough some people do)



Imagine a similar condition, where a hotel in Eilat is bombed, and a lot of Egyptian tourists are hurt. Now imagine that Egypt requests permission to send in military and rescue crews to assist…

I’d be shocked and amazed if Israel would say yes. I’d be shocked and amazed if the population of Israel wouldn’t be shocked and amazed in case the government said yes.

Letting Egypt insert forces and heavy equipment into a city in Israel seems like a preposterous and ridiculous idea. Why should letting Israel insert forces and heavy equipment to a city in Egypt seem so much saner?



I’m not so sure most people in Egypt realize that Israel is the good and peaceful guy, and that they are the bad guy with militant intentions that cannot be trusted. I’m sure once someone tells them, they’ll see it as clearly as we Israelis do. That should help sort matters out. I wonder why no one thought to tell them sooner… OK, that’s enough sarcasm…

October 8th, 2004 at 20:16 EET | Categories: Current Affairs | Track comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.