U.S. Sinai withdrawal fans tension
By Andrew Hammond
CAIRO (Reuters): The withdrawal of U.S. peacekeeping forces from the Sinai peninsula where Egypt borders Israel could further escalate tension in the Middle East, Egyptian analysts said on Friday.
The Pentagon said on Thursday it had told Israel and Egypt that the administration of President George W. Bush wanted to withdraw at least some U.S. military peacekeepers from the Sinai peninsula in its effort to cut non-combat missions worldwide.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld raised withdrawing the 860 U.S. troops serving in a 1,900-member multinational peacekeeping force during recent Washington meetings with President Hosni Mubarak and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. There has been no official Egyptian reaction to the proposal.
The force has been stationed in the buffer zone between Egypt and Israel since 1982, after Egypt became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state. The treaty returned all of Sinai to Egypt after Israel occupied it in 1967.
"If the American soldiers are withdrawn it will be a critical situation and some extremists here or there (Egypt or Israel) can do something to push the situation to a very critical point," said Emad Gad, an analyst at the state-run al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
"There is no problem to withdraw them, but not in the current situation," he told Reuters.
At least 381 Palestinians, 71 Israelis and 13 Israeli Arabs have died since Palestinians began an uprising nearly seven months ago against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which borders Sinai.
Egypt withdrew its ambassador to Tel Aviv in November accusing Israel of using excessive force against Palestinians.
Four Egyptians have been injured by stray cross-border fire in Rafah since the uprising began. Egypt maintains strict security measures in Sinai, now a popular tourist destination for Israelis, Egyptians and other nationals.
"Why does the U.S. want to withdraw forces at a time when (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon is threatening ... and when Israel has taken military measures against Lebanon?" said Talaat Rumeih, an official of the Islamist Labor Party, noting that the U.S. still maintained a huge military presence in the Gulf which many Arabs objected to.
Israel attacked a Syrian base in Lebanon on Monday, killing three Syrian soldiers, after Syrian-backed Hizbollah militia killed an Israeli soldier on the Lebanese-Israeli border. Israel launched a fierce air, land and sea attack in Gaza on Monday after Palestinians fired mortar bombs into an Israeli town.
Adel Hammouda, editor of the independent Sawt al-Umma weekly, said the U.S. move brought to mind the withdrawal of international monitors from the Sinai area in 1967.
The decision, ordered by then Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, was part of a chain of events leading to the 1967 Arab- Israeli war.
Mubarak said in February that the 1967 war, in which Egypt lost Sinai, would not be repeated. He said earlier this week that Sharon was trying to "make trouble" with Egypt and neighboring countries.