Testing times for Israel-Egypt peace

Egypt's relations with Israel have become strained

By Russell Working In Egypt

Ali sells watermelons from a cart on a market street where sides of beef hang in the Sinai heat and shopkeepers pedal shampoo and shoe polish from cramped storefronts.

But if the 27-year-old Egyptian could follow his heart, he would be a warrior, not a street vendor.

We hope we can enter the Palestinian area to fight. But it's impossible for anyone to get across the border

Ali, Egyptian trader

He dreams about crossing the border into Gaza, 43 kilometres (27 miles) east on the Mediterranean coast, and joining the Palestinian uprising against Israel.

"No one can accept what is taking place," he says.

"We hope we can enter the Palestinian area to fight, but it's impossible for anyone to get across the border."

He isn't the only one here with such fantasies.

In recent weeks one man was arrested and another drowned trying to swim past the border to fight Israel.

Sinai paradox

Al-Arish sits on the northern coast of the Sinai region, an area that was twice invaded by Israel, whose armies held the land from 1967 to 1982.

Yet in a curious way, the Sinai represents hope for a violent region.

Sadat became the first Arab leader to recognise Israel

Egyptians still regard Israelis with enmity, yet peace has held since the Sinai was returned to Egyptian hands.

Both sides say there are lessons to learn here, but the conclusions, unsurprisingly, are different.

The Israelis say the Sinai proves that negotiations worked where war failed.

"For years, Egypt has promoted this vision that you can achieve more through negotiations with Israel than through war, even if you define Israel as the enemy," said Ayellet Yehiav, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For Egyptians, the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Egyptian troops crossed the Suez and retook a small part of the Sinai, laid the groundwork for peace.

"There is a common sense that we can't get a peace agreement with the Israelis except through a military victory," said Reda Helal, assistant editor-in-chief of the influential Cairo daily, al-Ahram.

Within ear-shot

The closer one draws to Israel, the more passionate the emotions, especially along the Mediterranean coast, where many Palestinians live.

"In al-Arish, most people have relatives in Gaza," said Abdel Kader Attia, a 40-year-old fireman who works for the Multinational Force Observers who have helped keep the peace since the Israeli withdrawal in 1982.

"Here it is so close. If you go to Rafah on the border, you can hear the clashing and the fighting. You hear the tanks and the rifles. It's a war atmosphere."

It isn't easy to get close to the battle, however.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's Government has made clear that whatever its sympathies, it won't go to war over the Palestinians.

There is a heavy police presence here, and officers have set up roadblocks to stop would-be soldiers of fortune from getting to the border.

Turbulent past

Conflicts between Egypt and Israel began in the Sinai in 1956, when Israel, along with Britain and France, attacked in order to gain control of the canal.

Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai during the 1973 Yom Kippur War

They backed down under American pressure.

The Israelis again seized the peninsula when Egypt massed its forces to attack in 1967, but it was only returned after President Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel in 1978.

Many here remember the occupation with bitterness.

Along the waterfront, Hussein Mahmoud, a 65-year-old with bottle-cap glasses, sat in a white robe, fingered prayer beads as he recalled the days when Israeli troops used to rumble through the Sinai in their armoured carriers.

"They might break into houses at night with their weapons," he said.

"If they had any doubts against a certain person, they would demolish the whole house where he lived."

Selling the intifada

There are reminders here of how close the border is.

Companies capitalise on the intifada (uprising) as an advertising gimmick.

I can't get a government job as a teacher because I¿m Palestinian

Khalel Ibrahim, Palestinian refugee

Local stores sell potato chips with a cartoon of Yasser Arafat on the package, his eyes wild and mouth agape.

Such gimmicks are meant to appeal to Arab sympathies, but they only anger Khalel Ibrahim, a 35-year-old Palestinian cab driver.

"It's improper to put the picture of Yasser Arafat on the package," Ibrahim said.

"After it's eaten, it will be thrown on the street and stepped on with all the garbage, when this leader has sacrificed so much for his people."

Now he holds a special passport for Palestinian refugees issued by Egypt.

But like many Arab countries, Egypt has not integrated the refugees.

"I trained in the university to be an Arabic teacher, but I can't get a government job as a teacher because I'm Palestinian," he said.

US blamed

Many blame America for failing to take Palestinian rights as seriously as Israeli security.

But amid the anger, some say war isn't an option.

"Americans should know that the Palestinian people are defending their own lands," Mahmoud said.

"Why can't we live in peace? Why can't we have an Israeli state living beside a Palestinian state in peace?"

After all, the Sinai shows that even when there is hostility between states, a cold peace can hold.

Russell Working is a Middle East analyst in Egypt