Israel Demands Egypt Remove Tanks From Sinai

After Pushing for Crackdown, Israel Now Blasts Egypt for Response

After a bloody attack on a Sinai police station earlier this month, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was crowing about it as vindication for demands for a crackdown on anti-Israel militants, saying it would serve as a “wake-up call” to President Mursi for the need for such an operation.

Now that Mursi has ordered tanks to the region to follow through with the crackdown, Israel is fuming again, insisting that the deployment violates the peace treaty between the two nations and demanding Egypt remove the tanks immediately.

One of the conditions in the 1979 Camp David Accords was the demilitarization of much of Sinai, but militant factions have been using the area around the border with Israel as a staging area for attacks.

Theoretically Egypt could make such deployments with Israel’s explicit approval, but after endorsing early moves into the region they have stopped and have now turned against the crackdown.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.