For years, Egypt has run a low-profile military nuclear program. It cannot afford nuclear inferiority to Iran.

As in Bushehr, Egypt can use its reactor to harvest plutonium for nuclear bombs.

Baradei is running on the same democratic reform/fight corruption platform as the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the only major Egyptian political group to publish his proclamations. Just as the Islamist revolution in Iran did thirty years ago, the anti-corruption platform in Egypt has brought together moderates, students, and Islamists. Once the Islamists triumph, even the limited democracy of the Mubarak era will come to an end.

Western diplomats have a fatal habit of supporting the foreigners they know rather than the proper foreigners. El Baradei, who has been talking to world leaders for many years, may gather more foreign support than Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal, or any other strong leader.

Once Baradei clears the road to democracy, the Muslim Brotherhood will surge to power in the first transparent elections. The Bush and Obama administrations have pushed Egypt for such elections.

Jews are much less zealous in protecting their own homeland. We’ve yet to hear any reports of IDF Border Police shooting infiltrators.

The key to understanding Egypt’s missile program is the date of its acceleration: 2007. At that time, aging Hosni Mubarak was mostly concerned with receiving American approval for a non-democratic handover of power to his son Gamal, and would not have risked an arms race with Israel. The Egyptian missile program is an answer to Iranian nuclear and missile development, which had accelerated shortly before then.

Egypt also runs a military nuclear program, which Israel has to tolerate because of the peace treaty with Egypt.

Egypt shoots the illegals on its own territory, where they have committed no crime, but the Israeli government refuses to give IDF the commonsense order to shoot infiltrators in the Negev after they have already committed the major crime of crossing the border illegally.

Regrettably, there is no other way to stop the hordes.

In the meantime, the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee has derailed a bill which would allow Israeli soldiers to keep African illegals out of our country. In the Committee’s view, the bill did not provide sufficiently for asylum seekers. Never mind that no legitimate asylum seeker can enter Israel due to her geography: by the time the Africans reach Egypt, they have already reached asylum, and they only infiltrate Israel for economic reasons.

Badee’s succession signals the Muslim Brotherhood’s refusal to compromise. The Brotherhood supports Iran and calls for the annihilation of Israel. The US pressure for democratic elections in Egypt made the Muslim Brotherhood into the largest opposition faction in the parliament.

Two tendencies compete here. The Brotherhood’s members are becoming generally more moderate along with Egyptian society at large. At the same time, the Brotherhood’s ascent to power brings radical Islamists to the top, either directly or through their influence on the “independent” MPs. Thus, it remains unpredictable whether Egypt will follow the path of moderation or fall to Islamists.

Gazans can already dig tunnels 120 feet deep, and could easily increase the depth.

Just like every other Arab country, Egypt has “Arab” in its official name, the Egyptian Arab Republic. But for Israel to be Jewish is anti-peace and racist.

Egypt itself runs a low-profile nuclear program.

Following the official line, the Israeli Ambassador to Egypt went out to meet Al Ahram’s Publishing chief in his office. Ambassadors do not normally pay such lowly visits.
Worse, the Al Ahram chief refused to meet the ambassador, instead holding a meeting with the editor of an unimportant magazine published by Al Ahram.

The official reasons for the visit are talks about Shalit and regional peace efforts. Both are nonsense. Netanyahu need not discuss the Shalit exchange with Mubarak, as the matter is being handled by the German negotiators who are now pressing Hamas. Peace efforts have evidently been stalled, and a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation on any platform agreeable to Israel and America is unlikely.

Iran is one obvious point of discussion, especially after Netanyahu’s secret trip to Moscow. But Netanyahu was accompanied by an unusual associate, the Internal Minister Yishai, whose only conceivable competence is discussing new measures against African migrants. Very strange.

The mufti is stupid: in the fatwa, he claims that nuclear weapons cannot be used, but might be developed for deterrence. What is the deterrent if they cannot be used?

Mubarak’s spokesman announced that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is more important for Egypt than the Iranian threat. The announcement, if not completely hypocritical, is a major setback for Israel, who expected to fly into Iran through Egypt.

Chances are, the Egyptians lie. A Palestinian state is the last thing they want, as it would give the Muslim Brotherhood and other radicals a safe haven in Gaza.

About 7,000 Egyptians live in Israel, married to Israeli Arabs. Israel grants them residency and eventually citizenship, instead of suggesting they move their new families to Egypt.

They represent two rival branches of the Egyptian establishment, they passionately hate each other, and they neither wants to leave to the other the honor of meeting the American president.

Mubarak will hear Obama’s position on Iran from them before finalizing his own position and discussing it with Obama during his visit to Cairo.

Instead, Obama will visit Cairo.

The Egyptians also legalized smuggling of commercial merchandise into Gaza to leave the tunnel operators a decent income despite the ban on arms trafficking. The problem is, Hamas uses separate tunnels for arms smuggling. The commercial tunnels run grenades or bullets at most, while explosives and rockets are delivered through Hamas’ exclusive tunnels.

Though Egypt has recently increased its anti-smuggling operations, the smuggling continues unabated: Egyptian police control the roads while the Bedouins smuggle through desert routes. We expect significant terrorist attacks by the Sinai Bedouin on the Egyptian Red Sea resorts in retaliation for the government’s anti-smuggling efforts.

Egypt is playing nice: while cracking down on weapons smuggling, it keeps the Rafah Crossing open for individuals and personal goods.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry and Intelligence are arch-enemies, divided on almost every issue, and Lieberman happens to be one of them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s officials leaked the 2007 and 2008 reports which prove that weapons-grade uranium has been found near Inshas, where the Egyptian nuclear reactors are located.

The Egyptians have been evasive on this matter, ludicrously blaming the uranium traces on medical radio isotopes used in their program.

Now it is absolutely certain that Egypt has very slowly been accumulating uranium, enriching it in its research facilities in order to  make a small number of nuclear weapons. It is no less certain that the gutless Israeli government will keep its head in the sand and stick to the fake peace treaty instead of bombing the Egyptian nuclear reactors immediately.

The IAEA leak can possibly be attributed to Iran, which sought to embarrass Egypt after their recent feud, but more likely it is the work of American diplomats who thus send Israel a message that she cannot go on bombing all the reactors in the vicinity, and must put up with a nuclear Iran.

Mubarak recently heated up his anti-Iranian rhetoric beyond measure. His bellicosity goes beyond what is required to allow IAF flyover rights over Egypt en route to Iran. It is not impossible that the Egyptians plan to take part in an Israeli strike on Iran. Such a move would greatly benefit Mubarak by reestablishing Egypt as an unquestionable arbiter of Arab affairs and Middle Eastern security.

The Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt’s largest political group. Sooner or later, it will take over the country and annul the peace treaty with Israel. If Iran is allowed to get nuclear weapons, Egypt will have to develop them too, and the Brotherhood will eventually control the bombs.

In this area, history has gone in circles for millennia. In the days of King Jehoiakim Israel entered into an alliance with Egypt against Babylon—which is now Iran and Iraq—and failed.
Egypt will abandon its support for Israel in either case: if Mubarak transfers power to his son Gamal he will no longer need American approval for his polices, and if the Muslim Brotherhood takes power it will proceed to subvert Israel immediately.

Egypt, a normal nation, does not celebrate the peace which merely returned to it the land it considers its own. Jews celebrate the peace treaty that took away 5/6 of their country, a major part of the Promised Land, and the place where we received the Torah.

In an interview with Asharq al Awsat, Assad’s adviser announced that Ahmadinejad will attend the regional conference in Sharm esh Sheikh. One possibility is that the Arabs are preparing for an expected Israeli strike on Iran and attempting a last-ditch effort to talk Ahmadinejad out of his nuclear plans. More plausibly, nervous of Obama’s softness and Israeli cowardice in acting against Iran, the Arab countries seek accommodation with the mullahs. In that case, Syria would mediate the talks and greatly increase its diplomatic status.

The newest stunt involved an open letter by Egypt’s top Shiite cleric Fahim Abd al-Fatah, in which he accused Hezbollah of allowing UNIFIL forces into Lebanese territory to end the 2006 war with Israel, and criticized them for not attacking Israel this January to help the Gazans. Fahim also lambasted Hezbollah for not avenging Mughniye’s death, presumably with attacks on Jewish civilian targets.

Egypt is at peace with Israel, and theoretically should have undertaken to prevent anti-Israeli incitement.

The Egyptians have closed Gaza’s border without apology. They shoot Gazans without much reason and with no remorse. Despite all that, Hamas would not even think of staging a terrorist attack inside Egypt, or kidnapping Egyptian soldiers.
When Iranians staged a single demonstration against Mubarak, Egypt almost broke relations with the mullahs.

Today, the Egyptian FM sharply rebuked the United States for the State Department’s negative review of its human rights record. Egypt receives just a bit less American aid than Israel, and that aid is much more important for impoverished Egypt than for Israel. But unlike Jews, Egyptians are sensible and realize than America needs them more than vice versa—and they can look at Americans as partners rather than masters.

Maddeningly, the US Administration continues its efforts at democratizing stable countries. In Iraq, democracy turned into violent anarchy. In Pakistan, it brought Islamists to power. In Lebanon and Palestine, the elections handed victory to Hezbollah and Hamas, respectively. In Egypt, democratic elections would mean the victory of Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’ parent organization.

Israel is Egypt’s only plausible enemy.

Israel might learn from Pharaoh. Israeli Arab MKs routinely visit Syria, Lebanon, and other enemy states – and remain MKs.

IAF bombed Shamiyah’s house shortly afterwards, but Egypt welcomed him for treatment. The Israeli establishment does not consider Egyptian help to terrorist organizations as a violation of the peace treaty.

Egypt is concerned that continued arms smuggling is leading to deteriorating relations with Israel and her American supporters at a time when Hosni needs a smooth transition of power to his son.

Egypt cannot really counter the weapons smuggling because of three factors: corruption, the ingenuity and numbers of the smugglers, and fear of offending powerful Bedouin tribes who live off the smuggling.

The increase sets a dangerous precedent of re-thinking what were touted as stone-cut security guarantees made at Camp David. Extra troops would have little impact on weapons-smuggling for two reasons. First, their commanders are traditionally corrupt: with a salary of less than $100 per month, they cannot but accept bribes from smugglers. Second, the smuggling up to Rafah is run by Sinai Bedouins, who have fought and defeated Egyptian police in several encounters. Mubarak’s government is not keen on provoking the next wave of Bedouin terrorism with a crackdown on smuggling.

Egypt, under heavy pressure from the Arab street for cooperating with Israel, and angry at Israel for refusing Hamas’ demands, wants no foreign troops in its territory and needs no training for something as simple as breaking into peasants’ houses to search for tunnels.

Hamas accepted the ceasefire in principle, despite Iranian pressure to continue fighting, but objects to international peacekeepers or monitors on what it believes is Palestinian soil. The terrorist group reportedly agreed to Turkish peacekeepers on Gaza’s border with Egypt, but Israel would be stupid to accept them, as pro-Palestinian attitudes run high among rank-and-file Turks.

Hamas also rejected a fifteen-year truce with Israel that it accepted two years ago.

The ceasefire would involve no concessions on Hamas’ part, but only return us to the early December situation. After Israel’s withdrawal, Hamas will re-arm.

In truth, Egypt doesn’t want responsibility for the fellow Arab criminals of Gaza. Opening the Rafah would also create a stream of Palestinian thugs into Egypt, which has a hard time battling its own radicals from Hamas, PIJ’s parent organization. Given Egypt’s numerous crackdowns on Hamas officials, this is Egypt’s main reason for closing the Rafah Crossing.

Unlike Fatah-PLO, Hamas defies the Egyptian government’s authority. Hamas made its attitude clear when it breached the border with Egypt. Egypt played it nice and welcomed the Palestinians—but then arrested Iman Nufal, a Hamas commander in charge of the breach.

Another reason for keeping Rafah closed is the Egyptian fear of Israeli reprisal: it is all too easy for Israel to humiliatingly reoccupy the corridor. Opening Rafah is likely to strain Egyptian-US relations and endanger massive American aid to Egypt.

Egypt is glad both to oppress the hated Gazans and maintain a social pressure cooker there to trouble Jews. Unlike the Jews who, wary of world opinion, open their crossings with Gaza and supply the enemy with food (lest they grow too weak to launch rockets), Egypt don’t care a bit about the opinion of fellow Arabs. Thus the Rafah remains closed.

When it controlled Gaza before 1967, Egypt oppressed the locals terribly. Unlike the Jews who “collectively punish” Hamas voters by restricting aid, Egypt’s collective punishment on Gazans was often carried out with artillery.

Egypt is in a difficult situation, as it blockades Gaza just as Israel does. On one hand, arrogant and relatively advanced Egyptians couldn’t care less about other Arabs. On other hand, Egypt cannot accept Iran drawing other Arabs into its orbit.
It would be diplomatically hard for Egypt to open the Rafah crossing in violation of its American-sponsored agreement with Israel. Egypt also doesn’t want a flow of poor, criminal Arabs from Gaza who would radicalize the already unstable Egyptian society. If Obama hints that he would tolerate the Rafah opening, Mubarak would likely lift the blockade implicitly: e.g., by allowing Hamas to break the border barrier.

No doubt, once Iran gets a nuclear bomb, Egypt will have to develop nuclear weapons, too. Egypt has recently unfrozen its academic nuclear research and discusses “peaceful” nuclear power projects with Russia. Israel won’t bomb Egypt’s nuclear facilities because stupid Jews respect the peace treaty.

The Egyptian Foreign Minister promised that his country won’t allow Hamas to create an Islamic state alongside Egypt. Somehow, Israel has no problem with such a state, as the ongoing peace process indicates.

Egyptian border police continue their minimal efforts to hunt down Hamas’ weapons smugglers in Sinai. The newest catch includes 500lbs of dynamite, a drop in the sea of weapons smuggled into Gaza during the Barak-brokered ceasefire.

Egypt’s problem with Hamas is unrelated to Hamas’ terrorism against Israel. An offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian anti-government organization, Hamas defies Egyptian authority. Egypt doesn’t want Hamas to stop terrorism or accept Israel, but merely to form a joint government with Fatah—something which Israel strongly rejected before but has come to accept by now.

Peres, Olmert & Co slammed Lieberman for allegedly insulting Mubarak, but no one condemned this Egyptian animal.