Twenty-one hours after Thursday's terrorist attack in southern Israel, a terrorist was caught trying to return to Gaza via the Philadelphi Corridor. Upon realizing that he had been discovered, the terrorist detonated his vest and blew himself up. He had spent a full 24 hours on Egyptian soil without even one Egyptian soldier getting in his way. This single incident, even more than the string of terrorist attacks that preceded it on Thursday, proved that Egypt has lost control over the Sinai Peninsula and with it, its power of deterrence over the residents of Sinai and the Gaza Strip. In the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks and during the difficult weekend that followed, Israel showed great restraint in placing blame on Cairo. There are more than a handful of terrorists operating with impunity on Egyptian territory -- we are talking about an entire division. The Sinai Peninsula has become the Wild West of the region and terrorists there are free to do as they please. It was exactly this kind of anarchy that allowed the Taliban to flourish in Afghanistan. Looking at the safe haven for radical Islamists that have been cultivated in abandoned areas of the Sinai, it almost makes one feel nostalgic for Southern Lebanon. Nevertheless, Jerusalem remains hesitant to say what needs to be said. Israel's leaders are tip-toeing around the issue, and have pushed the issue of terrorists operating from Egypt to the margins of the daily agenda. Israel should say clearly and with conviction that Cairo is responsible for the murderous squad of terrorists who infiltrated Israel from its territory. Egypt will never have any motivation to exercise its sovereignty over the area if Israel does not hold it responsible, if it doesn't openly express concern about the fact that the government's grip there is slipping, and if it doesn't demand -- in clear terms -- that Egypt eliminate the smuggling of both weapons and terrorists into Gaza. In the absence of a clear statement from Jerusalem, Cairo was given the opportunity, immediately following Thursday's terror, to express doubt about the origin of the terrorists. It even established a committee of officers who, demanding proof, searched for tire tracks from the vehicles the terrorists arrived in from Gaza. In this diplomatic fight, Cairo has no qualms about exploiting the tragic deaths of five Egyptian policemen to shirk responsibility for the terrorist organizations operating with great freedom within its territory and even to demand -- and subsequently receive! -- an Israeli apology. After all, if the Egyptians had maintained deterrence in Sinai as was stipulated as part of the 1979 peace treaty, the Popular Resistance Committees, which was accused of orchestrating the terror attacks, would not have even entertained the possibility of operating from the Egyptian territory. It takes months of intelligence gathering to carry out an attack of this magnitude. It requires cooperation from local Bedouin tribes and it takes funds, training and weapons. Is it possible that the Egyptian security apparatus noticed nothing? No one heard or saw anything? The perpetrators of this complex and multi-pronged attack, launched next to an Egyptian military outpost, have advertised the fact that they don't fear the government's response. The PRC knew an Israeli-Egyptian flare-up might follow their attack (indeed, this might have been their plan); they certainly anticipated the embarrassment their actions would cause the new regime at a critical time for Egypt and while elections are looming. But they were also confident the government had no intention of acting against them and felt certain that if their men were arrested in Egypt -- which is unlikely -- they would be released after a short time. We cannot overlook these facts. We tend to forget that peace is, above all, an Egyptian interest. It would be suicide for Cairo to scrap the peace agreement; such a move would bring about a political and economic crisis that would only deepen the woes of a country already teetering on the brink of social disintegration. When Egypt called for the return of its ambassador in Tel Aviv, it was simply protesting, something that is not unusual in the Arab world. In the heat of this region's diplomacy, Arab ambassadors are frequently shuffled between their homes and the countries where they are stationed. This is a knee-jerk response to political crises, and almost inevitably, relations are restored to normalcy within a few weeks or months. It is certainly no reason for Israel to show weakness and confusion. Last Thursday, eight Israeli civilians and soldiers were murdered by a terrorist squad who had come from Gaza via Egypt, and this attack has subsequently been followed by a barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel. Members of that cell who fled back into Egypt have not been apprehended. Israel need not have apologized to Egypt; it should have demanded the Egyptians take responsibility.
