Egypt gives light sentences to Hezbollah cell and calls Israel enemy

I was surprised by Egypt's foreign minister describing Israel as Egypt's enemy and claiming Egypt would support Syria and Lebanon if Israel decided to attack them again. Not impressed, because Egypt's actions to enable Israel's restriction of food and supplies to Gaza, which is causing Palestinian children to go hungry is a tangible action that Egypt is undertaking on behalf of the US congress in exchange for its directing money to his government. Egypt is in the purest sense of the word a traitor to the Arab world and to the religion Egyptians profess. An Egypt that announced that it vigilantly opposes "the Shiite crescent" but that allowed adequate humanitarian supplies to pass through Rafah would be respectable. Mubarak's Egypt, that helps Israel punish the people of Gaza for voting for Hamas while making statements that Israel is its enemy, is a disgrace.

However, Egypt's foreign minister could have been more silent. Possibly there is some meaning to this pronouncement.

Israel's Ambassador to Cairo Yitzhak Levanon has protested on behalf of the Jewish state over statements made by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who described Israel as an "enemy state" during a visit to Lebanon.

In a press conference in Beirut on Tuesday, the Egyptian minister was asked whether the visit was intended as a warning message from Israel to Lebanon. Aboul Gheit denied and said the purpose of his trip was not to relay messages "from the enemy to a sister Arab state."

He stressed that Egypt would stand by Syria and Lebanon should they be attacked.

I read somewhere else that it is notable that none of the people recently convicted for operating a cell under Hezbollah control in Egypt was given the death penalty.

An Egyptian court Wednesday convicted 26 men of spying for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and planning terrorist attacks in Egypt, handing down prison terms ranging from 25 years to six months.

The trial — commonly referred to as the "Hezbollah cell trial" — involved two Lebanese, five Palestinians, a Sudanese and 18 Egyptians. It was held in the heavily guarded State Security Emergency court whose verdict can be reversed only by a presidential pardon.

There may be some truth to an interpretation that Mubarak does not favor increasing tension with either Lebanon or with Syria or Iran. This does not extend to tangible policies. Mubarak still is accountable to AIPAC through the US congress far more than he is to any Egyptian constituency, and that will continue for as long as the United States is able and willing to contiue its purchase of the Egyptian political system. But Mubarak seems willing to take symbolic steps away from tension with regional parties that are outside of the US Middle East colonial structure.

I do not expect a war between Israel and Lebanon this year. My guess is that Egypt agrees. Egypt does not want there to be a war. A war would not benefit anybody, just as the 2006 war did not benefit Israel, Lebanon or Egpyt. When there is talk about war, when tensions seem to be rising because of the supposed scud missile story, but Egypt has better private information that no war is imminent, it presents Egypt's rulers with an opportunity to do what indirect-puppet leaders are installed to do - which is make symbolic statements exactly opposite of the tangible policies they are directed to follow by their United States sponsors.