Parliamentarians expressed outrage, reports Gamal Essam El-Din Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's apology to President Hosni Mubarak after an Israeli tank crew killed three Egyptian policemen on the eastern Gaza border failed to contain the anger of Egypt's People's Assembly. MPs, already provoked by Israel's systematic repression of the Palestinians, seized the killings to give vent to bottled-up anger at the Israelis and their hard-line prime minister. The parliamentary rage began on Saturday. A large number of opposition and independent MPs demanded that parliamentary speaker Fathi Sorour hold an open discussion on Israel's irresponsible conduct and flagrant breach of its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. Talaat El-Sadat of the liberal- oriented Al-Ahrar Party, and a cousin of late President Anwar El-Sadat, said it seemed especially tragic that just hours before the 27th anniversary of Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem -- on 19 November 1977 -- Israel had killed three Egyptians. To the opposition's dismay, Sorour adamantly rejected the idea of holding an open discussion on the tragic act. Sorour argued that a statement condemning Israel's conduct by parliament's Arab affairs Committee would suffice. The commission, which met on Saturday evening, saw MPs of different stripes launch a wave of verbal attacks against Israel and Sharon. On Sunday, however, Sorour surprised MPs by changing tack. He said he would open the door wide for MPs to vent their anger and rage. The speaker's change of heart was catalysed, for one, by a series of harsh opposition party snipes at the Arab Affairs Committee. The committee's statement, it was said, was worded in cold and cautious language that failed to reflect the Egyptian public's deep anger. It was, however, another incident that seems to have changed Sorour's mind. Several MPs had provided Sorour with a copy of a statement in which Yuval Shteinitz, the chairman of the Israeli Knesset's Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee, indirectly blamed Egypt for the killing of the three border policemen. Shteinitz, during a live interview broadcast on Israeli radio on 18 November, just hours after the atrocity, warned that Egypt had, and was continuing to, support what he called Palestinian terror infrastructure. Shteinitz also claimed that instead of encouraging the PA to disarm terrorists, Egypt was brokering an arrangement to keep "terror groups", such as Hamas, intact. Shteinitz also alleged that while Jordan acts to prevent terrorists and weapons from crossing into Israel, Egypt has allowed a continuous flow of terrorists and weapons across its borders into Israel. Enraged by Shteinitz's comments, the joint commission pressured Sorour to open a discussion on the matter in a plenary meeting. Not only was Shteinitz's statement rife with lies and unreliable information, the commission argued, "it suggests that Egypt is not respecting its peace treaty with Israel and that its policy is responsible for the killing of the three border policemen." A member of the hard-line Likud Party, Shteinitz is well known as a regular critic of Egypt. Early this year, he charged Egypt with allowing weapons to flow across the Egyptian border to the Palestinian terrorists. He also claimed on 14 November that Egypt was trying to weaken Israel through the "peace process" and its tacit support of terrorism. During the plenary meeting, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Mustafa El- Feki said that, "instead of apologising, the chairman of the Israeli Knesset's Defence Committee decided to take Egypt to task for Israel's irresponsible conducts." Arab Affairs Committee Chairman Ahmed Abu Zeid told Al-Ahram Weekly that while Egypt has been fully compliant with the peace treaty, Israel has always made a fuss. "Sometimes, they say Egypt can't be trusted because it is an undemocratic state, or because it is arming itself with sophisticated weapons." The Israelis have even lobbied US congressmen, Abu Zeid said, to ask for cuts to America's annual military assistance to Egypt. "Now, and after this irresponsible conduct against Egypt, I can say that it is Israel that can not be trusted," he said. Though unanimous in their condemnation of Israel's irresponsible act, MPs diverged on how to react to it. Several opposition and independent MPs asked for the Israeli ambassador to be expelled. Mohamed Mursi, speaker of the Muslim Brotherhood MPs, argued that a 27-year- old peace had provided Israel with a free hand to wreak havoc in the Arab world. "Israel has exploited its peace treaty with Egypt to inflict damage and turn the lives of the Palestinians into a hell," Mursi said. "It was Israel that urged America to invade Iraq because the latter used to be a major Arab force standing in the way of Israel's hegemonic plans in the Arab world." Mursi asked for relations with Israel to be frozen, since "it was a major loss for Egypt to respect a treaty that Israel had torn up a long time ago." Mursi also lashed out at this week's Sharm El-Sheikh conference on Iraq, arguing that it was primarily aimed at reinforcing Israel and America's hegemony in the region. The Nasserists, meanwhile, surprised everyone by not asking for relations with Israel to be severed. Instead, Haidar Boghdadi, the party's sole representative, called on President Mubarak to reconsider the peace treaty with Israel, especially in terms of replacing the border policemen with army forces. "It is completely unacceptable that the Israelis use tanks and sophisticated weapons to guard their borders with Egypt, while Egypt is obliged to use light weapons to secure its borders with Israel." Al-Ahrar's El-Sadat also joined the fray, insisting that the Egyptian policemen had been deliberately killed. "Even worse," he claimed, "was that they killed the Egyptians with American weapons." Only one MP from the ruling National Democratic Party -- El-Kashef Mohamed -- joined forces with the opposition. El- Kashef asked for relations with Israel to be frozen, and for Israel to pay LE1 million in compensation and damages for each of the three policemen who were killed.
