CAIRO - Since they were forced to withdraw from Sinai in the wake of Egypt's glorious victory in the October 1973 War, the Israelis have been living with regret. Their generals describe their complete withdrawal from Sinai in 1979 as the worst unavoidable decision ever taken by an Israeli government since the birth of Israel in Palestine. About 100,000 Egyptian soldiers died in the wars to liberate Sinai that started in 1967. To make up for their frustration, the Israelis came up with a sly, 'Jewish-style' plot to retake the Peninsula from the Egyptians. Wealthy Jewish businessmen, posing as European property investors, started buying up thousands of feddans (acres) in Sinai. Israel's cunning plan was discovered by a powerful watchdog, which arrested 11 people, including a lawyer and the general-secretary of the Ismailia Court, for selling villas, apartments and vast swathes of land in Sinai to Italian property development companies owned by Israelis. In announcing its ruling in this case, the Ismailia Criminal Court on the Suez Canal appealed to legislators to amend the laws governing the sale and purchase of land in the Peninsula. The court warned that the current laws had allowed corrupt Egyptians to help Israel get its hands on Sinai again – this time without having to resort to the bullet. The court said that it was outrageous that the huge sacrifices made by the Egyptian Army to kick the enemy out of the sacred land of Sinai had been forgotten (by some) for the sake of filthy lucre. The Criminal Court said that, although Sinai had been liberated, it remained vulnerable to the threat of Israeli expansion. “The legislators should act immediately to save Sinai,” added the head of the court, who was apparently referring to the Jewish dream of the 'Greater Israel', stretching from the Nile in Egypt to the Euphrates in Iraq. The lawyer and the general-secretary of the court were sentenced to 10 and five years respectively behind bars for aiding and abetting 'Israelis' to buy land in Sinai. However, the Criminal Court had to acquit nine foreigners of Jewish origin, after it was discovered that their property deals, cynical though they were, fell within the scope of the Investment Law for Foreign Ownership of Land in Egypt. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has been urged to issue a decree, which would officially endorse non-Egyptians' ownership of property in Sinai with their nationality. Lawmakers stress that Sinai has a special strategic status and the Government should scrutinise foreigners' motives for buying land in the Peninsula. Foreigners were banned from buying land in Egypt by Law 27/1951, which states that non-Egyptians should not buy agricultural or desert land. However, non-Egyptians who had bought land or apartments in Egypt prior to this law were exempted. In 1963, the socialist government of late president Gamal Abdel-Nasser issued Law 15, as part of its nationalisation campaign, allowing it to seize land and property owned by foreigners. Over 30 years later, foreign property investors and purchasers were permitted according to Law 230/1996 to own buildings or plots of land, but not more than two per person and on a 99-year lease. This law, apparently designed to boost the Government's investment drive at the time, stipulates that the building or the land should not exceed 4,000 square metres in size and should not be part of an archaeological site.
