As tensions between Egypt and Israel increase, Doaa El-Bey looks at three decades of official ties Although it is not the first time demands have been made to recall Egypt's ambassador to Israel, tensions between Tel Aviv and Cairo this week ratcheted up several notches after Israeli soldiers killed five Egyptian policemen and soldiers in a cross- border incident. Cairo said it holds Israel politically and legally responsible and demanded an investigation and apology. Israel, which claimed its forces killed the officers while chasing suspected Palestinian militants, has promised to investigate the deaths. The deaths came amid loud calls for a review of relations with Tel Aviv, which is nervous over the direction of Egyptian policy following the 25 January Revolution. Though Egypt's new military rulers were quick to issue assurances that the 1979 peace treaty would be upheld the killing of the soldiers is likely to further chill the cold peace between Egypt and Israel. A state of war between the two countries lasted for more than three decades, ending in 1979 with the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty. Egypt became the first Arab country to officially recognise Israel. The Camp David Accords were signed a year later. Under the terms of the treaty signed by president Anwar El-Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, and witnessed by US president Jimmy Carter, Israel withdrew from the Sinai peninsula which it had occupied since 1967. In return, Egypt agreed to demilitarise the Sinai. The number of troops along the 300km-long border with Israel and Gaza remains tightly controlled. Full diplomatic relations with Israel were established in 1980. Since then, relations have improved on the official level. Egypt has an embassy in Tel Aviv and a general consulate in Eilat while Israel has an embassy in Cairo and a consulate in Alexandria. Boycott laws were repealed by Egypt's National Assembly in the same year and regular commercial flights inaugurated. A year later the Protocol to the Treaty of Peace was signed, establishing a multinational force and observers to monitor compliance with the treaty. Israel and Egypt have also signed a large number of normalisation agreements covering economic and cultural matters. They developed trade relations in a number of fields, including textiles, chemicals, cotton and other agricultural products. Tourism between the two countries also grew, with Sinai becoming a popular holiday destination for Israelis. Yet on a popular level, Israel has never been considered a peace partner. Support for the treaty eroded with Israel's repeated military offensives in Lebanon and the occupied territories. Throughout his tenure in office president Hosni Mubarak ignored popular rejection of peace with Israel, though even such a staunch supporter of the treaty was forced on occasion to take action. In the wake of the 1982 Operation Peace for Galilee Egypt's ambassador to Israel, Saad Murtada, was recalled to Cairo for consultations. The step was repeated in November 2000, following the eruption of violence in September of the same year. Following Israel's Operation Defensive Shield in March 2002, the Egyptian government suspended inter-governmental ties with Israel, with the exception of diplomatic channels dealing with Palestinian issues. The Mubarak regime's support for Israel in its war against Gaza reinforced street- level rejection of the peace treaty. Egypt's complicity in the closure of the Gaza Strip following the 2006 election of Hamas and its role in enforcing the Israeli blockage by closing the Rafah crossing further alienated public opinion from official policy. More recently Egypt has acted to close the underground tunnels between Rafah and Gaza which have been used for smuggling. In January this year Israel agreed to allow Egypt to move an additional two battalions, about 800 soldiers, into the Sinai Peninsula for the first time since the peace treaty was signed. And following last week's cross- border incident some senior Israeli officials called for amendments to the treaty to allow more Egyptian troops to be stationed in Sinai. Such concessions, though, are far too late to appease the Egyptian public. If the history of the peace treaty shows anything, it is that there will be no peace between Egypt and its eastern neighbour until the Palestinian question is settled.
