Doaa El-Bey and Rasha Saad monitor the still reverberating events following the deadly shootings along the Egyptian-Israeli border and the imminent fall of the Libyan leader Newspapers and writers focussed on the killing of five Egyptian soldiers by Israeli forces on the Egyptian-Israeli border. In the aftermath came a popular demand to expel the Israeli ambassador in Egypt and amend the Camp David accords. In its headlines on Monday Al-Ahram had 'Egypt calls for timetable to investigate Israeli crime'. Al Wafd banner on Sunday noted 'Public anger and officials' confusion', Al-Masry Al-Youm on Sunday wrote, 'People want revenge', and Monday Al-Akhbar quoted the army and the government as saying that the Israeli apology was not enough to calm down the people's fury. Emadeddin Hussein gave five possible explanations behind the Eilat operation which led to the deaths of the Egyptian soldiers. The first is that a Palestinian resistance group decided to launch an attack inside Israel. Then, they escaped to Egyptian territory and the Israelis pursued them after which the Egyptians died in a cross-fire. The second is that the group that launched the operation against Israel worked for the Israeli intelligence, Mossad. Thus Israel wanted to kill more than one bird: show that Egypt is not in full control of Sinai, that Israel has become the victim of terrorism, and to persuade the new Egyptian regime that they both have one common enemy: terrorist organisations. The third is that the perpetrator of the Eilat attack was a Palestinian national organisation that wanted to push the new Egyptian regime into a confrontation with Israel. The fourth is that the perpetrators belong to an Islamic organisation in Sinai which launched the attack in response to the 'Eagle Operation' recently staged by the Egyptian army in Sinai. The fifth is that the operation was carried out by a mercenary Egyptian-Palestinian group. While Hussein stated in the independent daily Al-Shorouk that all these possibilities were mere speculation, the Egyptian government should respond quickly to send a clear message to Israel that what happened on Thursday would not pass without a response and that it should not be repeated. Wagdi Zeineddin rejected the Israeli apology because it showed Israeli snobbery towards Egypt. The Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak, he wrote, surprised us by a weak statement stating that he was sorry for the border attack. He noted that the apology was not issued by the Israeli cabinet, and that there was a big difference between the regret issued by Barak and an official apology that should have been issued by the cabinet. The apology, Zeineddin explained, indicated an acknowledgment of the mistake that Tel Aviv committed against the Egyptians. "Israeli regrets or Barak's regret is not enough and I do not believe that the people or the government should accept it," Zeineddin wrote in the daily Al-Wafd, the mouthpiece of the opposition Wafd party. There is no way out of the current incident except in recalling the Egyptian ambassador from Tel Aviv and expelling the Israeli ambassador from Egypt. The people had their say, he added. "The people want to annul the Camp David accords" and the government has no option but to bow to the will of the people. After all, it is an achievable demand, Zeineddin concluded. Makram Mohamed Ahmed wrote that the premeditated murder of the five Egyptian soldiers was to cover up for the failure of the Israeli forces to stop the Palestinian resistance from penetrating the Israeli borders and reach a vital road inside Israel. It would have been better, Mohamed Ahmed added, for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to vent his anger at his forces. But he imagined that through his double attack on the Palestinians and Egyptians he would escape from being questioned about his failure to protect Israeli land. Unfortunately, Netanyahu failed to understand that Egypt changed, Mohamed Ahmed elaborated. "Egypt is keen on maintaining peace in the region. But it is keener to preserve the dignity of the Egyptian people whose majority insist on expelling the Israeli ambassador," he wrote in the official daily Al-Ahram. Mohamed Ahmed also noted that the people were fed up with the Camp David accords which he added should be amended to allow Egypt to preserve national security in Sinai. Atef Zeidan wrote that the killing of soldiers was not the first and would not be the last crime Israel committed since the signing of Camp David. "Israel launched similar attacks against Egypt the last 30 years. Tel Aviv was sure that the Egyptian response would not exceed rhetorical phrases," Zeidan added in the official daily Al-Akhbar. In the meantime, Zeidan also found the Israeli attitude provocative. Tel Aviv seizes every opportunity to heap blame on Egypt even for little matters like opening the Rafah Crossing for sick people. Zeidan summed up his article by wondering whether our submissiveness had fallen with Mubarak's regime, whether the response to the Israeli crime would be different this time and whether we would still stick to the peace treaty after Israel broke it in every possible way. Marwa Moreed commented on the cheerful tweets that hailed the young Egyptian Ahmed El-Shahat who climbed 13 floors before reaching the Israeli embassy, removing the Israeli flag and replacing it with the Egyptian flag. Moreed saw the episode as a logical step that met the protesters demands to lower the Israeli flag, issue an apology, recall the Egyptian ambassador, expel the Israeli ambassador and annul or at least review the Camp David accords. However, the question that came in the writer's mind was whether there is any contradiction between protesting and focussing on building post-revolution Egypt. Many people would agree that protesting is a basic right and that it could be a playing card in the hands of the people in order to take part together with their rulers in making future foreign policy decisions of their country. Moreed asked what will happen to the Camp David accords. She affirmed that she is with amending it on the basis that every agreement needs to be periodically amended according to new developments on the ground. But Camp David was the outcome of a war followed by diplomatic efforts. Experts regarded it as a success in spite of its defects. Successful agreements are concluded according to the parties' interests rather than their positions. That is, Moreed explained, both Egypt and Israel reached the agreement according to their interests: Egypt wanted to regain its occupied land and Israel wanted to protect its lands from the horrors of war. The positions of both states did not allow them to negotiate, she noted. Nevertheless, they held negotiations in quest of their interests. "Now, calls for the immediate severing of Egyptian-Israeli relations could be interpreted as an inclination towards war. Are we ready for war with Israel?" Moreed asked in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm. Bottom Lines: "Israeli regrets or Barak's regret is not enough and I do not believe that the people or the government should accept it." Wagdi Zeineddin, Al-Wafd "Tel Aviv was sure that the Egyptian response would not exceed rhetorical phrases." Atef Zeidan, Al-Akhbar "Are we ready for war with Israel?" Marwa Moreed, Al-Masry Al-Youm
