Egyptians Question Israel’s Claim to Eilat

UNITED NATIONS — An Israeli lawmaker is pushing for a re-examination of Israeli-Egyptian relations in the wake of recent questions from Egyptian legislators about Israel’s territorial claim to its southernmost city, Eilat.The issue may come to a head today when the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, arrives in Jerusalem for a state visit meant to lay the groundwork for a summit next week between President Mubarak and Prime Minister Olmert.That summit, to be held at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik, is part of a renewed regional diplomatic drive to help secular Palestinian Arabs re-establish power over Hamas-led Islamists.But a former chairman of the Knesset’s security and foreign relations committee, Yuval Steinitz, said the Palestinian Arab issue should not top the agenda at today’s meeting between Mr. Aboul Gheit and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Mr. Olmert.Mr. Aboul Gheit should not even “be received in Israel until he publicly announces that Eilat is an Israeli territory,” Mr. Steinitz told the Web site of the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, NRG. “It is unacceptable that after 25 years of peace, an Egyptian foreign minister would question Eilat.”A resort and port city on the Red Sea, Eilat has been part of Israel and its gateway to Africa and Asia since the end of the 1948 war. Unlike the West Bank and Gaza, it has never been called an “occupied territory” in international forums. When President Nasser of Egypt closed the southern tip of the Red Sea, the Tiran Straits, to Israeli ships coming from Eilat in 1967, Jerusalem considered it an act of war.But recently, Egyptian legislators began demanding that Umm Rashrash, the Arabic name for Eilat, be declared part of Egypt.Tala’at Sadat, a member of the Egyptian parliament and nephew of President Sadat, who was gunned down after signing a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, is leading the charge. According to the Jerusalem Post, Tala’at Sadat is the founder of a group called the People’s Front for the Liberation of Umm Rashrash.In a statement released this week by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Mr. Aboul Gheit said Eilat was not a part of Egypt, but that the city belongs to the “Palestinians.”Mr. Steinitz, Israel’s most hawkish politician on Egyptian issues, said Egypt started to develop designs on Eilat as early as 1995, when Mr. Mubarak secretly instructed Egyptian international law experts to explore ways for Egypt to stake legal claim to territories in the southern part of the Negev desert, in Israel. Although the push was halted under pressure from the Clinton administration, Cairo has kept the issue alive.Unlike another Israeli neighbor, Jordan, Egypt has not secured the border it shares with territories controlled by the Palestinian Authority — allowing, Mr. Steinitz said, a regular flow of weapons into Gaza.“Since for the last five years Egypt has failed to stop weapons smuggling, the conclusion must be that Egypt’s policy is to arm the Palestinian people against Israel,” he said.

Egyptians Question Israel’s Claim to Eilat

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