Olmert & Mubarak

The meeting yesterday in Sharm el-Sheikh between PM Olmert and Pres. Mubarak of Egypt was a failure. Even though not much was expected of this meeting, it was made into a disaster by the attack of IDF forces in Ramallah on the same day, that killed 4 people and failed to capture the alleged target. If the IDF wanted to undermine and sabotage Olmert's meeting they could not have done it better. I'm all for capturing wanted terrorists, but this attack was ill-timed and unnecessary. Before the whole Arab world it reinforced their belief that Israel is incorrigible and bent on killing civilians. No matter that PM Olmert apologised for that, nevertheless it reinforces the impression that Israel is always killing civilians and always apologizing.
Although the main topics of the meeting were to find out about Egyptian attempts to free Cpl. Shalit from his captors in Gaza and to reduce the smuggling of arms into Gaza, limited progress was made on these aims. Mubarak admitted that the Palestinians, specifically Hamas, were responsible for preventing a prisoner exchange by demanding too many Palestinian prisoners, nevertheless he criticized Israel for not being prepared to release prisoners before Cpl Shalit is released. Also, although there was no official press release from the meeting, Mubarak admitted that arms were being smuggled, and said that Egypt would double the number of men trying to stop it. He also criticized PM Olmert for saying that the smuggling of large sums of money (m$50 from Iran for example) into Gaza were illegal, by saying that this was legal as long as they informed the Egyptian customs how much they were carrying.
Generally the atmosphere between Olmert and Mubarak was "frosty" and it reinforced the idea that although many think that Egypt is working for peace, actually they are working to undermine Israel. They are clearly allowing smuggling of arms, money and terrorists into Gaza, and they are doing very little to achieve a prisoner exchange. Since the signing of the Israel-Egyptian peace treaty many years ago, Mubarak has never set foot on Israeli territory, while many Israeli PMs have gone to Egypt. This is a one-sided, insincere relationship, and it is about time that Israel stopped pretending that Egypt is its friend in trying to achieve peace with the Palestinians.
While 4 Palestinians were killed by the IDF, many more (perhaps 12) were killed and injured in fierce fighting between Fatah and Hamas forces in Gaza and the West Bank. Last night, once again Pres. Abbas and PM Haniyeh met in Gaza to try to stop the violence. It was announced that all gunmen would be ordered off the streets. But, this has been tried before and has not worked, and it is unlikely that this time it will stop the "spiral of violence." Ironically, as Israel has withdrawn from Gaza, this has left a power vacuum, and while Hamas and Fatah are fighting to fill the gap, the Egyptians are also now more active in Gaza, which they controlled between 1948-1967.
The US has announced that they are giving m$83 to Pres Abbas for him to strengthen his armed forces in the clash with Hamas. What troubles Israelis is that first, Abbas is almost powerless to affect the situation and this addition will probably not help. Second, it is likely that one way or another these arms will be directed at the IDF at some time in the near future. In this situation, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Mubarak is also proposing a local summit of Olmert, himself, King Abdullah of Jordan and Pres. Abbas. In the past, Israel has avoided such meetings where the Arabs can gang up on it. But, Olmert probably does not have enough sense to see this coming.