IF Israeli Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, or for that matter any other Israeli, is innocent of allegations that 250 Egyptian prisoners of war were executed in cold blood by Israeli troops in the 1967 War, then the government of Israel should call for a thorough investigation into the affair. Such a move would help quiet Egyptian outrage in what has become a major diplomatic incident threatening to compromise relations.
An inquest, or at least the start of one, by an independent body such as the International Court of Justice, is essential — not only to quell Egyptian fury but also to get to the bottom of the allegations. They are based on an Israeli TV documentary that showed Ben-Eliezer’s unit killed 250 Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai Peninsula instead of taking them to POW camps.
That the source of the report is an Israeli documentary directed by an Israeli offers compelling evidence that something horrible did indeed take place in the deserts of Sinai 40 years ago. Had the documentary been made by an institution other than Israeli TV, then perhaps the story would not have attracted so much attention. Questions must also be asked about the startling about-face of the documentary’s director who now claims he misidentified Palestinian war dead as Egyptians and that since the film was aired, he has received documents showing that the Egyptian commando unit — while technically under the control of the Egyptian Army — was actually Palestinians. This is a very unusual U-turn, one which is highly suspicious and seems to have been made because of the huge controversy the film has generated.
And if in fact they were Palestinians, and not Egyptians, who were shot, would that make the allegations any less serious or the incident, if true, any less heinous? Or was executing unarmed Palestinians the right thing to do then as it is now?
There have been, over the years, several accounts of Israeli brutalities against Egyptians in 1967 and in 1956 when Ariel Sharon allegedly killed 900 Egyptians. Claims by an Israeli military historian that Israeli troops massacred some 1,000 Egyptian POWs in several incidents in Sinai were first made in 1995. No investigation was forthcoming then but one should be made now.
Ben-Eliezer has been forced to cancel a visit to Cairo to discuss natural gas imports for fear that he might be arrested. The affair is dominating Egyptian headlines and angry MPs have described those involved in the allegations as “terrorists.” The Egyptian Foreign Ministry has summoned the Israeli ambassador in Cairo to answer to the allegations. The foreign ministers of Egypt and Israel have met in Brussels after which Cairo said it was prepared to deal with the issue on a regional and international level if Israel fails to address the matter. It is well-nigh impossible that Egypt and Israel would go to the extent of breaking off relations over the reported incident; the two countries are linked by the 1979 peace treaty. Nonetheless, the treaty should not mean turning a blind eye to what might conceivably be a war crime.
