Egypt and the region are still reeling from Thursday’s Sinai bombings. Whether because of the number of dead and wounded, the bodies still to be recovered, the site of the biggest and most serious blast — Taba is where the Oslo Peace Initiative was signed in 1995 — or because this attack was the first on Egyptian soil since 58 tourists were killed in Luxor in 1997, the Sinai assault has left many people very upset and disturbed. It is still not known who was responsible.
While the attack bore some hallmarks of Al-Qaeda or a group linked to it, Al-Qaeda, which normally takes credit for its attacks, has said nothing. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have denied involvement and nothing has been verified concerning three little-known groups who have claimed responsibility.
Knowing the perpetrators could provide a motive. Because the bulk of the victims were Israelis, it is natural to link the attacks to the upsurge in violence in Gaza where at least 90 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive which is now in its 12th day. The number of civilian victims killed far exceeds the number of resistance fighters, meaning the Israeli Army is knowingly and deliberately targeting civilians. This must be the case; it cannot be a case of mistaken identity. An army equipped with state-of-the-art technology can easily distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. An army able to assassinate a person from a flying helicopter when the target is driving in a small vehicle along a crowded street, is certainly able to distinguish between men and women on the one hand and hardened resistance fighters on the other.
Perhaps the Sinai attackers felt that something had to be done in the face of such grim news every day. Besides the siege in Gaza, there was the US veto of a draft UN Security Council resolution which demanded an immediate end to the Israeli offensive in Gaza. There was also the UN report predicting a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip where, it said, as many as 72 percent of Palestinians will be living in poverty by the end of 2006. And there was Israeli advisor Dov Weisglass saying that disengagement from Gaza would freeze the peace process and when that happened, the establishment of a Palestinian state would also be frozen — and all this of course done with President Bush’s approval. The State Department later said it had received assurances that Ariel Sharon was dedicated to the road map and Bush’s alleged vision of a two-state solution. But the damage had already been done; Weisglass’ remarks were simply what many analysts of Sharon’s disengagement plan from Gaza have been saying all along.
So there were many possible reasons for the attack in Sinai. Of course, nothing justifies suicide bombings and such attacks are clearly wrong from any moral or religious standpoint. Similarly, nothing justifies an occupation and all the abuses and inhumanity that inevitably accompany one.
Israel has given men of violence plenty of reasons for acting as they do.
