By Adam Morrow
CAIRO, Jul 19 2006 (IPS)

Egypt’s attempts to mediate the escalating crisis between Israel and Hamas appear to have run out of steam. The Egyptian ‘retreat’ follows a mystery attack on one of its ships.

An Egyptian merchant ship was struck by a rocket in the eastern Mediterranean Sea five days back during an artillery exchange between Israel and the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah. The origin of the missile remains unconfirmed.

A commercial vessel hauling cement from the Egyptian port Damietta to the Syrian port Tartus, some 200km north of Damascus, was struck by the missile Jul.15.

The 81-foot cargo vessel was reportedly in international waters some 30 nautical miles off the Lebanese coast when it was struck by the rocket, which caused a fire to break out on deck.

The 12-man crew was rescued by another commercial vessel and taken to Tarsus where they were treated for minor injuries. Both ships are owned by United Shipping, a private Egyptian company.

But questions remain about the missile’s origin. According to initial coverage in pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, the ship was not hit by Israel but by Hezbollah.

“The vessel was struck by a missile fired by Hezbollah fighters during an attack on an Israeli battleship,” the paper quoted transport ministry sources as saying in its Jul. 16 edition. But it also quoted a United Shipping official as saying that “it’s impossible to determine who fired the missile at the ship.”

The ministry of foreign affairs did not know either. “I have no information on who hit what,” spokesman Alaa al-Hadidi told IPS. “All we know is that the ship was hit. We don’t have any more information.”

Some Cairo-based analysts suggest that the government is saying nothing for reasons of political expediency.

“Cairo has refrained from blaming either side,” said Emad Gad, an expert on Israeli affairs at the state-run Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. “But I’m sure Egyptian intelligence knows very well who fired on the ship.”

Flagship government daily al-Ahram barely covered the issue at all, although it did suggest the missile had been fired by the Israeli military.

“The Syrian authorities rescued 12 Egyptian sailors after their vessel was subject to accidental shelling by an Israeli warship,” the paper reported in a tiny front-page story Jul. 16. “The Egyptian ambassador in Damascus…has begun procedures for the crew’s return to Cairo.”

Gad says the scanty coverage of the affair in the state press was intentional. “They’re trying to downplay the issue,” he said. “Maybe they’re still trying to gather more information.”

But suggestions linger that Hezbollah was sending a signal to Egypt, which has close relations with the United States and has signed a peace deal with Israel.

Egyptian attempts earlier to broker a truce between Tel Aviv and Hamas in Gaza appear to have lost momentum.

In the wake of the Jun. 25 abduction of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants, Cairo proposed a deal in which Israel would free a certain number of Palestinian prisoners – at an unspecified future date – in return for the soldier’s release. The Syria-based political wing of Hamas reportedly rejected the scheme. It said the doubtful nature of the promised releases made the proposal a non-starter.

The addition of Hezbollah, which itself captured two Israeli soldiers Jul. 12, to the equation has only made mediation efforts more difficult, Gad noted. “Hezbollah is pushing Hamas not to cooperate with Cairo,” he said. Gad added that the Hamas politburo based in Damascus, “which is probably cooperating closely with Syria and Iran” will “most likely refuse to cooperate with Egyptian diplomacy.”

Foreign ministry spokespeople declined to comment on the current status of Cairo’s diplomatic efforts.

A meeting of foreign ministers at Cairo’s Arab League headquarters Jul. 15 at which League Secretary-General Amr Moussa warned of “a total security collapse in the region” failed to resolve the escalating crisis.

Rather than producing a joint Arab declaration, the summit yielded three separate declarations on Lebanon, Gaza and the so-called Middle East peace process. According to League officials speaking off the record, the failure to produce a unified Arab position was due mainly to disputes among ministers regarding the recent kidnapping operations by Hamas and Hezbollah.

“The essential message of this latest Arab League meeting was that there’s no united Arab front against Israel,” said Gad. “In reality, Arab ministers ended up blaming Hamas and Hezbollah for the escalation.”

But whatever the diplomatic circumstances, most Egyptians remain vocally sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian population, which has been subject to a crushing economic embargo since the election of the current Hamas-led government in January.

“I feel sorry for anyone in Palestine,” said 36-year-old Cairo resident Dalia Mongy. “Israeli reactions are always overly aggressive – it’s almost as if they’re waiting for an excuse to attack.”

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