Egyptian planes patrolling Sinai without Israel's consent.

Egyptian planes patrolling Sinai without Israel's consent.

“Egypt's air force chief, General Reda Hafiz, says Egyptian warplanes are patrolling Sinai, claiming that Egypt 'does not need permission' to increase forces in its territory, despite the terms of the 1979 treaty with Israel”

english.ahram.org.eg...

www.ynetnews.com...

according to the 1979 camp David treaty, the Sinai peninsula must remain demilitarized unless both sides agree on changing this status. With the increasing terror groups activities over the years - either by Hamas, Islamic Jihad etc' operating from Gaza strip or Sinai desert, taking advantage of the Egyptians turning a blind eye on their weapon smuggling activities, or other fundamentalists terrorists working within Sinai – the Egyptian army now has 14 battalions in the Sinai desert with the Israeli permission. So far, Egypt had showed poor performance, with little to no success. Suffice to remember the gas line that was blown up for the fifth time, if my memory serves me well.

So, does the Egyptian air force chief just flex his muscles to appease the public unrest, who wasn't fully satisfied with the Israeli embassy event and the calls for war with Israel, or is there a more sinister plan ahead ? I personally think it's the first option, but I can not rule the second one out, which could be an elaborate and dangerous game of chess.
Time will tell.

I'm not sure of the motivation behind the Egyptian aerial exercise, but I doubt that it is provocative in nature, considering that Egypt just brokered the stunning deal with Israel and Hamas for the release of Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1000 Palestinian prisoners. As you said, it's probably for public consumption.

My best guess would be that this is just posturing. They just came out of a revolution, Israel is flexing muscle all over the place, Syria is making threats, Turkey is beefing up, Saudi Arabia and Iran are mouthing, and the situation in Lebanon looks like it could get ugly again so I think this is just showing the region that just because their country went through a hard time does not mean they are out of the picture. They are still there and still capable of monitoring their own territory. Good for them.

Could it be that they're just too stupid to either are aware of international treaties or even knowing where exactly they're flying?

The Russians often forget to notify air control when entering into European airspace for example.

reply to post by Apollo44


How exactly is that “good for them” when it's a clear and extremely severe breach of the peace treaty between the two ?

Humanity4Ever
this is not an exercise, and even if it was, it's done in violation of the peace treaty.

Originally posted by FriendlyGopher
Could it be that they're just too stupid to either are aware of international treaties or even knowing where exactly they're flying?

The Russians often forget to notify air control when entering into European airspace for example.

Or Canadian airspace. I remember when a Russian bomber flew across Canada, and they are always flying near our borders and have to be escorted back. "Display of power".

reply to post by gravitational


I don't think the Israelis all that upset about this. And I'm sure they are keeping a eye on things. A lot of it has to do with the weapons smuggling from Libya, especially the portable SAMs.

www.washingtonpost.com...

The 1979 Camp David Treaty ended when the Billions the US usually handed to Egypt to calm their population every year.....were stopped.

Resulting in the Mubarak overthrow. It was US Defense/Treasury money that was propping up a friendly Egypt.


The '79 Camp David Treaty no longer exists. The money stopped.

reply to post by gravitational


The treaty is important but then again the Egyptian leadership has changed. Sinia is Egyptian territory. This is a touchy situation.

Originally posted by Ryanssuperman

Or Canadian airspace. I remember when a Russian bomber flew across Canada, and they are always flying near our borders and have to be escorted back. "Display of power".

It is one of the myths that have recently appeared in media since the Russians recommended regular long range flights. The media get it all wrong and misidentify an air defence interest zone with actual sovereign airspace. The UK media is the worst at comprehending it. The Russians are in International Airspace and not actually over Canada, the US or the UK.

You have to go back to the good old days of the Cold War for direct overflights by the Russians. For example over Shemya in the Aleutian Islands to photograph a crashed US aircraft.

The Russians are coming!

Back on topic.

The Egypt-Israel peace treaty still exits. The USAF still station U-2s in Cyprus to monitor that treaty. U-2s are regularly flown over areas such as the Sinai and information shared. The same goes for the Golan Heights and agreements with Syria and Israel to keep either side from building up forces in disputed areas.

The clue as to why the U-2 was based at RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus was always in the name of the detachment Operation Olive Harvest.

A CIA document 'The CIA and the U-2 Program, 1954-1974' compiled in 1998 has been declassified. Although parts of it are blanked out, it doesn't take much to fill in the blanks. A very interesting read even though parts of it are blanked out.

It can be found at various locations on the web by typing in the title. One link is here. Download 9.30mb

www.fas.org...

From

www.fas.org...

Originally classified Secret NOFORN. (Now UNCLASSIFIED)
Chapter 5
Page 256 and 257

The Middle East was again the cause of a Detachment G deployment in October 1973, when another Arab-Israeli war broke out. Two U-2s deployed XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (Blanked out) on 7 and 8 October 1973, to be ready for possible coverage of the conflict. Detachment G received no such tasking, however, and the last of the aircraft returned to California on 13 November.

The 1973 war did lead to the overseas deployment of Detachment G U-2s in 1974, when the CIA was tasked to monitor the Israeli-Egyptian and later the Israeli-Syrian disengagement areas. On 21 April 1974, a Detachment G U-2 with appropriate support elements arrived at XXXXXXXX(Blanked out) to conduct Operation XXXXXXXXXXX (Blanked out) Between 12 May and 28 July, the detachment conducted six overflights of the disengagement areas. During these missions the electronic warning systems of the U-2 registered numerous radar lockons, but no surface-to-air missiles were fired. On 1 August 1974, responsibility for the XXXXXXXXXX (Blanked out) missions as well as the aircraft itself came into the hands of the Air Force as part of the transfer on the entire Agency U-2 program at that time.'

Page 255 and 256 also highlights the previous CIA U-2 detachments to cover the Middle East for peace mediation. It details the involvement of President Nixon's National Security Advisor, Henry A. Kissinger and also previous CIA detachments to the blanked out operating base. You can also see the details about the earlier Detachment G deployments to the blanked out location for peace monitoring of the earlier Arab-Israeli conflicts.

TJ

Interesting thought.... Has the actual government itself changed? Is the treaty even still valid?

What sort of governmental change would cause the treaty to be invalidated?

I'm still waiting on Israel to hand Damascus it's ass for a hat after Assad's threat to burn the entire middle east starting with Israel if NATO tries to oust him. Netanyahu isn't going to just forget that threat.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000


Apparently, they have...

Just saying.