Popular will vs. geostrategic pragmatism

Is this the beginning of the end for the 1979 peace accords between Israel and Egypt?

Egypt's cabinet was due on Monday to discuss growing lawlessness along the border with Israel as pressure grew for a tough response to the killing of five Egyptian security personnel that has inflamed tension between the two neighbors.

The Egyptians were killed as Israeli troops repelled gunmen who killed eight people near Israel's Red Sea resort of Eilat on Thursday. Israel said the gunmen had entered the country by crossing from Gaza and through the Egyptian Sinai.

Egypt blamed the deaths of its security personnel on Israel, said it breached their 1979 peace treaty and announced it would recall its ambassador in protest.

Israel expressed its regret for the deaths, but pressure was growing in Egypt for sterner sanctions.

A group of politicians including former Arab League head Amr Moussa and other candidates for Egypt's presidency called on Monday for the immediate return of the Egyptian ambassador, more troops in Sinai and trials in Egypt for Israelis responsible for the killings.

"Egypt after the January revolution is not like Egypt before. The corrupt, oppressive and compliant regime is gone for good," they said in a statement published in newspapers.

They described the government of former President Hosni Mubarak, who was overthrown in February, as "a strategic asset to Israel."

"It has been replaced by a strong popular will that does not know weakness or complicity and understands well how to achieve retribution for the blood of the martyrs."

Another presidential candidate called for restraint.

"Any military escalation with Israel at the current moment is stupidity given the current situation in the country," Mohamed Selim el-Awa, an Islamist, said in al-Masry al-Youm newspaper.

Hundreds protested angrily outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo at the weekend. One man who scaled the tall building to tear down the Israeli flag and replace it with Egypt's was feted as a hero by politicians and the press.

Newspapers dedicated pages of their coverage to Ahmad al-Shehat on Monday, detailing his background and describing in detail how he scaled the embassy and pulled down the flag, drawing an ecstatic reaction from the crowd.