Is the Sinai Peninsula rejoining the resistance?
Franklin Lamb
Beirut
The Sinai Peninsula may be in the process of joining the Arab and Islamic Resistance as this great awakening spreads inexorably across the region toppling Western imposed security states and replacing them with governments of greater popular legitimacy. This despite the fact last many view last week's events at the border with occupied Palestine as simply terrorism. Egypt and other countries in the region are contributing to righting the historic wrong done to the Palestinian people as millions around the World are employing an increasing variety of resistance strategies in solidarity with this regions central cause of liberating Palestine from the crumbling but ultra-violent Zionist colonial project.
Historically, the 23,000 sq. mile triangular Sinai Peninsula has been an area of Resistance against a series of occupiers and despots since it was joined to Egypt during in Mamluk Sultanate (1260-1517) when the Ottoman sultan, Selim the Grim, won the Battles of Marj Dabiq and al-Raydaniyya, and added Egypt to the Ottoman Empire.
Following the establishment of the Muhammad Ali Dynasty 's rule over the rest of Egypt in 1805, the Ottoman Porte, faced with increasing resistance from Sinai, transferred administration of the restive Peninsula to the Egyptian government, by this time under the control of the colonial power, the United Kingdom. The British occupied Egypt since 1882 and imposed the border in an almost straight line from Rafah on the Mediterranean to Taba on the Gulf of Aqaba which has remained the eastern border of Egypt. At the beginning of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War , Egyptian forces invaded Palestine from Sinai to support the Palestinian Resistance in their struggle against the imposed State of Israel.
Last week's Sinai operation by "terrorists in Bedouin clothing" against the occupiers of Palestine resulted in the deaths of 16 Egyptian guards protecting the Israeli border as well as several of the Fedayeen, signals again that the lawless Sinai Peninsula may be returning to its historic role in confronting colonialism on Egypt's border. The Egyptian people, if not yet fully their leaders are returning to their historic struggle to liberate Palestine and while terrorist acts occur, the historic trend appears clear.
The regime of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would purposefully undermine relationship between the Egyptian and Palestinian people. However, over the past 18 months, much of the Sinai has become more Resistance oriented, as police stations in the Sinai were dismantled, the gas line with Israel repeated severed, and Bedouin tribes and others began to stockpile weapons arriving from Libya and from Israel's black market and elsewhere. The area is becoming a major Resistance base with fighters vowing to repel any attempt by the US and Israel to retain control.
No proof positive has been proffered to support a number of claims being made regarding those responsible for the Sinai attacks and other recent attacks against Israeli installations that number more than 30 just since last year's Tahrir revolution. It may indeed be a pure act of terrorism and Zionist orchestrated "black flag' operation. The investigation is evolving.
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