Posted on 12/05/2004 6:56:18 AM PST by Pharmboy
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Egypt sent a convicted Israeli spy home after eight years in jail and Israel released six Egyptian infiltrators Sunday in the clearest sign of a warming of relations strained by a Palestinian uprising.
Both cases had elements of the bizarre. Azzam Azzam, an Israeli Arab textile worker, was alleged to have passed messages in women's underwear soaked in invisible ink. Israel said the Egyptians detained last summer planned to hijack an army tank.
By putting the two affairs behind them, Israel and Egypt seemed to be setting the stage for closer security cooperation over Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to pull troops and settlers out of neighboring Gaza in 2005.
Shouting "I am born again," Azzam, a member of the Druze sect, crossed into Israel from Egypt's Sinai peninsula hours after six Egyptian students charged with conspiring to attack Israeli soldiers were returned home.
Jailed in 1996 in Egypt, where he worked in a joint Israeli-Egyptian textile venture, Azzam was sentenced a year later to a 15-year prison term after being found guilty of spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence service.
Azzam and Israel denied the charges which included allegations he used the invisible ink to communicate with a purported Egyptian co-conspirator.
Sharon's office hailed Azzam's release as a "personal gesture" to the prime minister by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, reciprocated by Israel's agreement to free the infiltrators it arrested in August.
"This humanitarian gesture will contribute to a strengthening of relations between Egypt and Israel," the prime minister's office quoted him as telling Mubarak.
Egypt's state news agency MENA said Azzam was freed for health reasons after serving a significant part of his sentence.
The dual release, which scored points at home for Sharon as he battles to put together a new governing coalition, also appeared to hold out an olive branch to the Palestinians.
PALESTINIAN PRISONERS
"In addition, as a gesture to Mubarak, Sharon instructed the security authorities to examine the possibility of shortening the prison terms of Palestinian prisoners," the prime minister's office said in a statement.
A prisoner release could help strengthen moderate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, favored by Israel and the United States as a potential peacemaker following the Nov. 11 death of Yasser Arafat.
The Azzam case cast a deeper shadow over what Israelis call a "cold peace" with Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab country to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state.
After the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000, relations took another turn for the worse with Egypt's recall of its ambassador in Tel Aviv.
Last August, Israeli authorities arrested six Egyptian students, aged between 21 and 25, near the desert border for crossing into Israel illegally armed with an airgun and 14 knives.
Prosecutors said the infiltrators planned to hijack a tank, kill its crew and then rob a bank to finance more attacks.
Parents of the Egyptian students have said in interviews that their sons had no political views and had gone to Israel merely to find work.
Breaking with its policy of neither confirming nor denying allegations having to do with intelligence activity, Israel insisted from the outset Azzam had no connection to its spy services.
"The injustice here was so grave, the charge so wrong, that we had to break our silence," a former Mossad official who dealt with the case told Reuters.
First Syria, then Hamas, and now Egypt? What gives? Is peace breaking out in the middle east?!?!!
Why is one Semite-Jew worth six Semites-Arab.
We need to get rid of this ratio BS.
"Why is one Semite-Jew worth six Semites-Arab"
It's based on GDP. (joking of course, but it could be true)
Due to Egypt's trying to build a facade in advance of its next war against Israel, but in part due to Arafat's death. The PLO's splinters were all under him as titular head of that whole corrupt terrorist mob. Arafat rose to the top after the 1967 and 1973 wars showed that Israel couldn't be defeated by conventional assault. Arafat's gone now, and having the PLO (Hamas, al-aqsa, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah) on the ground behind enemy lines will come in handy. Syria's president met with Egypt's just a week or so ago.
Why, yes, I have run out of my psych meds, but that's Bush's fault. [rimshot!]
Egypt Supports Killing American Gis
FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | December 3, 2004 | StevenStalinsky
Posted on 12/05/2004 6:23:41 AM PST by Moziani
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1294798/posts
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