Egypt 'enraged' at Hamas, Syria, Iran

On Friday morning, I reported that Hamas is considering firing their Egyptian 'mediators' in the 'negotiations' to trade kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit for 'hundreds' (if not more) of 'Palestinian' terrorists, and hiring the Germans as 'mediators' instead. As a Hamas 'spokesman' put it:

"The main reason why the deal with Hizbullah succeeded was because the German mediator was objective and fair," the Hamas editor wrote. "The Egyptian mediators conducting the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel are not honest. The Egyptians are trying to fulfill Israel's demands by exerting pressure on the Palestinians and exploiting their bad conditions resulting from the siege."

As you might imagine, according to 'Palestinian Authority' 'security officials,' the Egyptians were not too pleased at Hamas' comments.

The Egyptians, according to the PA security officials, have voiced anger over the statements coming from the Hamas leadership.

The Egyptians are said to be particularly enraged over allegations made by unnamed Hamas officials to the effect that Cairo was not an honest broker in the Schalit affair.

The Hamas officials were quoted over the weekend in The Jerusalem Post as accusing the Egyptians of failing to represent the interests of the Arabs in the talks with Israel over a prisoner exchange agreement.

"A serious crisis has erupted between Hamas and Egypt," the PA security officials said. "The Egyptians have even threatened to stop their mediation efforts to reach an agreement."

The Egyptians themselves more or less confirm the PA's assessment.

However, an Egyptian diplomat told the Post his country was continuing to act as a mediator between Israel and Hamas. The diplomat accused unnamed Hamas officials of "waging a smear campaign" against Cairo in a bid to "embarrass the Egyptian government."

The diplomat said Syria and Iran were working to foil Egypt's efforts by "inciting" some Hamas leaders not to trust the Egyptians. "Teheran and Damascus are unhappy with the truce agreement we achieved last month," he said. "They don't want Egypt to play any key role in the region."

What Hamas doesn't seem to get is that as distasteful and wrong as last week's 'terrorists for corpses' exchange was, one of the reasons it happened was that only five live terrorists were given up, and four of them were captured during the war two summers ago and had not necessarily perpetrated terror attacks that were targeted against innocent civilians. The four were not tried in civilians courts and were essentially prisoners of war in the traditional sense. Only Samir al-Kuntar had been tried in a civilian court on murder charges.

While there have been all sorts of hints in the media that Israel is committed to bringing back Gilad Shalit 'at any cost,' and while the government has also hinted that negotiators seeking Shalit's release will not be bound by the new standards for hostage negotiations that are being developed by a blue-chip panel appointed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, 'any cost' does not literally mean 'any cost.' The vast majority of the Israeli public will not countenance a deal in which thousands of 'Palestinian' murderers are released from jail in exchange for Shalit - even if he is alive and Goldwasser and Regev were (and were presumed to be) dead.

My guess is that what would fly here (though I believe it to be despicable and a mistake, and though I would certainly oppose it) would be a deal in which all terrorists without blood on their hands over a certain age (say 60) and under a certain age (say 16) were released, along with one or two 'marquee' names (Marwan Barghouti comes to mind, much as he's despicable scum). But if the 'Palestinians' really believe that Israel is going to give up a thousand terrorists with blood on their hands for Shalit, they're even bigger fools than Olmert, Barak and Livni.

Cross-posted to Israel Matzav.