Israel warships in Suez Canal: Mountain or mole hill?

Sigmund Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. He didn't say, but could have said, that sometimes a missile frigate in the Suez Canal is just a missile frigate in the Suez Canal. We don't know if this is one of those times.

 

From Haaretz:

 Did Israel coordinate warships in Suez with Egypt? 

By Amos Harel, Anshel Pfeffer and Jack Khoury  
 
For the second time in as many weeks, two Israel Navy gunboats openly sailed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea Tuesday.

 

The move, which was apparently coordinated with Egypt, is seen as a warning message to Middle Eastern radicals, first and foremost Iran.

 

According to news agency reports, the ships that passed through the Suez Canal Tuesday were two Sa'ar 5 gunboats, the Hanit and the Eilat.

 
This follows a similar incident in late June, when an Israeli Dolphin-class submarine passed through the canal, later returning the same way. Subsequent media reports, including one on an Egyptian Internet news site, said the submarine had been accompanied by two gunships.

 

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, when asked Tuesday about the boats' passage through Suez, confirmed the report and said that Egypt's agreements with Israel permit Israeli military ships to transit the canal. He declined to speculate on whether the voyage was meant as a warning to Iran or anyone else.

 

But while Israeli naval ships have gone through Suez before, the last such occurrence was at least a year ago.

 

It therefore seems unlikely that Israel would have embarked on such a public maneuver now - the ships were easily visible from the shore - on a day when diplomats from the Nonaligned Movement were holding a conference in Egypt's Red Sea resort town of Sharm al-Sheikh, in the Sinai Peninsula - without prior coordination with Cairo.

 

Though neither side says so publicly, there is ongoing security coordination between Israel and Egypt, which could be expanded if necessary in the future.

The idea of course, is that the boats carried a message for Iran. It could be so. Actually, it seems very likely that Israel might embark on such a maneuver for the benefit of the non-aligned delegates. Egypt has to support President Obama's demands for Arab cooperation with Israel. If Egypt doesn't lead in this effort, what other Arab state would do it?

 

Ami Isseroff