Sinai and that easy alternative for Israelis

On Thursday, the Egyptian foreign ministry spokesperson Ahmed Abu-Zaid said in a media statement that Sinai peninsula was an Egyptian territory and that no foreign official spoke with his Egyptian counterparts about establishing a Palestinian state there ever.
The statements of Abu-Zaid came two days after Israeli minister Ayoob Kara stunned the Egyptian social media with his tweet on Tuesday.

טרמפ ונתניהו יאמצו את תוכנית נשיא מצרים אסיסי.מדינה פלסטינית בעזה וסיני.במקום ביהודה ושומרון.כך תסלול הדרך לשלום כולל עם הקואליציה הסונית. pic.twitter.com/Sb9WyUidgP

— איוב קרא (@ayoobkara) February 14, 2017

The first Druze-Israeli minister in the Israeli cabinet history said that Trump and Netanyahu should adopt El-Sisi's Plan to have a "Palestinian State in Sinai and Gaza instead of Judea and Samaria {West Bank} and that clears the way for peace with the Sunni coalition".

I know that it would be a matter of time after that the tweet that Egypt official deny that El-Sisi

The suggested so-called Palestinian state in Gaza and
part of Sinai from some Israeli website 

proposed such plan but instead two days later we find the MOFA spokesperson saying that Sinai is an Egyptian territory and that no foreign official spoke with his Egyptian counterparts about Sinai as substitute land for the West Bank.

First, it is untrue that no foreign official spoke with his or her Egyptian counterparts even historically.

In 1953 during the Eisenhower's administration, US ambassador Eric Johnston was sent to Egypt and to Jordan to discuss the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Jordan valley and in Sinai and it seems the plan failed as the Arab League rejected it along with the Palestinians.

Since then this easy alternative to solve the Palestinian refugees has been on the table for foreign diplomats as well Israelis who did not give up bringing it up in the 1960s and 1970s

In 2004, Israeli National security council chief major general Giora Eiland proposed a plan where Egypt to give 600 square kilometers to the Palestinians in Sinai whereas Israel to give Egypt 200 square kilometer in Negev desert. Needless to say, it was rejected.

In 2009, US envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross reportedly suggested this suggestion and was rejected as well.
In 2010, Israeli PM Netanyahu proposed that plan on Mubarak and the ousted president rejected it according to Mubarak's own audio leaks in 2011.

So it is untrue that resettling Palestinians was not discussed between Egyptian and foreign officials.

 Second, I wished that the denial of such outrageous claim would come from the Egyptian presidency and not from the Egyptian foreign ministry because in the end El-Sisi is involved and it is not the first time.


In September 2014, Israeli media claimed that Egypt or rather President El-Sisi promised to offer Palestinians land in Sinai Peninsula but the head of PA Mahmoud Abbas rejected the idea.
Sisi denied personally in a speech days later that he presented such offer.
In 2016, after Tiran and Sanafir scandal the Israeli journalists began to speak about Sinai as a homeland to the Palestinian state along with Gaza.

Locally in Egypt, the fact that that the buffer zone along the borders of Gaza in Egyptian Rafah "One kilometres wide and 14 long" which was made by the army in its war against terrorism has raised concerns among locals and activists that North Sinai "the most populated part of peninsula" was being emptied from its original locals for a sinister plan in the future aka a replacement for the West Bank . This conspiracy theory is popular.

There is no smoke with fire and I think what I have mentioned here simply using quick online search show you that Egyptian Sinai has been in the spot of the world as well Israeli officials as an easy alternative to solve the conflict in the Middle East.

I am afraid the world owes it to the Palestinians to solve their problem in a hard way.
Neither us, the people of Egypt nor the Palestinians will accept Sinai to be a replacement for the West bank regardless of what the governments do.

Also whether foreign officials suggested solving the Palestinian conflict by allocating Sinai to the Palestinians instead of the Western bank or some insane Egyptian official lost his mind and proposed that unacceptable suggestion even in some informal way, the world should know that the Egyptian people won't accept this.

Someone has not got the Tiran and Sanafir memo as it seems.

Speaking about Tiran and Sanafir isles, lawyer Khaled Ali filed a lawsuit against the President, PM, the ministers of interior and defense as well the Parliament's speaker demanding them to issue a presidential decree that bans the resettlement of foreign nationals in Sinai.

Ali and his team from lawyers also are demanding the President in lawsuit to suspend Mubarak's presidential decrees in 2002 and 2004 implementing the Euro-Mediterranean agreement between Egypt and EU specifically article no.69
Article No.69 of the agreement stipulates the following:

"After the entry into force of the Agreement, the Parties, at the request of any of them, shall negotiate and conclude bilateral agreements with each other, regulating specific obligations for the readmission of their nationals. These agreements shall also cover, if deemed necessary by any of the Parties, arrangements for the readmission of third country nationals. Such agreements will lay down the details about the categories of persons covered by these arrangements as well as the modalities of their readmission.
Adequate financial and technical assistance to implement these agreements will be provided to Egypt. "

Ali and his team "plus other experts in Egypt" say the underlined part speak about the resettlement of foreign nationals in our country.
I am not a legal expert but I do not see the word resettlement explicitly here and I understand "Readmission" in English means "re-entering" but again I am not a legal expert when it comes to such terms whether in English or Arabic and I have not read its Arabic version.

Nevertheless, it seems in Egypt that article means resettling foreign nationals in Egypt. It is worth to mention that it is in the part related to illegal immigration.
Also, I am not comfortable at that part speaking about adequate financial and technical assistance to Egypt.
I have too many questions about this article and that agreement now as it seems more troubling in other articles involving the privatization of public service sector.
Do not ask me how this agreement passed like that because we have not got a true parliament to review such agreement and to say its opinion for real since 1952.
Back to Sinai, again I believe the world and Israelis should forget about it as Egyptians and Palestinians won't accept any comprises.