Since the 1979 Camp David peace treaty, the US has been helping Egypt to update its armed forces and replace its Soviet bloc equipment with modern, Western military technology. Usually this does not cause much of a stir with Egypt's former foe Israel, which receives almost $2 billion in annual military aid. This time, however, Israel objected to the sale and there was a prompt outcry among some members of Congress with close ties to the Jewish state and pro-Israeli lobbyists.
"I see no compelling reason for Egypt to receive these sophisticated anti-ship missiles given that Egypt faces no formal external threat," said California Representative Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to the Washington Post. His words were echoed by powerful Senators Joseph Biden (D-Del) and Jesse Helms (R-NC). Morton Klein, head of the conservative ZOA foundation, added that they were probably going to be used against Israel. Congress was confidentially notified of the sale on November 2nd — the usual procedure followed for these kinds of sales.
The State Department has said that the deal will go through and that it is part of a long-standing cooperation between the two countries. "We have encouraged them to expand their abilities to protect shipping in the Suez, including US warships that use [the canal] a lot," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher on November 29th.
Israel's unprecedented objections to the sale are linked by experts to the growing tension between the two countries in the wake of the Palestinian intifada and the events of September 11th. Besides, several pro-Israeli groups seized on Egypt's tepid response to the US campaign against Afghanistan to initiate a campaign against Egypt on Capitol Hill. Simultaneously, an Israeli newspaper quoted a South Korean newspaper report that Egypt was also buying 24 surface-to-surface missiles from North Korea. President Mubarak himself has categorically denied this. While relations between Egypt and North Korea continue to be friendly, military cooperation apparently ended in the wake of the US-sponsored plans to upgrade Egypt's military hardware.
Egypt already has an earlier version of the Harpoon missile, which it uses to replace its old Russian Styx ship-to-ship missiles. While Egypt has been developing its small navy, so has Israel. Traditionally both countries focused on ground and air power, but this is changing. For the last ten years, Israel has been building up its naval assets by the use of domestically produced materials and purchases abroad. "They need some second strike capability," explained retired General Qadri Said, a military analyst at the Ahram Center for Strategic Studies. Having little land on which to maneuver, Israel needs a navy that gives extra offensive capability and more reach around the region. Like Egypt, it focused on smaller craft and missile boats.
The gift from Germany of three sophisticated submarines equipped with missile launchers able to deliver a nuclear payload has upped the ante. "It started a race between the two nations," said Said. "Economic pressures have limited this race, however, forcing the countries to come up with a policy that compromises between the need for new technology and available resources."
In the course of their wars with each other, the occasional naval clashes were overshadowed by massive ground and air battles in the Sinai and on the Suez Canal. Nonetheless, following the 1967 defeat, the Egyptian populace was heartened by the sinking of the Israeli destroyer Eilat by Russian-built Komar class Egyptian missile boats in October 1967, which led to a global reappraisal of the use of missiles in ship-to-ship warfare. However, the additional missiles and boats now purchased may not change the military balance between the two countries significantly, as 50 missiles would be used up quickly in any conflict.
