An Egyptian View of the Breach

Here's what the McClatchy newspapers report:

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak risks angering the Arab world if he resorts to military force against the Palestinians, who have been hailed as heroes for breaking free from Israel's stranglehold on the Gaza Strip. However, the longer the border stays open, the greater the risk that militants can infiltrate Egypt and strengthen like-minded Islamist factions, which lead the opposition movement against Mubarak's authoritarian administration.

"It was a huge mistake by the Israelis to seal off the other crossings and create this disaster. The only beneficiary of this situation is Hamas," said a senior Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

The Egyptian official, who is privy to intelligence and high-level meetings on the crisis, said that fear of a public backlash is not the only reason a military solution is untenable. He noted that Egypt is allowed to keep no more than 750 military personnel at the border - a condition stemming from a peace agreement with Israel. A third problem, the official said, is that the breached border wall lies outside of Egyptian territory in Hamas-controlled land. That means that even if the Egyptians push back the Palestinians, they have no authority to refortify a crossing located outside of their jurisdiction.

"We don't want a more chaotic situation, clashes between the security forces and the masses," said the official. "It has to be done in a wiser way, but we can't tolerate this huge threat to our national security. You have a flood of people and you don't know who they are."