“Neither Egypt nor Israel has the capacity to fully defuse the ticking bomb of terror in the Sinai. Which means there will be further attacks, with potentially devastating consequences.

Both sides are shackled. Israel is constrained by its aspiration to cling to the strategic peace accord with Egypt, and therefore acts only defensively in the southwestern border region. Egypt is held back by its desire not to be seen to be aiding Israel or abandoning its Islamic principles, and by its chronic and fundamental domestic troubles.

Mainland Egypt today is in a state “of complete and utter chaos,” according to Brig. Gen. (res) Shalom Harari, a member of the Institute for Counter-Terrorism and a former adviser to the Defense Ministry on Palestinian affairs. He says that citizens in Egypt proper no longer enjoy even a basic sense of security. Copts have come under mass attack, their houses burned; segments of the train track between Cairo and Aswan are stolen on a daily basis; the Saudi Arabian embassy, in the heart of Cairo, was vandalized, the life of the ambassador reportedly threatened.

‘Ever since the Tahrir uprising, the police has been stripped of legitimacy,’ Harari said. ‘Security forces are helpless even in the Nile Delta… There are 85 million mouths to feed, there is no tourism, there is no electricity. And you want them to deal with the Sinai?’”

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