Middle East: Paying the Price of Peace

It was over in seconds. As four Israeli embassy employees drove out of the International Trade Fair in Cairo, a sedan pulled alongside. A masked gunman leaned out the window and raked the Israelis’ car with automatic-weapons fire, leaving one woman dead and three others wounded in the blood-spattered vehicle. Within half an hour, a shadowy group named Egypt’s Revolution took responsibility, saying it had sent Israeli intelligence agents “to hell.”

The bloody assault came as an Israeli delegation was in Cairo to discuss the disputed Taba area of the Sinai. Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir promptly demanded that Egypt improve security for Israeli citizens, though most Israeli officials tried to minimize the impact of the shooting on already strained relations between the countries. “This is the price of peace,” said one Israeli diplomat, “and it’s better than the price of war.”