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Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Egyptians worried about selling land to Jews (um, "Israelis")

Palestine Today reports that Egyptian officials are concerned over recent real-estate transactions in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Warrants were issued to arrest 11 people for the illegal sale of land to "foreigners" in violation of the law. There is concern that some of the buyers were Jews, trying to skirt the law against foreign ownership, but the Egyptian government denied that.

Some 1000 resort apartments were sold.

Egyptians are concerned that this is a secret Israeli operation to buy land in Egypt with the intent of annexing it to Israel. Alternatively, according to the article, they want to purchase land in the Sinai to give them to Gazans, establishing the Sinai as "Greater Gaza."

Sharm el-Sheikh is quite far from Gaza.

One of the accused reacted angrily at the accusations, saying that "everyone hates Israel, how can they accuse us of this?"