Ha’aretz as published an article entitled “U.S. Army training Egyptians to find, destroy smuggling tunnels” which describes how Egyptian soldiers are trained by the US Army to prevent any tunnels being dug out of the open air prison of Gaza. Ha’aretz writes:

The United States Army has begun training Egyptian soldiers to locate and destroy tunnels, in an effort to improve the Egyptian army’s ability to cope with arms-smuggling from Sinai to the Gaza Strip. A second, larger group of Egyptian soldiers is also due to arrive shortly for training, which is taking place at a U.S. Army base in Texas. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is teaching the Egyptian troops how to use advanced technological equipment to find and destroy the tunnels, including instruments that measure ground fluctuations and signal that a tunnel is being dug. There has already been some improvement in Egypt’s anti-smuggling activity, said (Israeli) Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz, who heads the Military Intelligence research division.

When I read this I wondered how these soldiers would be greeted in Egypt upon their return from this training and how they would be seen once they begin to use their newly learned skills to choke their imprisoned Palestinian brothers and sisters in Gaza.

It is customary to consider the collaborators of an invading force as traitors and collaboration is usually seen as a capital offense. These Egyptians do not even have the excuse of living under an occupation and one has to conclude that they are willing collaborators of what is a war crime and, possibly, a genocide in progress. Are they denounced as such in the Arab press? Does any Muslim religious authority denounce them as apostates? Has Hamas ever stigmatized them for being traitors?