Jobless sharks find work with Mossad

Even Jaws isn’t able to escape sketchy Middle East politics. Last week, a German tourist was killed and four Russian tourists badly mauled after a shark attacked them in Sharm El-Shiek, Egypt, in front of one of the county’s main Red Sea resorts. The Egyptian government of course jumped to the conclusion that the Mossad, the Israeli secret services, had deliberately put a shark there to reduce tourism in Egypt. Egypt obviously has a serious problem with Israel, since a claim like this makes no sense whatsoever.

The Mossad has always been seen as the world’s best intelligence agency, however, this is just the ultimate coup de grace. Not only did they train a shark to attack people in specific waters but trained it to differentiate and only attack people from the two countries that have persecuted the Jewish people more than any other. To the Egyptians, this hypothesis makes a lot of sense, “What is being said about the Mossad throwing the deadly shark [in the sea] to hit tourism in Egypt is not out of the question…” says South Sinai governor Muhammad Abdel Fadil Shousha. Israeli officials said the claims were too ridiculous to comment on.

The beach was closed for several days as Egypt called in experts to try to find out why the shark attacked these tourists. Experts reasoned that since fishing in the Red Sea has been so high, sharks have been moving closer to the shore to find food and have become more desperate to find it. They also speculated that the sharks around the beach could have become frenzied after a ship transporting livestock dumped dead sheep into the water.

Egypt also started hunting down sharks. This might make sense for another animal problem, but the Red Sea contains thousands of sharks. Also, shark populations have been dwindling for years, and are now on the endangered species list. Egyptian authorities had already killed two sharks in a matter of hours after the incident.

Egyptians have been worried about this attack since tourism brings in about 11% of the country’s gross domestic products. Already, Russian tourism to Egypt has dropped 20%. But is this really a reason for Egypt to blame nearby countries for its problems?

In 1967, Egypt and other neighboring states (known as the United Arab Republic) attacked Israel. The result was a quick and decisive Israeli victory. Could this latest claim about Mossad being implicated in the shark attack be retaliation for this humiliating defeat? It is well known that many Muslim countries despise Israel because they took over a part of Palestine (which is a Muslim country) in 1948. The fact that Israel’s main religion is Judaism also troubles the Arab world. I believe that this ludicrous claim against Israel is simple (and ineffective) revenge. Of course, if the claim made more sense, that would help.