Should Gaza Pay the Price for Hereditary Succession in Egypt?
كتبهاعلاء الأسوانى ، في 31 ديسمبر 2009 الساعة: 18:43 م
Should Gaza Pay the Price for Hereditary Succession in Egypt?
By Alaa Al-Aswany
December 29, 2009
After the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published the news and the U.S. administration confirmed it, the Egyptian government has finally admitted it is building a steel wall under ground along the border with Gaza to close down the tunnels which the Palestinians use to smuggle food and medicine. The smuggling is in response to the crippling blockade which Israel has imposed for more than two years and to which Egypt has contributed by closing the Rafah border crossing to Palestinians. We have several observations to make:
Firstly, the aim of the blockade, as announced by Israel, is to wipe out the Palestinian resistance and starve the people of Gaza until they submit to Israel and accept Israel’s conditions for a final peace settlement in which the Palestinians would lose their rights for ever. But the legendary resistance of the Palestinians drove Israel to commit a brutal massacre in which it used weapons which are prohibited internationally and in which more than 1,400 people lost their lives, at least half of them women and children. In spite of the massacre and the blockade the Palestinians have not capitulated but have continued to resist valiantly, driving Israel to think of a way to strangle them once and for all. It has been established that the underground steel wall is basically an Israeli idea which the Egyptian government was reluctant to implement. But Egypt then agreed and began to build the wall, which is being constructed with American finance and under American supervision. The purpose of the wall is to kill the Palestinians literally, because it will eliminate their last chance to obtain food.
Secondly, by closing the Rafah crossing, preventing Arab and international relief convoys from reaching Gaza and then by building the steel wall to starve the Palestinians, the Egyptian government is regrettably committing heinous crimes against our brothers as Arabs and as fellow humans. Arab solidarity and Egypt’s duty towards the Muslims and Christians in Palestine are no longer considerations which count for anything for Egyptian officials, who openly ridicule them. But the Egyptian regime, in its enthusiasm to please Israel, has not taken into account that it is tarnishing its own reputation throughout the world. The Gaza massacre a year ago has already destroyed what remains of Israel’s international reputation and the voices of condemnation have grown louder in Western countries to an unprecedented extent. In October former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert went to make a speech at the University of Chicago and found himself surrounded by hostile chants by students shouting in his face: “Butcher of Gaza, child-killer”, and several Western judges have issued warrants against Israeli leaders to answer charges of committing war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon. That has happened in Belgium, Norway, Spain and recently in Britain, where the British police were about to arrest former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, had she not escaped at the last minute. It is true that most of these warrants were withdrawn because of massive Zionist pressure on the Western governments, but they clearly demonstrate an international mood of condemnation towards Israel which never existed in the past. The Egyptian regime, by building this wall, is not only risking its popularity in Egypt and the Arab world, which is already at rock-bottom, but is staining it reputation worldwide.
Thirdly, all the excuses which the regime presents to justify building the wall would not convince a small child. They say that Egypt is free to build the wall as long as it is inside Egyptian territory, overlooking the fact that the freedom of any state, by custom, logic and international law, is not absolute but restricted by the rights of others, and Egypt cannot be instrumental in starving one and a half million human beings who live next door, and then claim it is free to do as it likes. They say the tunnels are used for smuggling weapons for terrorists into Egypt. We say that weapons have been smuggled from Libya and Sudan, so does the Egyptian government intend to build steel walls along its borders with all neighbouring countries? If the Interior Ministry, with its massive security apparatus, is unable to protect the borders, then what is it doing with the eight billion pounds a year of budget money it receives from the Egyptian people? The regime is now using the slogan “Egyptian national security is a red line”. We believe in this slogan and do not contest it, but national security in our opinion starts by defining who is Egypt’s enemy. Is it Israel or the people of Gaza? If Israel is our enemy – and that is the truth – would it not be in Egypt’s national interest to support the Palestinian resistance? Didn’t anyone wonder why the Palestinians are compelled to dig tunnels under ground? It has been the only way for them to survive. Would the Palestinians be digging tunnels if Egypt opened the Rafah crossing and allowed food and medicine to reach them? When Egypt builds this wall to starve Palestinians to death, should we blame them if they use force to stop construction or try to destroy it? Or isn’t that legitimate self-defence? The officials speak much about the Egyptian officer who was shot and killed with a bullet fired from Gaza, and we too greatly regret the death of that martyr, but we also remember that there is not one piece of evidence that the bullet came from the Hamas movement and we remember that Israel by its own admission has killed several Egyptian officers and troops on the border. Why wasn’t our government angry for the sake of national security then? And where was this national security when the Israelis admitted killing hundreds of Egyptian prisoners-of-war and burying them in mass graves during war, and officials in Egypt did not take a single measure against the Israeli war criminals? Officials in Egypt say they have closed the Rafah crossing for fear of a mass influx of Palestinians into Egypt, but this is a foolish argument because what drove the Palestinians to break through the crossing was their pressing need for food. They bought with their own money what they needed from Egyptian traders and then went back where they came from. So what do we expect from the Palestinians after, with the steel wall, we shut off their last chance to live? Would anyone blame them if they poured across by the thousands, breaking through the Rafah crossing by force to escape death by starvation? This wall, besides being a heinous act and an indelible mark of shame on the brow of the Egyptian government, constitutes a real threat to Egyptian national security.
Fourthly, what is driving the Egyptian regime to all this submission to Israeli policy? There are two reasons: firstly, the regime considers that any victory for Hamas would help the Muslim Brotherhood, and this would threaten the Egyptian government. This is a big mistake, because victory for the resistance would greatly help Egypt and would not at all pose a threat to it. Besides, the Muslim Brotherhood, with its size and influence, does not pose a real threat to the Egyptian regime, which always promulgates that theory in order to justify despotism. The second reason is that the Egyptian regime knows that fulfilling Israel’s desires is the sure path to American approval. In the last few years Israel has obtained from Egypt more than it obtained after the Camp David agreements were signed – the release of the spy Azam Azam, agreements to sell gas and cement, the blockade of the Palestinians and finally this disgraceful wall. That explains America’s satisfaction with the Mubarak regime. A few days ago the U.S. ambassador in Cairo, Margaret Scobie, said she thought that democracy in Egypt was going well. This bizarre statement shows us the extent to which the Zionist lobby controls U.S. policy. The United States will remain satisfied with the despotic regime in Egypt as long as Israel is satisfied with it. After that, can Ms Scobie wonder why Egyptians hate U.S. policy and accuse it of hypocrisy and double standards?
Finally, the crime of building the wall to starve the Palestinians is not unconnected with the question of democratic reform in Egypt, since the regime agreed to build the wall because it needs U.S. support for its plan to have the President Mubarak pass on the presidency to his son Gamal. Here we see a dangerous example of the consequences of despotic rule. The interests of the regime in Egypt have truly become contrary to the interests of the Egyptian people. If the Mubarak regime was democratic it would never dare to take part in the blockade and starvation of the Palestinians. Only in democractically elected governments does the state reflect the interests of the people and the nation.
Democracy is the solution.
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يناير 1st, 2010 at 1 يناير 2010 7:05 م
a Dr. with all my due restpect to you and your opinion. Let us not confuse between Egypt as a state and Egypt as a government. Egypt as a government is run by the NDP ( EL HEZB EL WATANY). Regardless to El hezb el watany or any other party, Egypt as a state has a duty under both International Law and Domestic Law to keep protect its borders and keep them entact. I agree that Egypt may has a humanitarian obligation to facilitate the move of aid from Egypt to Gaza, but leaving the borders unchecked is a failure of Egypt to attend to its obligations to be fully aware and responsible of egypthing and everyone going into and out of its borders. Now whether it -Egypt has a border of steel wall, cement,, cotton or even elastic is another story. I am for keeping a good check on our borders, even if it means the borders should be made of out a concrete wall, It is Egypt borders that must be well checked and it is a duty under both international and domestic. law
أبريل 16th, 2010 at 16 أبريل 2010 1:31 م
Great article, thank you very much!