The Iron Wall
"Egypt is in a bad situation. Therefore, Mubarak has no choice but to follow
the dictates of the US - which are, in fact, Israeli dictates. That is the
real explanation for his participation in the blockade."
Uri Avnery
Gush Shalom: 02/01/10
SOMETHING ODD, almost bizarre, is going on in Egypt these days.
About 1400 activists from all over the world gathered there on
their way to the Gaza Strip. On the anniversary of the "Cast Lead" War, they
intended to participate in a non-violent demonstration against the ongoing
blockade, which makes the life of 1.5 million inhabitants of the Strip
intolerable.
At the same time, protest demonstrations were to take place in
many countries. In Tel-Aviv, too, a big protest was planned. The "monitoring
committee" of the Arab citizens of Israel was to organize an event on the
Gaza border.
When the international activists arrived in Egypt, a surprise
awaited them. The Egyptian government forbade their trip to Gaza. Their
buses were held up at the outskirts of Cairo and turned back. Individual
protesters who succeeded in reaching the Sinai in regular buses were taken
off them. The Egyptian security forces conducted a regular hunt for the
activists.
The angry activists besieged their embassies in Cairo. On the
street in front of the French embassy, a tent camp sprang up which was soon
surrounded by the Egyptian police. American protesters gathered in front of
their embassy and demanded to see the ambassador. Several protesters who are
over 70 years old started a hunger strike. Everywhere, the protesters were
held up by Egyptian elite units in full riot gear, while red water cannon
trucks were lurking in the background. Protesters who tried to assemble in
Cairo's central Tahrir (liberation) Square were mishandled.
In the end, after a meeting with the wife of the president, a
typical Egyptian solution was found: one hundred activists were allowed to
reach Gaza. The rest remained in Cairo, bewildered and frustrated.
WHILE THE demonstrators were cooling their heels in the Egyptian
capital and trying to find ways to vent their anger, Binyamin Netanyahu was
received in the president's palace in the heart of the city. His hosts went
to great lengths to laud and celebrate his contribution to peace, especially
the 'freeze" of settlement activity in the West Bank, a phony gesture that
does not include East Jerusalem.
Hosni Mubarak and Netanyahu have met in the past - but not in
Cairo. The Egyptian president always insisted that the meetings take place
in Sharm-al-Sheikh, as far from the Egyptian population centers as possible.
The invitation to Cairo was, therefore, a significant token of increasingly
close relations.
As a special gift for Netanyahu, Mubarak agreed to allow
hundreds of Israelis to come to Egypt and pray at the grave of Rabbi Yaakov
Abu-Hatzeira, who died and was buried in the Egyptian town of Damanhur 130
years ago, on his way from Morocco to the Holy Land.
There is something symbolic about this: the blocking of the
pro-Palestinian protesters on their way to Gaza at the same time as the
invitation of Israelis to Damanhur.
ONE MAY well wonder about the Egyptian participation in the
blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The blockade started long before the Gaza War and has turned the
Strip into what has been described as "the biggest prison on earth". The
blockade applies to everything except essential medicines and the most basic
foodstuffs. US senator John Kerry, former candidate for the presidency, was
shocked to hear that the blockade included pasta - the Israeli army in its
wisdom has designated noodles as a luxury. The blockade is all-embracing -
from building materials to school children's copy books. Except for the most
extreme humanitarian cases, nobody can pass from the Gaza Strip to Israel or
the West Bank, nor the other way round.
But Israel controls only three sides of the Strip. The Northern
and Eastern borders are blocked by the Israeli army, the Western border by
the Israeli navy. The fourth border, the Southern one, is controlled by
Egypt. Therefore, the entire blockade would be ineffective without Egyptian
participation.
Ostensibly, this does not make sense. Egypt considers itself as
the leader of the Arab world. It is the most populous Arab country, situated
at the center of the Arab world. Fifty years ago the president of Egypt,
Gamal Abd-al-Nasser, was the idol of all the Arabs, especially of the
Palestinians. How can Egypt collaborate with the "Zionist enemy", as
Egyptians called Israel then, in bringing 1.5 million brother Arabs to their
knees?
Until recently, the Egyptian government had been sticking to a
solution that exemplifies the 6000-year old Egyptian political acumen. It
participated in the blockade but closed its eyes to the hundreds of tunnels
dug under the Egyptian-Gaza border, through which the daily supplies for the
population were flowing (for exorbitant prices, and with high profits for
Egyptian merchants), together with the stream of arms. People also passed
through them - from Hamas activists to brides.
This is about to change. Egypt has started building an iron
wall - literally - along the full length of the Gaza border, consisting of
steel pillars thrust deep into the ground, in order to block all tunnels.
That will finally choke the inhabitants.
When the most extreme Zionist, Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky, wrote
80 years ago about erecting an "Iron Wall" against the Palestinians, he did
not dream of Arabs doing just that.
WHY DO they do it?
There are several explanations. Cynics point out that the
Egyptian government receives a huge American subsidy every year - almost two
billion dollars - by courtesy of Israel. It started as a reward for the
Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. The pro-Israel lobby in the US Congress can
stop it any time.
Others believe that Mubarak is afraid of Hamas. The organization
started out as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, still the
main opposition to his autocratic regime. The Cairo-Riyadh-Amman-Ramallah
axis is poised against the Damascus-Gaza axis that is allied with the
Tehran-Hizbullah axis. Many people believe that Mahmoud Abbas is interested
in the tightening of the Gaza blockade in order to hurt Hamas.
Mubarak is angry with Hamas, which refuses to dance to his tune.
Like his predecessors, he demands that the Palestinians obey his orders.
President Abd-al-Nasser was angry with the PLO (an organization created by
him to ensure Egyptian control of the Palestinians, but which escaped him
when Yasser Arafat took over). President Anwar Sadat was angry with the PLO
for rejecting the Camp David agreement, which promised Palestinians only
"autonomy". How dare the Palestinians, a small, oppressed people, refuse
the "advice" of Big Brother?
All these explanations make sense, yet the Egyptian government's
attitude is still astonishing. The Egyptian blockade of Gaza destroys the
lives of 1.5 million human beings, men and women, old people and children,
most of who are not Hamas activists. It is done publicly, before the eyes of
hundreds of millions of Arabs, a billion and a quarter Muslims. In Egypt
itself, too, millions of people are ashamed of the participation of their
country in the starving of fellow Arabs.
It is a very dangerous policy. Why does Mubarak follow it?
THE REAL answer is, probably, that he has no choice.
Egypt is a very proud country. Anyone who has been in Egypt
knows that even the poorest Egyptian is full of national pride and is easily
insulted when his national dignity is hurt. That was shown again a few weeks
ago, when Egypt lost a soccer match with Algeria and behaved as if it has
lost a war.
"Consider that from the summit of these Pyramids, forty
centuries look down upon you," Napoleon told his soldiers on the eve of the
battle for Cairo. Every Egyptian feels that 6000 - some say 8000 - years of
history look upon him all the time.
This profound feeling clashes with reality at a time when
Egypt's
situation is getting more and more miserable. Saudi Arabia has more
influence, tiny Dubai has become an international financial center, Iran is
becoming a far more important regional power. Contrary to Iran, where the
Ayatollahs have called upon families to limit themselves to two children,
the Egyptian birthrate is devouring everything, condemning the country to
permanent poverty.
In the past, Egypt succeeded in balancing its internal
weaknesses with external successes. The whole world considered Egypt as the
leader of the Arab world, and treated it accordingly. No more.
Egypt is in a bad situation. Therefore, Mubarak has no choice
but to follow the dictates of the US - which are, in fact, Israeli dictates.
That is the real explanation for his participation in the blockade.
WHEN I spoke today at the demonstration in Tel-Aviv, after we
had marched through the streets to protest against the blockade, I refrained
from mentioning the Egyptian part in it.
I confess that I liked the people I met during my visits to
Egypt very much. The "man in the street" is very welcoming. In their
behavior towards each other there is an air of tranquility, an absence of
aggression, a particular Egyptian sense of humor. Even the poorest keep
their dignity in crowded and often miserable conditions. I have not heard
them grumble. In all the thousands of years of their history, Egyptians have
risen in revolt no more than three or four times.
This legendary patience has its negative side, too. When people
are resigned to their lot, this may prevent economic, social and political
progress.
It seems that the Egyptian people are ready to accept
everything. From the Pharaohs of old right down to the present Pharaoh,
their rulers have faced little opposition. But a day may come when national
pride will overcome even this patience.
As an Israeli, I protest against the Israeli blockade. If I were
an Egyptian, I would protest against the Egyptian blockade. As a citizen of
this planet, I protest against both.
Uri Avnery's Column
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