the most serious diseases with few words, Dr. ElBaradei has managed to put his finger on the defects in the despotic regime that oppresses us. The conditions ElBaradei has set for fair presidential elections worthy of respect are exactly the steps our country has to take for the sake of a healthy democracy. ElBaradei has made it clear that he will not agree to play the role of an extra in a drama of rigged elections and has announced that he will join Egyptians in their struggle for justice and freedom. The appearance of ElBaradei is a major opportunity for all Egyptian nationalists and must not go to waste. We must join Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei in defending the usurped rights of Egyptians. Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to arrive in Egypt on January 15 and we all have a duty to welcome this great man with all the honor and esteem he deserves. We want to show him that his inspiring message has reached us, that we love and respect him, and that with him we will do our utmost to bring about a renaissance in Egypt and give the country the status it deserves.
Democracy is the solution.
December 13, 2009
Should Gaza Pay the Price for
Hereditary Succession in Egypt?
Since the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published the news and the United States administration confirmed it, the Egyptian government has finally admitted it is building a steel wall underground along the border with Gaza to close down the tunnels Palestinians use to smuggle in food and medicine. The smuggling is in response to the crippling blockade Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip for more than two years, to which Egypt has contributed by closing the Rafah border crossing to Palestinians. We have several observations to make:
First, 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 forever. But the legendary resistance of the Palestinians drove Israel to commit a brutal massacre in which it used weapons 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 is certain that the underground steel wall is basically an Israeli idea that the Egyptian government was reluctant to implement. But Egypt then agreed and began to build the wall, which is being constructed with American financing and under American supervision. The purpose of the wall is to kill the Palestinians literally, because it will eliminate their last chance for obtaining food.
Second, by closing the Rafah border crossing, thereby 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 toward the Muslims and Christians in Palestine are no longer considerations that 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 students shouting in his face, “Butcher of Gaza . . . child-killer.” Several western judges have issued warrants against Israeli leaders to answer charges of committing war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon. This has happened in Belgium, Norway, Spain, and recently Britain, where the British police were about to arrest former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who escaped at the last minute. It is true that most of these warrants were withdrawn because of massive Zionist pressure on western governments, but they clearly demonstrate an international mood of condemnation toward Israel that never existed in the past. The Egyptian regime, by building the wall, is not only risking its popularity in Egypt and the Arab world, which is already at rock bottom, but also staining its reputation worldwide.
Third, all the excuses the regime presents to justify building the wall would not convince a small child. It says 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 that 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. The regime says the tunnels are used for smuggling weapons to terrorists in Egypt. We say that weapons have been smuggled in from Libya and Sudan, so does the Egyptian government intend to build steel walls along its borders with all neighboring countries? If the Ministry of Interior, with its massive security apparatus, is unable to protect the borders, then what is it doing with the eight billion Egyptian pounds a year in 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 underground? 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 Palestinians if they use force to stop its construction or try to destroy it? Or isn’t that legitimate self-defense? 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 to killing hundreds of Egyptians 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 border 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 we shut off, with the steel wall, 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.
Fourth, what is driving the Egyptian regime to all this submission to Israeli policy? One factor is that the regime believes any victory for Hamas would help the Muslim Brotherhood and that 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, is not a real threat to the Egyptian regime, which always promulgates that theory in order to justify despotism. The second factor 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 Scobey, 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
