EGYPT: Change of heart

As the border with the Gaza Strip was being sealed off, the Egyptian state-owned media launched a campaign apparently seeking to overturn public sympathy for the Palestinians. Since Egypt started to regain control over its border, preventing Palestinians from coming in, newspapers have become harsh, with front-page news about Palestinians shooting at Egyptian soldiers, weapons smuggling, terrorism and reports of false currency in the Sinai and threats to national security.

The new content replaces headlines that showed sympathy with the Palestinians, stressing President Hosni Mubarak's statements that Egypt would not let the Palestinians starve. However, 10 days later, a change of heart has become crystal-clear.

Rosa al-Yousef, a state-owned paper known as the most vocal mouthpiece of the regime, has spearheaded the anti-Palestinian campaign. "Egypt is generous and patient but its patience has limits," warned a front-page headline that appeared after skirmishes the Egyptian-Palestinian borders earlier this week. The paper even questioned whether Gaza had a humanitarian crisis, hinting that Gazans were well-off.

"It is not true that the siege imposed on Gaza caused a serious humanitarian crisis that eventually led to the Palestinian flood [into Egypt]," wrote Abdullah Kamal, Rosa-al-Yousef's editor-in-chief and a staunch proponent of Mubarak's regime. "Each [Gazan] comer spent an average of US$260 in three days....the total spending during that period [where the Gazans broke through Egypt] reached US$ 220 million. These figures raise real questions about the financial situation in the Gaza Strip."

— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo

Comments

[Josh Geller]

I think that as long as they are shooting at Israelis, the Israelis are going to respond. It is interesting that there does not seem to be too much trouble in the West Bank right now: is it a coincidence that the Palestinians on the West Bank are not shooting missiles into Israel?

[Daniel Remler]

I wish the European media would read Egypt's own state media and realize what Israel has been saying for months now: that to whatever extent any "hardship" actually exists in Gaza, it is SELF IMPOSED (by Hamas, not the Palestinian on the street). Hamas has purposely stolen gas meant for their own hospitals so that they can later claim "look, our own hospitals are being forced to shut down due to those terrible Israelis!" -- this was widely reported by the way. Then there are the lesser ways in which Hamas rapes their own people: imposing heavy taxes or "protection" payments. The list goes on. The Gazans unfortunately elected a bunch of thugs and are now paying the price.

[Judith]

I am worried that some Americans actually imagine after all the reporting available via human rights groups and the UN and the serious press, that Gazans are really not under a real and dreadful economic and military seige by Israel and its combined armed forces (land, air). That many Gazans brought money to spend in Egypt precisely shows that they can't use it in or from Gaza, with all avenues to acquire goods and to trade cut off, including international banking (the US governnment has put all sorts of pressures on central banks, Arab banks etc to make transfers impossible). But you start having to invent some weird nonsense when your trusty leaders blow the trumpet for the indefensible, like this sickening mediaeval seige.

[david singer]

The 57 Moslem States comprising the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has been very silent at the action taken by one of its members - Egypt - to hermetically seal its border with Gaza.

The OIC was founded in 1969 to “preserve Islamic spiritual, ethical, social and economic values, which will remain one of the important factors of achieving progress for mankind"

What such values are being demonstrated by the decision to lock up the Gazans in their prison again?

Surely the humanitarian message of the open border was clear - many Gazans relished the opportunity to escape - briefly or permanently - from what is no doubt a disastrous and oppressive environment.

Whilst hundreds of millions of Moslems in OIC member States enjoy the right to migrate, Gazans have now apparently been denied the same right by their own Moslem brethren.

UNICEF states that 56 percent of Gazans are under the age of 18 years and that they are bearing the brunt of restrictions in Gaza. How can the IOC actively countenance the continuation of this disgraceful situation and not seek to promote the opportunity for Gazans to choose a better life - either by resettlement in any of their 57 member states or elsewhere of their choosing?

Should the OIC not be pressing Egypt to allow Gazans to be given the opportunity of migrating through Egypt to find a more peaceful and prosperous future for themselves and their children?

The Gazans - for the umpteenth time in their wretched history over the past 60 years - are once again being gazumped by their Moslem and Arab brothers. Will anything or anyone ever be able to save them?