[E-rundbrief] Info 883 - Avnery: Gaza wall and protests in Cairo and Israel

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 883 - Uri Avnery (Israel) The Iron Wall. Gaza Freedom
March, pro-palestinain protesters in Cairo, Gaza and Israel. First
anniversary of Israels war against the people of Gaza. Egypts iron wall
to complete the "Gaza-prison".

Bad Ischl, 2.1.2010

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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The Iron Wall

Uri Avnery

2.1.2010


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.

Deutsche Version auf: http://www.uri-avnery.de

-- 

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
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