Opposition Grows Against Egypt-Gaza Barrier

{Iron wall} by Faris Garabet-Al Rayah newspaper-Qatar

By Adam Morrow and Khaled al-Omrani

CAIRO, Feb 22, 2010 (IPS) – Activists and opposition groups are stepping up pressure on the Egyptian government to stop constructing a barrier along the border with the Gaza Strip. Officials say the barrier will prevent cross-border smuggling, but critics say it will seal the fate of the people on the Gaza Strip.

“The Egyptian border was the only opening left to the Gazans – their only means of staying alive,” Gamal Fahmi, political analyst and managing editor of opposition weekly ‘Al-Arabi Al-Nassiri,’ told IPS.

On Feb. 13, hundreds of activists from across the political spectrum convened in downtown Cairo to protest construction of the barrier. Demonstrators held banners reading: “The wall of shame must come down” and “No to sponsoring Israeli crimes.” The same day also saw anti-wall demonstrations in Lebanese capital Beirut.

Ever since news of the barrier was first reported by Israeli daily ‘Haaretz’ late last year, officials have attempted to justify it by citing Egypt’s right to protect its national sovereignty and security.

“Egypt has the right to take whatever measures necessary to protect its borders in accordance with prerequisites of Egyptian national security,” presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said late December. “The sovereignty of Egyptian territories is sacred.”

On Jan. 25, President Hosni Mubarak declared that the barrier was intended to “protect our nation from terrorist plots.”

Despite widespread criticism of the barrier, both domestic and international, construction has reportedly continued apace.

On Feb. 14, independent Egyptian daily ‘Al-Masry Al-Youm’ quoted a worker at the construction site as saying that the barrier’s iron panels had been adjoined with steel connections. They were in the process of being sunk into the ground to a depth of 18 to 25 m, he added.

On the following day, another independent daily ‘Al-Dustour’ reported that Egypt was also building an anchorage for patrol boats on its sea border with the Gaza Strip. The new anchorage, a North Sinai security source was quoted as saying, would “enhance the work of the Egyptian patrol boats on the sea border with Gaza and prevent any attempts at smuggling by sea.”

According to Hamdi Hasan, parliamentarian for the Muslim Brotherhood opposition movement, the United States, Israel and the NATO alliance are already monitoring the Egypt-Gaza maritime border “with a mandate to intercept any boats carrying aid to Gaza. ’’This,’’ said Hasan, “is well known.”

The border barrier and anchorage are only the most recent additions to a longstanding, internationally sanctioned siege of the Gaza Strip.

After Palestinian resistance group Hamas swept democratically-held Palestinian legislative elections in early 2006, Israel sealed its six border crossings with the territory. When Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in a pre-emptive coup the following year [RB comment: rather pre-emptive to stop a coup], Egypt followed suit by sealing its own 14-km border with the coastal enclave.

In line with the U.S. and Israeli demands, Egyptian officials claimed the closure was aimed at stanching the flow of arms smuggled into the Hamas-run territory.

With Israel long in control of the Gaza Strip’s air space and territorial waters, the move served to hermetically seal the enclave’s 1.5 million inhabitants off from the rest of the world. Since then, the lack of badly needed food, medicines and fuel has brought the territory to the verge of humanitarian disaster.

Egypt’s border policy came in for particularly vehement condemnation — both at home and abroad — during Israel’s ‘Cast Lead’ assault on the Gaza Strip in late 2008/early 2009. For three long weeks — with the Palestinian death toll rising by the hundreds — Egypt maintained its strict border closure, forbidding any movement of the desperately needed humanitarian supplies.

Critics of Egypt’s border policy warn that the new barrier will represent the final nail in the embattled territory’s coffin.

“With the completion of the new border barrier, the siege on the Gaza Strip will be made airtight,” said Fahmi. “The territory will literally become the biggest open-air prison in the world.”

“Construction of this wall, which will seal the fate of the Gazan people, represents a historical crime committed by the Egyptian regime,” said Hasan. “By agreeing to build the wall, the government has signed on to U.S.-Israeli designs for the region.”

Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri, speaking late last month, said the barrier “has killed the last lifeline keeping the Gaza Strip alive after two-and-a-half years of siege.” Al-Masri added that the wall “does not serve the interests of any Arab party” and that it “only benefits the Israeli occupation.”

Critics, meanwhile, remain unconvinced by government attempts to justify the project by appealing to Egyptian “sovereignty” and “security.”

“Egypt could protect its sovereignty on the border by simply operating the Rafah border crossing, in which case the Gazans would not have to resort to smuggling tunnels,” said Fahmi. “Control of the border doesn’t need a barrier, it simply needs intelligent security procedures.”

“The government now says the wall is meant to stop weapons being smuggled into Egypt from Gaza,” Fahmi went on to point out. “But before the barrier was announced, all official statements were about arms being smuggled from Egypt to Gaza — not the other way around.”

“The government is fond of talking about Egypt’s ‘sovereignty’,” said Hasan. “But when the Israeli navy detained a Lebanese ship in Egyptian waters last summer, Egypt didn’t say a word about its vaunted sovereignty.”

Egypt’s construction of the barrier also has a political dimension. Within the last year tremendous pressure has been brought to bear on Hamas to sign an Egypt-proposed “reconciliation agreement” with the U.S.-backed Fatah movement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Hamas has until now refused to sign the agreement, which includes commitments to recognise Israel and renounce armed resistance — both of which run counter to the group’s founding principles. Egyptian officials, for their part, say the border will remain sealed until Hamas signs the proposal without preconditions.

“Egypt is building the wall to punish Hamas politically for refusing to sign Egypt’s reconciliation agreement,” Emad Gad, expert on Israeli affairs at the semi-official Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic and Political Studies, told IPS.

Late last month, Palestinian Parliamentary Speaker Aziz Al-Duweik said that inter-Palestinian reconciliation could not be forced through “unjust conditions.” Reconciliation, he said, could not be achieved through “an atrocious war on Gaza, nor by starving the Palestinian people through siege and a policy of slow death.”

“Neither can it be achieved,” he added, “by a steel wall that increases the brutality of hunger and siege.”

Rocky sediments hamper Egypt’s steel wall along Gaza borders

15/02/2010

CAIRO, (PIC)– The team that is building the Egyptian steel wall along the borders with the Gaza Strip affirmed Monday that rocky sediments caused by the heavy rains and floods that hit the region few weeks ago have hampered the work in the wall.

“The sediments have indeed changed the geology of the soil where we are working and made it difficult for us to go ahead with the construction in that area that we believe is full of tunnels used by the Palestinians to bring food into the besieged Strip”, one of the project consultant engineers, who preferred not be identified, said in a statement to the PIC.

“The project management has decided to temporary suspend the work in the wall due to the heavy rains and flood that swept the area a few weeks ago, but when we decided to resume the work we were surprised with the hard sediments that made it difficult for us to penetrate more than four meters”, confirmed the consultant.

He added that the Egyptian government decided to form a team of Egyptian and foreign geologists to examine the problem and to find solutions before they continue the construction.

The Palestinian people said that the wall, once completed, would suffocate the Gaza Strip where more than 1.5 million Palestinians are living after the Israeli occupation sealed off all crossing points of Gaza from the north and the east while Egypt closed the Rafah crossing point from the south.

In the same context, tens of Egyptian activists and syndicate members organized a sit-in in front of the journalists syndicate to protest the siege on Gaza and construction of the steel wall.

The activists held placards demanding the immediate halt of the construction, and urging the Egyptian authorities to release Majdi Hussein, the Egyptian journalist who was sentenced to a two-year imprisonment term for entering the Gaza Strip through tunnels to show solidarity the people of Gaza.

They also chanted slogans urging the Egyptian authorities to stop exporting Gas to the Israeli occupation and to prioritize the Egyptian people with that Gas. Large numbers of Egyptian citizens were seen standing in long lines waiting to buy a cylinder of gas for coking.

Abdul Aziz Al-Husseini, one of the sit-inners, said that most of the public opinion surveys held around the steel wall showed that the great majority of the Egyptian people were against the construction of the wall, so, “in whose interest the Egyptian government is going ahead with the construction of the wall?”.

Egyptian steel wall along Gaza borders almost completed

{Iron wall} by Umayyah Jiha

07/02/2010

CAIRO, (PIC)– The Egyptian authority was about to complete the steel wall it was erecting along its borders with the besieged Gaza Strip despite the waves of condemnation to that wall, sources told the PIC.

Eyewitnesses revealed that at least 45 trucks loaded with steel boards have arrived at the construction area, and that the construction of the wall south and north of Rafah city was totally completed leaving small portion along the Salahuddin axis not finished yet.

In Cairo, the administrative court decided to adjourn to the 16th of this month the ruling on a petition filed by ambassador Ibrahim Yusri questioning the legality of the barrier and urging an immediate halt to the construction.

Big numbers of Egyptian intellectuals and national figures joined their voice with Yusri drawing the support of more than 172 activists, including six foreigners among others backing Yusri’s move.

According to Yusri’s petition, the wall violates international law that organizes relations between countries, in addition to breaching the Hague basis and the articles of the fourth Geneva convention.

Cairo ignored religious edicts issued by respected Muslim scholars forbidding the construction of the wall.

86 Muslim scholars issue fatwa against Egypt’s steel wall

26/01/2010

CAIRO, (PIC)– 86 Muslim scholars on Monday issued a fatwa prohibiting the closure of the Rafah border crossing and the building of Egypt’s steel wall, stressing that the fatwa (religious edict) issued by Al-Azhar scholars regarding the wall is incorrect and religiously invalid.

In a statement signed by them, the scholars said that Egypt’s closure of Rafah crossing and its building of a steel wall on its borders with the impoverished Gaza Strip tighten the noose around the Muslim Arab people of Gaza in compliance with Zio-American dictates.

The scholars underlined that when Al-Azhar institution legalized the crime of building this wall, it turned against its noble message and fabricated an opinion beyond Islam.

They added that Al-Azhar fatwa was not based on research papers and was not discussed at length, noting that Al-Azhar institution did not invite all its members when it stated its opinion on the wall.

This fatwa, according to the scholars, is against the religious texts that oblige Muslims to support their brothers whose lands are occupied.

The signatories to the statement are Salahuddin Sultan, a professor of sharia science at Cairo university, Awad Al-Qarni, a noted Saudi scholar and academic, Dr. Ahmed Al-Raisuni, an expert at the international Islamic Fiqh academy, and a number of members of the international union of Muslim scholars.

In the same context, Dr. Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian legislative council (PLC), strongly denounced Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak for blatantly vowing to continue the building of the steel wall along Gaza borders.

“Did not Mubarak say that he would not starve Gaza people? Does he intend through building this wall not to starve them as he said,” Dr. Dweik questioned in a statement to Al-Quds satellite channel.

Mubarak had lashed out in a speech on the anniversary of the Egyptian police day at all those who opposed the building of the wall and described it as an act of sovereignty.

Experts: Egypt’s wall will destroy Gaza’s aquifer

{Egypt (cork)-Gaza (bottle) by Nidal Deeb

January 17, 2010

Gaza – Ma’an– Experts in Gaza determined on Sunday that Egypt’s underground steel wall will lead to the destruction of Gaza’s aquifer, during a symposium entitled The Metal Wall between Egypt and Gaza: Impacts, Environmental and Human Consequences, held in Gaza.

Experts and specialists called on universities and research centres to partake in studies of the impact of Egypt’s steel wall on the Gaza border.

Underwater storage and soil erosion

Water expert Nezar Al-Weheidi noted that the metal wall threatens Gaza’s underground water storage system and will cause the destruction of the aquifer, resulting from pollution. This, in turn, will have devastating environmental, economic and social impacts for both Egyptians and Palestinians, namely the destruction of drinking wells and those used for agriculture and other industries.

Extensive digging could lead to salt water being pumped underground, causing soil to collapse. This Al-Weheidi warned, could lead to the collapse of buildings in Rafah. The tunnels, he said, would contribute to flow of salt water.

Destruction to the aquifer

Abed Al-Fattah Abed Rabu, lecturer in Environment Sciences at the Islamic University said “the metal wall, between 20 to 30 meters deep underground, will obstruct the flowing of water in the joint aquifer between Sinai and Gaza, threaten the aquifer which is already suffering from many problems including lack of water, pollution and mismanagement.”

“Construction of the wall will contribute to contaminating the aquifer due to soil weakness and inconsistency which, in turn, will contribute to the deterioration of the quality of water. This will lead to an increase in the poor state of local environment and will affect the health and environmental conditions of those in Gaza.”

Economic ramifications

Mu’een Rajab, economist for Al-Azhar University noted that “halting work in the tunnels will prevent the local markets from having access to products that are coming through tunnels, such as supplies of food and construction materials. This would reduce the development of the local markets – an issue that will contribute to a grave economic recession.”

“In such a situation, Gaza will have a black market with a lot of goods including necessities with skyrocketing prices and infinite queues.”

More than 30,000 workers would lose their jobs, Rajab estimated, increasing the rate of unemployment.

The role of the media

Samir Hamtu, a journalist specialist in Palestine stated that media outlets must take a professional line in dealing with the consequences of the wall’s construction, by focusing on the human, geographic and demographic aspects of this issue, instead of launching campaigns that will lead to a rise in tension between Palestinians and Egyptians.

Hamtu urged media outlets to play an important role in relaying the opinions and points of view of both sides affected by the wall.

“The most important issue is to focus on urgently opening the border crossings and ending the siege without escalating tensions which would harm the interest of the Palestinians.”

Mubarak’s Iron Wall

{Security needs} by Yazed 'Alya- Al Sabeel newspaper-Jordan

By Jeremy Salt, source

Early in the 20th century the Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky wrote of the ‘iron wall’ that would have to be built between the settlers and the indigenous people of Palestine, whom he knew would resist the attempt to take their land to the end. What he meant by an ‘iron wall’ was the force the Zionists would have to use to subdue the Palestinians if they were to take their land. He did not actually mean a wall according to the dictionary definition of such a structure but that is what has now been built across the West Bank to pen the Palestinians up like the wild animals the Israeli historian Benny Morris says they are.

Indeed, the Palestinians have been ghettoised by a variety of walls and ‘fences’. There is the monstrous ‘separation ‘ wall weaving in and out of the rapidly disappearing ‘green line’ separating Palestinian land which had been occupied before the 1967 war from that which was occupied during it. The Gazans live in what has been described as the world’s largest open air prison. It could also be likened to a game reserve. Every season is open season and no weapon is banned. The Gazans are enclosed by the sea on one side, patrolled by the Israeli navy so that that fishing boats cannot get out and relief boats cannot get in. They face an Israeli fence on two other sides and a concrete barrier on the border with Egypt. This is now being reinforced by Husni Mubarak’s ‘iron wall’ of steel plates driven deep underground, destroying the tunnels through which Gazans have been supplied with desperately needed food, fuel and medicine.

Choked since the beginning of the blockade in 2006, the Gazans are now to be throttled by international decree. This is the crime being committed by Israel, the US and Egypt, with the ‘international community’ lining up behind them with expressions of understanding of the need for the Gazans to be punished. Their torment is one of the great scandals of our age. They have been locked up in the strip for the past sixty years. They have been massacred and bombarded from the beginning.

People forget if they ever knew that the majority of Gazans are not native to this part of Palestine. They were driven there by Zionist militias in 1948. The attacks on civilians ordered by David Ben-Gurion in the 1950s and the massacres organised by Ariel Sharon in the 1970s lie buried under the weight of more murderous attacks. In the last two decades the Gazans (and Palestinians elsewhere) have been subjected to ‘targeted assassinations’ (i.e. premeditated murder by a state) and the destruction by land, sea and air of schools, apartment blocks and government buildings. The killing of children reached its apogee (or should we assume worse is yet to come?) during the onslaught of December 2008-January 2009 when more than 400 were killed, blown to bits in artillery and air assaults and shot dead by snipers. These children had to die so Ehud Olmert could prove he was a tough guy. They had to die because the blockade imposed in 2006 after the election of the Hamas government had not brought the Palestinians to their knees.

The ‘international community’ does not mean you or me. It means Gordon Brown, Nicholas Sarkozy, Angela Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and numerous other politicians lining up to defend Israel no matter what it does. They could understand why Israel had to attack Gaza in 2008. It was all those tunnels and all those rocket attacks that were the source of the problem and not 60 years of occupation. They could understand why Israel had to attack Lebanon in 2006, killing about the same number of people as they killed in Gaza three years later, although one or two of the fainthearted may have murmured ‘disproportionate’ as the newspapers published photographs of the bodies of children being lifted out of destroyed buildings. They are so understanding of Israel that Gordon Brown is promising to protect Israeli government ministers and military commanders from war crimes prosecution by changing the law. They are so understanding of Israel that the US Congress is going to close down Arab media outlets Israel does not like. They are so understanding of Israel that they can perfectly understand why it might have to launch air attacks on active nuclear installations in Iran. They are so understanding of Israel that they think the Goldstone report on Israeli war crimes (including the bombing of UN buildings and Gaza’s main hospital) and crimes against humanity in Gaza is unbalanced and unfair.

They don’t understand why the Gazans are firing home-made missiles into Israel in response to massacres, targeted assassination and the destruction of infrastructure including sewage and water works. They are appalled. ‘Violence is not the way’. They say it all the time. The phrase rolls off Tony Blair’s tongue like softened honey. Violence is not the way unless it is Israeli violence, or their own violence, delivered daily in Iraq and Afghanistan, with Yemen coming up as a new target in their ‘war on terrorism’. This violence does not appeal them all. Of course they are shocked by the war dead, but the war dead are their soldiers who have been killed and not the vast number of civilians killed by the war machine of which these soldiers are part. The ‘deaths’ of hundreds of thousands of civilians in these countries in the last two decades is merely tragic or unfortunate. The torture of others, or their removal to third world countries so they can be tortured there is something they simply don’t talk about.

Now we have Mubarak’s steel wall. The ‘international community’ understands why it has to be built. Israel is facing an existential threat from these tunnels. If the Gazans behave, if they hand back their captured Israeli soldier, if they accept Israel’s ‘right’ to exist on their stolen land, if they accept that they have no right to go back to it, if they accept whatever demand Israeli makes, if they accept that Israel has the right to attack and they have no right to defend themselves, with the paltry weapons they have, then of course the blockade will be lifted and they can have a bit more food and medicine depending on how they behave themselves. Along with the steel wall shutting off the Palestinians is another wall Israel is going to build with Egypt’s consent along the Auja pocket, formerly a demilitarized zone seized by Israel decades ago.

Mubarak is not Egypt. The will of the country is not represented in his parliament and his government. He is a rented president, a president for the US and Israel, not for his own people. He is as much an extension of the US government as the company known as Blackwater until the murder of civilians by its contractors in Iraq caused such a scandal that it had to change its name. Mubarak is a contractor. He helps to run the Middle East for the US. Egypt is his responsibility and those who would get in his way, Muslim activist or secular liberal, he crushes.

Were fair elections to be held in Egypt, Mubarak and his National Democratic Party would be finished. On the question of Palestine, whatever their other differences, there is no difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and the secular opposition parties and movements. Outside the ranks of Mubarak’s party there is no support for the actions he has taken, including his recent prevention of the Viva Palestina convoy from delivering aid to Gaza. The Egyptian people are with the Palestinians and amongst them there is a deep sense of shame at what Mubarak is doing. This is the country of the revolution of 1952, the staunch defender of the Palestinians, of the Third World struggle against imperialism and colonialism, turned into a humiliating dish rag by the west’s satrap in the presidential palace in Cairo.

– Jeremy Salt is associate professor in Middle Eastern History and Politics at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Previously, he taught at Bosporus University in Istanbul and the University of Melbourne in the Departments of Middle Eastern Studies and Political Science. Professor Salt has written many articles on Middle East issues, particularly Palestine, and was a journalist for The Age newspaper when he lived in Melbourne.

Pakistani clerics slam Cairo for constructing steel wall with Gaza border

11/01/2010

LAHORE, (PIC)– Noted Pakistani Islamic scholars joined their counterparts elsewhere in the Muslim world to condemn Cairo for constructing a huge metal and concrete wall along its border with Gaza which will literally choke the Palestinians to starvation and death.

The religious clerics from a wide spectrum of Muslim schools of thought came down harsh upon Cairo which, they said, had been acting as a mere stooge in the hands of Washington and Tel Aviv. They called upon Muslim Ummah to rise up to this occasion calling for their urgent help in the name of Muslim brotherhood and Islamic principles of helping out the oppressed.

Many Pakistani clerics and religious groups will be holding protest meetings in the coming days to condemn Cairo’s move, while some of the big institutions like Jamia Ashrafia, the largest religious seminary affiliated with Deobandy school of thought in Lahore, already held meetings condemning Cairo for such a blatant violation of Islam and demanding immediate reversal of the decision.

Cairo has already completed initial phases of 10 kilometers long wall which will also go down 50 to 60 feet into the ground to cut off the tunnels which Tel Aviv accuses Palestinians of using to smuggle arms along with the food supplies into Gaza. Despite that Cairo has practically shut its border crossings with Gaza for last few years under Tel Aviv’s demands; this porous border was the only available link of Gaza with the outside world since Israel constructed a similar wall on the boundaries of Gaza with the occupied lands, turning the area into a literal prison camp.

Noted cleric and chairman Royat Hilal (Moon Sighting) Committee, Mufti Munibur Rehman said Cairo’s move could provide Israel a fresh license for a renewed spate of Palestinians’ genocide which, God forbid, could result into complete wiping out of Palestinian Muslims from the face of the world besides turning entire Palestine into Israel.

Talking to Palestine Information Centre [PIC], the head of Pakistan’s official moon sighting committee, said the Egyptian wall could prove more disastrous than those of Israel and Germany since it could change the geography of the world on a large scale. Terming the wall against Islamic principles of Muslim brotherhood and helping the oppressed, he wondered why Cairo cited a flimsy argument like national security for clamping prison like restrictions on 1.5 million Palestinian Muslims languishing under extreme Israeli-Egyptian blockade for the last many years that caused deaths to thousands of patients, infants and other Palestinians.

Mufti Munib, who is also the head of the board governing seminaries belonging to Barelvi school of thought, noted that Cairo had always been acting as US-protégé since the signing of Camp David accord, carrying out Washington’s agenda in the region.

He said besieged Gaza people never threatened Egyptian security though they managed to smuggle small amounts of food, milk and medicines etc. through Egyptian borders in their attempts to ward off serious scarcity of vital supplies.

“Cairo’s move to construct Israel-like wall against Palestinians is heart-rending for entire Muslim Ummah, and we in Pakistan are so deeply grieved that we don’t have words to condemn Mobarak administration,” said Hafiz Fazl-e-Rahim, head of Jamia Ashrafia, Lahore, while talking to Palestine Information Centre.

He said Cairo not only turned against fellow Muslims but also betrayed Allah Almighty for giving away the first Qibla (House of worship) of Muslims to the enemies literally in a platter, instead of waging jihad for its recovery.

Maulana Abdul Maalik, noted scholar and president Jamiat Ittehad-ul-Ulema, termed Cairo’s wall as anti-Islam, anti-humanity, and serious violation of the rights given by Islam, besides the ‘much talked-about’ fundamental human rights. He said such a move that allowed enemies of Islam to commit mass murders of Muslims was highly condemnable and entire Ummah should raise voice against it.

Maulana Abdul Maalik equated Cairo’s move with Islamabad’s U-turn on Afghan policy providing vital support to US forces to overthrow Taliban’s Islamic regime in Afghanistan in the wake of 9-11. “Hosni Mobarak’s action is similar to the strategic and logistic support given by Gen Pervez Musharraf to the US forces invading Afghanistan resulting into massacre of over a million fellow Muslims,” he said.

Maulana Abdul Maalik also slammed the religious edict issued to Cairo by Egypt’s largest Islamic university, Jamia Al-Azhar, justifying the construction of wall on the plea of national security. He said any edict allowing committing blatant violations of Quran, Sunnah and Islamic principles of brotherhood, besides the ‘world known’ human rights, has no value in the eyes of Muslim scholars, since anything like that is believed to have been issued under government pressure.

Noted Shia scholar, Allama Abdul Jalil Naqvi, said Cairo’s vital help in likely massacre of millions of Palestinian Muslims was a source of great shame on entire nation. In an interview with the PIC, the leader of the largest religious party of Shia sect in Pakistan said Egypt had always been a partner in Israeli and US genocide of Palestinians despite serious protests by Muslim Ummah. Cairo’s latest move to construct iron wall in a similar fashion as built by Israel on the remaining boundaries of Gaza is nothing but pure enmity of Islam, he said.

Naqvi wondered under what Shariah Al-Azhar justified and aided Israeli plans of wiping out entire Palestinian population of Gaza. He said Al-Azhar appeared to be working under the slavery of Cairo rulers instead of Allah Almighty.

The shameless lies of Mubarak’s official media

{Iron wall (aka Wall of Death or wall of shame)...} by Naser al Ja'fari-Arab Today newspaper-Jordan

Editorial, PIC

The state-run media in Egypt is shamelessly indulging in wild lies about Hamas’s efforts to break the cruel blockade being clamped on more than 1.6 million Palestinians seeking freedom and food.

The largely-stupid propaganda would have us believe that Hamas is threatening Egypt, causing the blockade of Gaza to persist, working with Iran to destabilize Egyptian security, and so on and so forth.

Well, this is the classical way tyrannical regimes behave when they face bankruptcy in terms of their relations with their masses. People simply stop believing the lies of the regimes as is the case now all over the Arab world.

In fact, however, the main reason behind the Egyptian media attacks on Hamas is because the Palestinian Islamic movement is refusing rather stubbornly to surrender to Israel and the U.S. as Egypt had done more than three decades ago when the Egyptian leadership accepted an arrangement barring the Egyptian armed forces from accessing the bulk of the Sinai peninsula.

Another reason has to do with Hamas exposing the naked Egyptian collaboration and collusion with the cancerous Zionist entity against the forces of resistance and freedom in the Arab world.

It is unfortunate indeed that the state media in the largest Arab country has stooped to this level of incivility, indecency and mendacity.

Could it really be that the thoroughly-starved people of Gaza, who are languishing under a criminal siege unprecedented since the Second World War, pose a threat to Egypt?

This is a question that honest-minded people are even refusing to consider given its brazen silliness and manifest vacuity. When a lie is too big, serious people scoff at it, probably with a smile.

With this in mind, it seems that the autocratic Egyptian regime is sensing a different threat coming from the small coastal enclave called Gaza. It is terrified by the prospects of its 80-million masses contracting the disease of freedom from across the border. That is the real reason behind this outburst of rabid propaganda against Hamas, a freedom movement that has given the word dignity a new meaning.

As we all know, the Egyptian regime worships itself and is planning to stay in power until its natural, e.g. biological end. This is the regime’s ultimate goal and strategy. This is why the entire country and its means, resources, and potentials are being utilized to sustain the regime for as long as possible.

Some say that Egypt has never witnessed a regime so despotic and so morally bankrupt since the era of the Pharos.

Of course, the Egyptian media are nothing more than mouthpieces for Mubarak, the American-Israeli puppet tyrant who has morphed Egypt from a decent, civilized country into a mere fiefdom for himself and his family. They are Mubarak’s barking dogs, with no freedom or independence of their own to think for themselves.

And in case these parroting mouthpieces try to display a modicum of free-mindedness and rationality, they will be abruptly sacked from their jobs or hounded by the ferocious dogs of al-Amn al markazi (Internal Security) whose main job is to suppress and repress the people of Egypt and keep the regime in power.

I really don’t want to dignify the Mubarak’s propaganda machine’s canards against Hamas by commenting on them or refuting them.

They, are very much like what the Quran says in Surat al Araf (Heights), verse 175 “His similitude is that of a dog: if you attack him, he lolls out his tongue, or if you leave him alone, he (still) lolls out his tongue.”

A brief look at the situation in Egypt today reveals a dilapidated country resembling a hapless police state where the state is even unable to provide sufficient food, especially bread, for its citizens. It is a state where every sector is collapsing, including industry and agriculture, all because serving Egypt is actually not on the agenda of the regime whose main, if not only, strategy is remaining in power.

We all remember that this regime has been collaborating with Israel against the people of Gaza. Well, didn’t the former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni declare the war on Gaza in December, 2008, during a press conference with her Egyptian counterpart Abu al Gheit?

Moreover, hasn’t Egypt been trying to perfect and complete the Israeli siege of Gaza by preventing the people of Gaza from accessing food and other vital consumer products on the Egyptian side of the borders?
This treasonous policy, which is now manifesting its brutal ugliness once again by building this shameful steel wall, with American and French aid and presumably with behind-the-scene Israeli supervision, constitutes a national blasphemy, to say the very least.

And now the disgraced regime is instructing its parroting media, even its hypocritical Sheikhs, to vilify Hamas, as if Hamas were responsible for all the ills of Egypt and sins of the bankrupt Mubarak regime.

Well for what? For defending the Arab and Muslim honor and refusing to surrender to Jewish murderers and terrorists? For standing up to the Israeli army while a neighboring Arab-Muslim country with 80 million people and a strong army looking on as if all the massacre were happening on a different planet?

Or perhaps for having the guts to win the elections in occupied Palestine in 2006 which the Egyptian regime viewed as constituting a looming danger that could awaken the dormant Egyptian masses and make them rise up against the tyrannical regime which torments and impoverishes Egypt on Israel’s behalf and in order to serve the interests of the United States?

I don’t know what is the ultimate price that the Egyptian and Palestinian peoples have to pay so that Mubarak and his cohorts remain in power?

The obscenely ugly equation is very simple. In order for Mubarak and his son Jamal to stay in power, he has to have a permanent certificate of good conduct from Israel and the U.S.

But Mubarak can’t obtain such a certificate, saturated with disgrace and perfidy, without pacifying and repressing the Egyptian masses and killing and starving the Palestinians across the borders.

And since Mubarak lacks the national credentials of a dignified Arab or Muslim leader, he sees nothing wrong in shamefully submitting to the Israeli-American conditions for obtaining the certificate of “good” conduct.
Hence, the shameless surrender and disgraceful capitulation to Israel.

It is really very hard to give the venomous lies being disseminated by the Egyptian regime’s media concerning Hamas any modicum of weight, respect or credibility.

The Egyptian regime has accused the leaders of Hamas, among other things, of living in ivory towers.! Yes, living in ivory towers, while Palestinian victims of Israeli criminality are living in tents?

Well, but who colluded with Israel against the Gazans in the first place? Who conspired with Israel to shut off Gaza from the West while Israel does the same from the east? Let the Egyptian regime look itself in the mirror to see its ugliness.

Besides, the Leaders of Hamas have always been living the life of a suspended martyr, with one foot outside the grave and the other foot inside it.

Many of them have been martyred while others have had their beloved ones, e.g. sons, fall in battlefield against Jewish terrorists and murderers. The list of these heroes is very long, indeed.

This is certainly at variance with Mubarak’s son who has been stealing the wealth of Egypt, taking advantage of his father’s corrupt dictatorship.

In truth, the Egyptian regime, or any other tyrannical Arab regime, is in no moral position to attack or lecture Hamas, a movement which is unlike these regimes has earned its survival by refusing to give in, even in the face of the imminent danger of death.

“Israel” to build wall along Egyptian border

January 11, 2010

Bethlehem – Ma’an/Agencies – Israel approved on Sunday the construction of a barrier along its border with Egypt, Israeli media reported on Monday.

“I took the decision to close Israel’s southern border to infiltrators and terrorists. This is a strategic decision to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement.

In recent weeks, the number of African migrants detained by Egypt whilst trying to enter Israel has increased. On Sunday, Egyptian security sources revealed that security forces thwarted two attempts by African migrants to enter Israel through Egypt’s Sinai border. Many have been shot dead at the border by Egypt.

“We cannot let tens of thousands of illegal workers infiltrate into Israel through the southern border and inundate our country with illegal aliens,” Netanyahu added.

Israel’s border with Egypt spans approximately 266 kilometers and the new wall is tipped to cost Israel more than 270 million US dollars, taking two years to complete. The new wall will be accompanied by advanced security and monitoring installations.

Egypt’s steel wall

Meanwhile, Egypt began constructing a steel wall along the border that will extend underground in an attempt to cut off a network of smuggling tunnels. The tunnels are a lifeline for Palestinians living under an Israeli-led blockade.

In December, Egyptian government workers constructing the massive metal barrier along the Egypt-Gaza border came under fire from Palestinian gunmen according to Egyptian security sources.

The presence of Gaza’s smuggling tunnels, which were constructed to attempt to ease the ongoing siege, is deemed a focal security concern for both Israel and Egypt.

In part, Israel’s Operation Cast Lead last winter aimed at collapsing and destroying the industry, which the Israeli army has termed “terror tunnels.”

Egyptian authorities regularly report shutting down smuggling efforts which include the transfer of cigarettes, bottled water, and fuel into Gaza.

On Friday, following an airstrike, the Israeli army dropped leaflets across southern and northern Gaza, warning residents to “take responsibility for their future.”

“Terrorists, tunnel owners, and the smugglers of military equipment know for certain that the continuation of terrorist attacks, the smuggling of military equipment, and the digging of tunnels will be targeted by the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], but they continue to work in your residential areas and seek refuge among you,” according to the flier, which was written in Arabic.

Israeli airstrikes on the rise in Gaza

Meanwhile, three Palestinians affiliated to the Islamic Jihad movement were killed in Israeli airstrikes overnight in central Gaza. Islamic Jihad leader Khalid Al-Bashta has warned that all signs point to a new Israeli operation in the besieged coastal strip. Israel is seeking international support for such an operation, he claimed.

Netanyahu said in his weekly cabinet meeting that “Last week 20 rockets and mortar rounds were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip. I regard this very seriously.”

“The IDF responded immediately; it attacked missile producing factories in the Gaza Strip and tunnels through which Iran smuggles missiles and rockets into the Strip. The Government’s policy is clear: Any firing at our territory will be responded to strongly and immediately.”

Will Egypt’s underground wall end the Gaza tunnel trade?

by Lina Attalah, The Electronic Intifada, 8 January 2010

Driving parallel to the borderline between Egypt and Gaza, one can spot the machinery behind the conspicuous wall construction project meant to stop ongoing smuggling through underground tunnels.

Some 80 meters away from the borderline, there were two cranes and a spiral driller. Four trucks loaded with sand and two with iron panels had just arrived on site. The usual silence of the borderland is broken by the sounds of this equipment and the few workers around them. People in the area say the wall will be dug between 18 and 25 meters deep and will extend all the way between the Egyptian-controlled Rafah and the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossings with Gaza.

The wall is meant to hack the tunnel structures, which extend from the Egyptian side of the border to the Gaza’s side for distances that range between 400 meters and 1,700 meters. With many prohibitions on the ground, the tunnels have become a lucrative underground alternative. The wall construction portrays the depth of this underground urbanism, bringing the conflict between smugglers and the security to the forefront.

According to smugglers in the area, the process kicked off 25 days ago, when workers came to uproot the few olive trees lined up on the construction site. The wall basically consists of a series of iron panels placed along the 13.8-kilometer borderline. The panels are overlapping and held together with molded steel connections. Smugglers said the panels will also include sensors to detect any movement. A faint hope for smugglers remained as they thought they could still run their tunnels underneath this 20-meter wall.

However, the water element is what has convinced many that the wall will be invincible.

No happy ending

Seated together around the fire in a traditional Bedouin maqad (get-together), a group of smugglers in the Mahdeya village, near Rafah, spoke about water extension of the wall and its perils. “We saw the pipes in the past few days,” said one of them. “Each is around six inches, 30 meters deep, and they will be placed at around a 20-centimeter distance from each other. They will be connected to a horizontal pipe which will pump water from the sea.” Such construction makes it impossible to dig tunnels underneath the iron panels.

In a coffeehouse in the Masoura district, two kilometers away from the borderline, smugglers also shared their thoughts about an ominous post-wall future. One of them who partially owns a tunnel, also foresaw the perils of the water. “Not only will our business be hurt, but the underground water of the area will be disrupted as well, with salt water being pumped into it. This is our sole source of agricultural and drinking water,” he said. The area lives on an underground fresh water canal that extends from the Sheikh Zuyawid town to Rafah in the northern Egyptian Sinai.

The implementers of the wall project have never been officially disclosed. Local sources say that it’s the Arab Contractors, a leading Egypt-based construction firm in the Middle East and Africa, that is handling the operation. Attempts to get verification from the company were to no avail. Smugglers said that the iron bars in use are imported and transferred via the Alexandria port. Trucks seen transferring the panels to the construction site had Alexandria license plates on them.

Some press reports state that there is official American technical assistance in the wall construction. Embassy officials have previously told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masry Al-Youm that at the request of the Egyptian government, the US has been sharing its technical expertise and knowledge in tunnel detection since late 2007. When asked about the wall proper, a US Embassy spokesman told Al-Masry Al-Youm, “We are not involved in the construction of any barrier on the Egyptian border, however, we do recognize Egypt’s right to protect its border.”

Self-protection is the argument in use by the Egyptian government in explaining the wall construction, besides reaffirmations that the wall is built on Egyptian land, and hence it is a sovereign act. Minister of State for Legal Affairs Moufid Shehab said in a report published this week in the local media that the wall was a legitimate national defense mechanism against arms smuggling and terrorism. The official religious establishment has also voiced its support for the move, amid protests from the opposition.

But smugglers in Rafah do not think of the wall as the happy ending of the border turmoil. “Remember when Gazans flooded the border in January 2008? The same will happen when this wall is complete,” said the smuggler in the maqad. In January 2008, gunmen in Gaza shot at positions on the borderline, breaking it open before hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, an incident that Egypt considered a threat to its national security. “The next war will be fought in Sinai,” said the smuggler, warning of a possible conflict between Egyptian security and Hamas fighters. “This is exactly what Israel wants.”

The smuggler in the coffee shop who runs a tunnel foresaw the collapse of his business. “When I learned about the water pipes, I knew that this puts an end to our business. There are no alternatives,” he said. According to him, before the tunnel business flourished during the total closure of the Gaza Strip with Hamas’ takeover in 2007, people in the area used to live on loans for agricultural projects in the nearby Egyptian city of Ismailiya. But nothing beat the lucrative tunnel business.

He estimated thousands of tons of goods moving through the tunnels every month. A ton of cement costs its trader $500 to cross, and a sac of 35 kilos of food items costs $15 on average. Digging a tunnel costs around $60,000 and many tunnels from the Gaza end fork into more than one end on the Egyptian side. Everyone on the Egyptian side is involved in this underground economy, from owning tunnels, to trading goods through them and transferring commodities and money. Even women get paid for packaging sacks of goods and sewing them. “Tunnels have become our streets,” said the smuggler. In a previous encounter, another smuggler said, “tunnels are underground supermarkets.”

“This wall will make no one happy,” said Youssef, seated behind an olive tree he planted in front of his house, facing the construction site of the iron wall, dubbed “the wall of shame” by Egyptian opposition and Gaza activists.

Lina Attalah is a senior reporter for Al-Masry Al-Youm, where this article was originally published.

Association of Palestinian scholars slams Egypt’s steel wall and closure of Shujaia crossing

{The siege} by Umayyah Jiha

Association of Palestinian scholars slams Egypt’s steel wall

05/01/2010

GAZA, (PIC)– The association of Palestinian scholars stated Monday that the steel wall being built on its borders with the Gaza Strip is prohibited in Islam and a major sin because it will lead to the killing of the besieged Gaza people.

In a news conference held in the courtyard of the Palestinian legislative council (PIC), the association appealed to the Arab League and the organization of the Islamic conference to assume their responsibilities and urge the Egyptian government to backtrack on the construction of the wall and remove it immediately.
The association condemned the wall as an extension to the apartheid wall built by Israel in the West Bank.
For his part, Dr. Salim Salama, the deputy head of the association, warned that the Egyptian steel wall will cause environmental hazards to the life in Gaza in general and has devastating effects on groundwater in particular.

Dr. Salama underlined that Egypt, when it decided to build this wall, had renounced its expected role towards Arab and Muslim peoples and reflected its surrender to the Zio-American dictates.

He hailed the international union for Muslim scholars for condemning this wall and slammed Sheikh of Al-Azhar Mohamed Tantawi for issuing a fatwa in favor of the wall.

In the same context, Sheikh Mohamed Al-Nabulsi, a noted Syrian scholar, strongly denounced in a press statement to the Palestinian information center (PIC) the fatwa issued by Al-Azhar scholars which legalized the building of the wall on Gaza borders.

“We hoped that Al-Azhar scholars and members of the Islamic research council had criminalized the blockade, the closure of crossings, the Judaization of Jerusalem, the desecration of the Aqsa Mosque, and the attempts to demolish it,” Sheikh Nablusi underlined.

The Syrian scholar affirmed that Al-Azhar fatwa is not based on a religious text or evidence and is aimed to please the besieging parties.

For his part, Sheikh Mohamed Rajeh, another Syrian scholar, told the PIC that the steel wall of Egypt is the biggest betrayal known in the Islamic history, describing the construction of this wall as “impudence”.

Sheikh Rajeh said that the building of this wall is forbidden in Islam unless Egypt opens its crossings permanently before Gaza people, adding that the parties which are building this wall, intend to kill one and a half million to please God’s enemies.

For their part, the professors of Egyptian universities deplored Monday in a joint statement the Egyptian government for building a steel war on the Palestinian-Egyptian borders and described it as the “wall of shame”.

They also slammed the government for closing the border crossings and preventing aid convoys from reaching Gaza and called on it to take effective measures to protect the national security of Egypt against the real enemies.

MP Mansour: Closure of Shujaia crossing, steel wall execution sentence

04/01/2010

NABLUS, (PIC)– MP Mona Mansour has condemned the Israeli decision to close the Shujaia crossing (Nahal Oz) with Gaza once and for all, describing it as “repressive”.

Mansour in a press release on Monday said that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) every day adopts new measures to strangle the Gaza Strip and the closure of Shujaia crossing is one of those measures.

The concurrence of the closure of the crossing with the building of the steel wall on the part of Egypt turned Gaza into a big prison encircled by walls and closed crossings, she said, adding that such measures were tantamount to a capital punishment against the Gaza people.

The lawmaker asked for serious moves by human rights groups and the world community to end the Gaza siege.

For his part, Ziyad Al-Zaza, the deputy premier and national economy minister in Gaza, described the Israeli closure of the crossing as “terrorist and arbitrary”.

He added that the closure of the crossing, which he said was practically closed since last October, would negatively affect the economic activities in the Strip.

Independent MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular anti siege committee, said that the closure only tightened the economic blockade on the beleaguered Strip.

He charged that the IOA was planning to merge the Gaza crossings, which were only partially operating over the past four years, into one crossing instead of expanding and opening them fully.

Raed Fattuh, the coordinator for entry of goods into Gaza, said that the IOA decided to close the crossing permanently for “security reasons”.

Arab and Muslim activists launch a signature campaign against Egypt’s steel wall

GAZA, (PIC)– Arab and Muslim activists launched a campaign to collect million signatures on a statement condemning the steel wall being built by Egypt on its borders with the Gaza Strip.

The statement to be signed reads: “We, the people of Egypt, and the Arab and Muslim world, reject the wall of shame, which is aimed to blockade the Palestinian people and endanger the lives of one and a half million Palestinians.”

“We reject the wall of shame, which serves the security and goals of the Zionist entity and is aimed to pressure Hamas into signing a reconciliation paper intended for surrendering Gaza to Abbas and Oslo advocates,” the statement, which was posted on Amal Al-Ommah website, further says.

In the same context, Sheikh Hamed Al-Beitawi, a Palestinian lawmaker and the head of the association of Palestinian scholars, issued a fatwa prohibiting the building of the steel wall on Gaza borders and considered it treason against Islam and Muslims.

Sheikh Beitawi underlined in his fatwa that Egypt is morally and nationally obliged to stand by Gaza people and help them in their ordeal because they resist the Israeli occupation and defend the dignity of all Arabs and Muslims.

For their part, the joint meeting parties (JMP), the largest gathering of opposition parties in Yemen, stressed Saturday the importance of Egypt’s national security as an integral part of the Arab national security, but they said that the building of the steel wall between Egypt and Gaza at the pretext of security reasons makes the concept of Egypt’s national security superficial.

The JMP called on the Egyptian authorities to reconsider the building of the steel wall and to assume its national responsibility towards the besieged people of Gaza.

Dr. Abdelwahab Mahmoud, the head of the JMP, told the Palestinian information center (PIC), that Egypt, as an Arab country, must take into account the humanitarian aspect of Gaza and alleviate the suffering of its people instead of building the wall.

The steel wall will cause environmental disasters for Gaza and Egypt

(PIC)-, January 2, 2010

GAZA – Dr. Naim Baroud, a Palestinian professor of geography, warned that the building of the steel wall would cause environmental and health disasters for both the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian people in Sinai.

In a press statement published Friday by Palestine newspaper, Dr. Baroud noted that Egypt’s underground aquifer in Sinai is shared with Gaza and fed by rainwater which flow from south to north and vice versa to feed all this inter-aquifer, adding that the steel wall would affect the flow of water into this basin.

The professor also said that Egypt’s intention to pump large amounts of very salty water, which is unfit for human use and contains pollutants, from the Mediterranean sea into the Palestinian-Egyptian borders will change the chemical properties of the inter-aquifer and turn its sweet water into highly saline water.

He warned if this happens, the Egyptian and Palestinian citizens in the area of this aquifer will be no longer able to use water wells.

The professor stressed that the danger of this steel wall are not confined to the contamination of groundwater, but also it will affect the soil, where the iron pipes planted in the ground and the drilling rigs that operate on a daily basis will lead to the disintegration of this soil, which is already loose, and to landslides in the areas surrounding the wall.

The professor also touched on other ecological impacts of this wall and criticized Egypt for not conducting environmental, hydrological and economical studies to determine the hazards of this wall.

As for the ability of Gaza people to find alternative solutions to the problem of the steel wall, the professor expressed his optimism that Gazans could invent creative ways to beat and resist this wall.

In a related context, Palestinian minister of interior Fathi Hammad stated Friday that any concrete or steel walls would not deter the Palestinian people in Gaza from obtaining freedom.

During a cultural meeting held in Gaza, Hammad noted that the Gaza people would be able to penetrate all walls.

Saudi scholar Youssef Al-Ahmed, a professor at the university of Imam Mohamed Ibn Saud in Riyadh, issued a fatwa (religious edict) forbidding the construction of Egypt’s steel wall.

The fatwa, which was posted Friday on Noor Al-Islam network website, says that this wall is religiously prohibited and one of the greatest sins in Islam.

For his part, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, said, during a ceremony held Friday to honor families of martyrs in the neighborhood of Al-Daraj, east of Gaza city, that the Gaza people, who remained steadfast in the Israeli war, will never fail to beat any walls besieging them.

The return of Shawar and Tantawi and Leading Egypt Clerics Back Gaza Tunnel Barrier

{Gaza} by Nidal Hashim

The return of Shawar

Editorial, PIC

The Egyptian regime’s decision to build a sophisticated underground steel wall along the Gaza-Sinai border is a cardinal crime bordering on attempted genocide. Other similar epithets are used to describe this wall of shame built by an Arab state for the purpose of starving and killing an Arab people, already facing a virtual genocide at the hands of the Judeo-Nazi state of Israel.

The description “attempted genocide” is quite adequate because cutting off food from the virtually imprisoned people of Gaza means one thing: killing them by starving them to death.

In Islam, murder is the greatest crime against God after idolatry.

The Quran states that in Suratul Ma’aida (the Table) Verse-32, that “We ordained for the Children of Israel that if any one slew a person – unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land – it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.”

The Egyptian regime argues that, as a sovereign nation, Egypt has the right to protect its national security by whatever means necessary.

However, while this argument is true at face value, it is clearly designed to serve goals that are both immoral and criminal.

We all know that the wall is simply designed to kill Gazans venturing to smuggle food and other vital consumer products across the border. Hence, the ultimate message the despotic government of Egypt is communicating to more than 1.5 million Gazans, already tormented by three years of a hermetic blockade from land, air and sea, is that “we will starve you to death rather quietly and if you try to smuggle food, even a small bottle of milk for your babies, you shall be killed.

The “sovereignty” and “national security” argument is really mendacious to say the least. It is no more than a smoke screen behind which the Egyptian regime is hiding its scandalous subservience to the U.S. and Israel.

In truth Gaza never constituted or posed a security threat to Egypt. And it never will. The real threats to Egyptian security come from the Judeo-Nazi regime which doesn’t stop trying to undermine and weaken Egypt.

Second, we all know that Egyptian sovereignty over the Sinai Peninsula is very limited and only symbolic in nature thanks to the Camp David treaty of 1978. According to that shameful treaty, Egypt can’t deploy its armed forces into the bulk of the desert nor can it fly its warplanes over it. This means that Israel could always take over Sinai in a matter of hours.

Hence, it is safe to say that a strong and viable Gaza Strip could, at least partially, serve as an Egyptian security asset that should be constantly enhanced.

Some Egyptian spokespersons keep parroting the meaningless claim that Gaza tragedy is not an Egyptian responsibility.

Well, the Palestinian plight, including the Gaza tragedy, is an Egyptian responsibility. It is an Arab, Muslim and human responsibility of the highest order.

From the Islamic religious view point, it is the duty of every Muslim under the sun to hasten to help and defend fellow Muslims (and non-Muslims) facing a stressful situation. Egypt has a population of more than 80 million people whereas the population of Gaza doesn’t exceed 1.5 million. And Egypt is the strongest nation in the Arab world and it could do much to help the tormented and starved Gazans.

But, alas, instead of helping Gazans withstand and repulse the Judeo-Nazi holocaust, we see that the Egyptian regime is effectively conspiring with Israel in order to tighten the blockade of Gaza for the purpose of enabling Israel to impose its will on its people and its democratically-elected government.

This means that the Israeli goal of killing Gazans, either by raining death on them, as was the case a year ago, or by starving them and narrowing their horizons, is being carried out by an Arab state that claims to represent the conscience of the Arab nation.

I really wonder why the Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar is keeping his mouth shut in the face of this great perfidy and betrayal.

Is he oblivious to the hadith of the Prophet (PBUH) that “A Muslim is the brother of every other Muslim” and that “a Muslim must not betray or oppress another Muslim” and that “whoever delivers a Muslim from a distressful situation in this world, God will deliver him from a distressful situation on the Day of Judgment.”

Why is he silent? Why doesn’t he utter loudly the Islamic judgment concerning the perpetrator of this blasphemy? Is he worried about losing his job or upsetting the regime? Well, the Sheikh of Al-Azhar should know that pleasing the tyrannical regime by disobeying the Almighty will not endear him to the King of Kings, the Owner of the Day of Judgment. Life is short and shame belongs to the cowards.

By building this wall of shame, which is also a wall of death, the Egyptian regime is proving itself to be another Israel. After all, the taste of death is the same, irrespective of whether it happens at the hands of the Zionist enemy or at the hands of the supposed Arab brother.

It is really sad that Egypt has reached this bleak phase of its long history whereby it has been transformed from an asset for the Palestinian cause to a real liability.

But in the end, all the Shawars and traitors will go down the dustbin of history. This is their natural place, and it doesn’t make any difference whether the traitor serves a Crusader king or a modern evil entity such as Israel.

See what the Egyptian gov. had led great Egypt to? How can the man even show his face? Drugs?! Now food is a drug! Not only is this a lie but it is the highest level of fabrication and propaganda. Hamas monitors thos tunnels very well because it gives permission to dig them to see if any bad thing is going to Gaza or out of it. I can’t believe Al Azhar has reached this low, redeem yourselves!

Tantawi and Leading Egypt Clerics Back Gaza Tunnel Barrier

Al Manar

01/01/2010 A council of leading Muslim clerics has supported the Egyptian government’s construction of an underground barrier along the border with Gaza to impede tunneling by smugglers, a report said on Friday.

The Islamic Research Council of Al-Azhar University, Sunni Islam’s highest seat of learning, said that the tunnels were used to smuggle drugs and threatened Egypt’s security, the Al-Masri Al-Yawm newspaper reported.

“It is one of Egypt’s legitimate rights to place a barrier that prevents the harm from the tunnels under Rafah, which are used to smuggle drugs and other (contraband) that threaten Egypt’s stability,” the paper quoted the clerics as saying.

“Those who oppose building this wall are violating the commands of Islamic law,” they added, after a meeting attended by Egypt’s top cleric Sheikh Mohammed Said Tantawi, who is a government appointee.

Hamdi Hassan, an Islamic member of the Egyptian parliament, has filed a lawsuit against President Hosni Mubarak demanding a halt to construction of the barrier, the newspaper reported.

Earlier this week, the chairman of the International Union for Muslim Scholars Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi slammed the barrier as an “unjustified crime” and as such was banned by Islam.

Sheikh Qaradawi said, in a statement, that the barrier Egypt had begun constructing was meant to “pressure the Palestinians in Gaza to surrender to Israel.”

“What Egypt is building these days on its border with Gaza is a prohibited act from the Islamic perspective,” the prominent Islamic scholar said. “It aims to close off Gaza and tighten the siege imposed on it people so that they give in to the Israeli demands,” Sheikh Qaradawi added.

Sheikh Qaradawi also called on the Egyptian government to open its Rafah border crossing point with Gaza, noting that opening the border point was a “religious and legal duty” of Egypt toward the Gazan people. “Rafah is the only lifeline for the people of Gaza. Egypt should open it rather than suffocating the Palestinians and collaborating with others to kill them.”

The scholar also appealed to both the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) to pressure Egypt to stop the construction of the Wall. “The Wall is one hundred percent against the Palestinians and playing into the hands of the Israeli enemy one hundred percent,” he concluded.

On Gaza Drivers, Rumours and Egypt’s Steel Wall

{Iron wall} by Umayyah Jiha-Al Rayah newspaper-Qatar

By Ramzy Baroud, source

Those pesky taxi drivers of Gaza are always circulating rumours. One story that made the rounds during the first Palestinian uprising in 1987 claimed that an Arab army crossed the Sinai desert to save Palestinians from the daily killings and protracted state of siege which caused untold suffering for civilians.

The army in question would change from time to time, but the focus inevitably returned to Egypt. The rumour of an Egyptian military intervention persevered through the years, and it registered deeply in Palestinian psyche, especially among those living in Gaza.

My father, as many in his generation, fought in the Egyptian army and the Palestinian Liberation Army. Following defeat in the war of 1967, he was hauled along wounded and dead Egyptian soldiers across Sinai, as well as on a floating army bridge over the Suez Canal under intense Israeli aerial bombardment. As a child, I once accompanied him on a journey to an impoverished neighborhood in Cairo to look for an Egyptian war buddy of his. When we found out that he was long dead, my father wept. Confused and scared among the ailing buildings, I too cried. Indeed, the bond between Egyptians and Palestinians is historical, everlasting, cemented in blood, sweat and tears.

Yes, everlasting, despite the responses of the Egyptian government to the more recent suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

When the Palestinian people democratically elected Hamas to lead the Palestinian legislature in 2006, they were aware of the possible repercussions. They have become accustomed to the ‘collective punishment’ employed every time actions fail to meet Israeli expectations. They also understand well the influence of the pro-Israel lobby on American foreign policy, and know of Cairo’s commitment to political ‘moderation’ and unabashed tiptoeing to the US. But never, in their wildest imagination did Palestinians foresee the measures that Egypt would take to stifle their democratic decision, suppress their resistance and cut off the very lifelines that keep Gaza breathing.

Israel has employed every possible trick in its book to weaken Gaza’s resolve; yet time after time, it has failed miserably. Even after turning the already starving Gaza Strip into a large and inescapable killing field on December 27, 2008, Gaza is yet to surrender. Three weeks of ceaseless bombardment killed over 1,400 Palestinians and wounded over 5,500 more, but it was no match to Gaza’s resolve.

Indeed, Gazans have always devised ways to survive against the odds. With difficulty, they dug tunnels to Egypt, and through these tunnels, basic necessities, such as food, medicine, toys, and some livestock were able to trickle into Gaza. On February 4, 2009, shortly after Israel declared an end to its one-sided military operations, military experts from various, mostly Western countries gathered in a two-day conference hosted by Denmark.

The goal was to halt arms smuggling into Gaza, and not, as should have been the case, to investigate Israel’s illegal use of lethal weapons against an unarmed population. Nor was it to call on various countries to halt their weapon exports to Israel.

The response was a moral travesty, to say the least. However, the news regarding this subject ceased for a while, interrupted by an occasional Israeli strike at alleged tunnels, or an Egyptian measure to ensure the closure of all tunnels at its side of the border. Meanwhile, the siege continued unabated, and Egypt held tight to its ‘commitment’ to ensure its success.

More recently, news of an enormous metal wall that Egypt erected at its border with Gaza has come to the fore. The Egyptian decision is both politically and financially loaded. Considering that the US – spurred on by Israel – has strived to develop ways to completely choke Gaza, one can safely conclude that the decision has not come solely from Egypt, though as a sovereign country the latter must still be held fully accountable. According to Press TV, Karen Abu Zaid, United Nations Relief and Works Agency Commissioner-General described the wall as more dangerous than the Bar Lev Line, which was built by Israel along the eastern coast of the Suez Canal following the capturing of the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in 1967. The Egyptian wall is arguably more dangerous because it will increase the suffering of an already tormented civilian population.

But more than dangerous, it is also disheartening. Palestinians, including some in the Hamas government never cease to refer to Egypt and Egyptians as “Sister Egypt” and “Egyptian brethren”. Why then are Sister Egypt and the Egyptian brethren taking part in this injustice and allowing Israeli violence to perpetuate? Money? Political validation? Attempts at regional relevance and fear of dismissal if they dare defy Washington’s will?

None of these reasons are convincing. The ties between Egypt and Palestine are too rooted in history; the rapport is too personal, too familial to allow for material or temporary political interests to stand in the way between two ancient peoples with awe-inspiring histories. Now I fully appreciate why my father wept at the death of his Egyptian friend. And I believe that no steel wall is large or thick enough to undermine that moment; no government policies or self-seeking officials are wicked enough to dent the bond that link the peoples of Palestine and Egypt. I also believe that there should be no amount of money large enough to justify the imprisonment of a whole nation, especially one’s own “brethren.”

I wonder what is the latest rumour circulated these days by Gaza’s taxi drivers. A million Egyptians storm the border with Gaza, carrying food, medicine and toys? Strangely enough, I would still believe it. Those pesky drivers of Gaza!

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com.