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| Africa North |
| Will Gaza Conquer Egypt? |
| 2008-01-30 |
| Interesting thought from the Wall Street Journal. What if Gaza were to conquer Egypt? The possibility is not as remote as it may seem just by glancing at the map. Egypt has more than 50 times the population of its former colony and 2,800 times the landmass. But Gaza is sovereign Hamas territory, Hamas is the Palestinian branch of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and Egypt -- not Israel -- is the country that has most to fear from a statelet that is at once the toehold, sanctuary and springboard of an Islamist revolution. No wonder liberal Egyptians are reacting with near-hysterical alarm to last Wednesday's demolition of the border fence between the Gaza Strip and the Sinai. The Brotherhood organized at least 70 demonstrations throughout Egypt early last week to protest Israel's economic blockade of the Strip, itself a reaction to Hamas's rocket barrages into Israel. "Arm us, train us and send us to Gaza," chanted the demonstrators, along with "O rulers of Muslims, where is your honor, where is your religion?" The independent Egyptian daily Almasry Alyoum also described conversations between Hamas leader Khaled Mashal and Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the Brotherhood's Supreme Guide, to coordinate their activities. As Middle Eastern power plays go, Hamas's decision to dismantle the Gaza-Sinai border was a masterstroke. Gaza's economic woes are almost wholly self-inflicted, but they are real. Dynamiting and bulldozing the border of a neighboring country is legally an act of war, but it was made to seem like a humanitarian necessity and a bid for freedom. Flooding that neighbor with hundreds of thousands of desperate people is a massive economic burden on Egypt, but one that it shirks at its political peril. Above all, Hamas exploited the myth of pan-Arab solidarity with the Palestinians in order to explode it. Having whipped itself into its usual frenzy over Israel's "siege" of Gaza, it was a delicate matter for the state-run Egyptian press to make the government's case for deploying truncheon-wielding police to turn back the Palestinian human tide. It's an equally delicate matter for the Egyptian government to arrest Brotherhood protesters peacefully demonstrating "for Palestine," even if the Brotherhood's real target is Hosni Mubarak's regime and the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty that it supports. it must have seemed to Palestinians an especially galling contrast that Israel announced the resumption of fuel supplies to Gaza just as Egypt was cutting its deliveries of fuel and foodstuffs to its border towns of Rafah and El Arish in the Sinai, in order to keep the Palestinians out. For good measure, Egyptian sources tell me that yesterday the government also arrested 3,000 Gazans who had made their way to Cairo -- yet another betrayal that will surely linger in Palestinian memory for a long time. For the Brotherhood all this is excellent news. Yesterday, Nabil Shaath, a Palestinian minister in President Mahmoud Abbas's cabinet, reportedly sought a meeting in Cairo with Supreme Guide Akef in order to negotiate a new border arrangement. Mr. Akef declined to see him, a telling indicator of the Brotherhood's newfound political confidence. It can now lay firm claim to the Palestinian cause, never mind that its "brothers" in Hamas are the real source of current Palestinian misery. By contrast, the Egyptian government faces a serious quandary, and not just as a matter of rhetoric. By its treaty with Israel, it is forbidden from deploying its army in large numbers to the Sinai. In previous years, it used this restriction as an alibi in its lackluster efforts to prevent the arms flow from Sinai to Gaza. Now that flow threatens to go in the opposite direction, endangering not just Israel but also Egyptian tourist resorts such as Taba and Sharm el-Sheikh. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #4 I think this article gets the source of why the Gaza's broke the wall. It was entirely to bring in more weapons. Everything else was a smoke-screen and not a very good one at that. Egypt allowed it just as they always allow weapons transfers that can't be held openly against them. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2008-01-30 20:36 |
| #3 "Will Gaza Conquer Egypt?" I certainly hope so - I'll make a killing selling popcorn. :-D |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2008-01-30 12:07 |
| #2 “…the next great foreign policy crisis on the American horizon.” Let me get this straight. An Arab/Muslim territory governed by Islamic criminals breaches a security barrier/border of a sovereign Arab/Muslim country. Not only is this aggression not denounced as a de facto act of war but it is completely dismissed and blamed on a Non-Arab/Muslim country. Oh and BTW, that country also just happens to be the recipient of aggression from said Arab/Muslim territory. And now…it’s an American problem. Isn’t that fuckin’ special? |
| Posted by: DepotGuy 2008-01-30 09:58 |
| #1 I commented before that Hamas is talibanizing north sinai. They'll play taliban from the North Sinai FATA and shoot rockets at Israel, while Egypt plays Pakistan and protests that Israel is invading Egyptian soil when Israel plays Nato and Afghanistan and tries to stop the rocket attacks. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2008-01-30 08:48 |