The Iron Wall: Egypt's role in the Gaza blockade

Something odd, almost bizarre, is going on in Egypt these days.

About 1,400 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 organise 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: 100 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 phoney 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 centres 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, a 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 centre 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 are they doing it?

There are several explanations. Cynics point out that the Egyptian government receives a huge American subsidy every year – almost US$2 billion – 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 organisation 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 Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO – an organisation 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 whom 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 football 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 6,000 - some say 8,000 – 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 centre, 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 birth-rate 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 behaviour towards each other there is an air of tranquillity, an absence of aggression, a particular Egyptian sense of humour. 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.

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