A humanitarian convoy organized by American activists successfully reached the besieged Gaza Strip last week. The Viva Palestina, US, was the second such land convoy to successfully enter Gaza via the Egyptian border. Activists hope that such missions break down the Israel-Egyptian embargo on Gaza, which has made the strip into a prison-like enclosure.
While the convoy’s success was uplifting, its struggle to get into Rafah reminded me of Egypt’s inexcusable and treacherous collusion with Israel in the collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza.
The convoy carried 200 activists in 50 vehicles. It delivered hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food and medical supplies for the people of Gaza. It finally was allowed to cross the Rafah border on Wednesday after receiving permission from Cairo.
Though we have seen Egypt’s role as essentially Israel’s sidekick before, the machinations around the Viva Palestine really exemplify how much it shares Israel’s sick agenda of collective punishment in Gaza.
1) The convoy was delayed by Egyptian bureaucracy by 10 days.
2) The Egyptian government added new conditions despite prior agreement with the convoy’s organizers. The convoy’s humanitarian workers were given only 24 hours to remain in the war-torn territory.
3) Only half of the 50 aid-carrying trucks were allowed in. Also, the convoy left behind hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of vehicles earmarked for hospitals and nongovernmental organizations. Egyptian authorities have refused to allow the vehicles to enter Gaza through its Rafah border.
For more than two years, Israel has enforced an embargo of Gaza as punishment for the Hamas takeover of Gaza following the effective annulment of it parliamentary electoral victory in 2005. Egypt also considers Hamas a threat, particularly because of its association with the Muslim Brotherhood, a political party the regime treats as an enemy despite its participation in mainstream politics.
In late December and much of January, Israel’s military attacked and invaded the strip to seek the defeat of Hamas. It left 1500 Palestinians dead, and large swathes of the land in ruins. Hamas remains in power, but the Israeli grip on imports has denied Gazans the materials to rebuild.
Egypt has played a role in maintaining the closure of the Strip on the Egyptian border. This has been a political liability for Egypt, as it should be. The pressure it has put on ordinary Gazans led to dramatic acts such as when mobs of Palestinians broke through the Rafah crossing in early 2008 just to buy groceries.
The goal of the convoy is to bring an end to the closure of Gaza. It seeks to protect the rights of the 1.5 million Palestinians who live there. It is not organized to support one faction over another, although Israeli and Egyptian policies clearly are.
Critics of the convoy, however, argue these moves serve to bolster Hamas politically. It is clear the convoy’s organizers would not be persuaded by this objection. They are clearly rejecting collective punishment, in this case, the idea that all of Gaza can be punished for the goal of removing the party in power. Collective punishment, whether enforced by Israel or maintained by Egypt, is obviously wrong, and a testament to the bankruptcy of the Egyptian regime.
Related posts:
- Free Gaza Boats to break Siege
- Eyewitness in Gaza: 4
- From London to Gaza
- Galloway Lands in Gaza
- The Egyptian state is a cancer
but to be fair, 10 days is pretty quick for egyptian bureaucracy to do anything!
Posted by lucy | July 16, 2009, 6:11 pmSickening – yes. Surprising – no
This article gives a personal account: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10662.sht…
Very revolting.
Posted by Ziyaad | July 16, 2009, 6:25 pmWill, I have confidence that Gamal Mubarak will be better . . . and by "better" I mean just the same if not worse than Hosni.
But you know what? Egypt does have its perks, I mean, who doesn't love Egypt?
Egypt is the largest Arab country, they put out all the music, all the movies, most of the TV shows and it's all conveniently located on the Mediterranean between Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Libya and the Sudan. It's got the Nile, the Pyramids the Red Sea and its government is so stable that they've only had 3 presidents in the last 50+ years. I mean, the leaders must be doing something right to stay in power for so long. AMAZING! They gets billions upon billions of dollars in foreign aid EVERY year and they still manage to remain a third world country. They have some of world's worst air quality, some of the diriest and most rundown ghettoes and some of the craziest traffic in the Eastern Hemisphere. Oh and they also have the Aswan dam.
Ahhhhh Egypt . . . at the end of the day, she's the sad realization of bad politics.
Posted by Los | July 16, 2009, 7:13 pmAgreed. Egyp'ts fun but way over-rated in terms of being 'um el arab' or mother of all arabs.
It's the largest populated country and I think Lebanon is a sizable competitor when it comes to 'pan-arab' music. For tv shows, Egyptians haven't made a good show in a while….Syria pretty much dominates that now.
Posted by Lena | July 17, 2009, 7:06 pmThere is going to be a comment calling you a retard for trying to draw an analogy from mainstream rap and American Imperialism…. This despite the fact that you made it clear that it was someone else s analogy =P
Posted by Super Sayyin | July 16, 2009, 8:49 pmI am sorry to say this, but, Egypt is finished. The ME is now US/Israel's bitch…Recent events have shown that any resistance to Israel will be met with Demonic violence supported by the EU, US et al. I am -a non- Arab, non-Muslim -born in Egypt, they (official state) have disgusted me since 1967… I was seven yrs. old and I thought they were going to liberate Falastin and the rest is history. Now, Iran is the target, the same screeching voices that brought us the HELL that is Iraq, the big thumbs up during slaugtherhouse Gaza, are now beating the same drum rythum. From here on in it will be Israel taking care of the smaller problems, while their cousins in the US will take care of the bigger problems. I mean really… I drove through the US once, it's not so hard to see that it's basically a gazillion dangerously stupid people, owned and operated by AIPAC, CNN and the gang.
Posted by Chauncey | July 16, 2009, 9:24 pmAbsolutely. I am also annoyed by people who don't want activists to harp on Arab collusion with Israel for ideological reasons (they'd prefer that "oppression" and "occupation" continue to have an exclusively Israeli identity). The truth is that governments like Egypt's and Jordan's are only the tip of the iceberg of examples of Arab coordination and plotting against the Palestinian people. A revolutionary politics in Palestine, against Israeli occupation, is necessarily a revolutionary politics that must identify all guilty parties.
Posted by yaman | July 16, 2009, 11:00 pmAmen/Ameen, Will. I actually just participated in a demonstration yesterday near the State House in Boston with fellow activists from several other groups who have members on the Viva Palestina convoy. At the time of our demonstration, which included a press conference, Egypt was still blocking their access through Rafah. I'm elated that the convoy got through, even if half of it was held behind at Alexandria, as this is still the largest aid package to Gaza to come out of the United States, ever. I agree with you and Yaman that we can not let up the pressure on Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, et. al. when it comes to doing their part in working towards a just solution to the greater Israel-Palestine conflict. The fact that so many of these nations have large Palestinian refugee populations that they are not caring for, at all, raises the need for even more action against these regimes.
Posted by Nth Republic | July 16, 2009, 11:23 pmAmen/Ameen, Will. I actually just participated in a demonstration yesterday near the State House in Boston with fellow activists from several other groups who have members on the Viva Palestina convoy. At the time of our demonstration, which included a press conference, Egypt was still blocking their access through Rafah. I'm elated that the convoy got through, even if half of it was held behind at Alexandria, as this is still the largest aid package to Gaza to come out of the United States, ever. I agree with you and Yaman that we can not let up the pressure on Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, et. al. when it comes to doing their part in working towards a just solution to the greater Israel-Palestine conflict. The fact that so many of these nations have large Palestinian refugee populations that they are not caring for, at all, raises the need for even more action against these regimes.
Posted by Nth Republic | July 16, 2009, 11:24 pmAmen/Ameen, Will. I actually just participated in a demonstration yesterday near the State House in Boston with fellow activists from several other groups who have members on the Viva Palestina convoy. At the time of our demonstration, which included a press conference, Egypt was still blocking their access through Rafah. I'm elated that the convoy got through, even if half of it was held behind at Alexandria, as this is still the largest aid package to Gaza to come out of the United States, ever. I agree with you and Yaman that we can not let up the pressure on Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, et. al. when it comes to doing their part in working towards a just solution to the greater Israel-Palestine conflict. The fact that so many of these nations have large Palestinian refugee populations that they are not caring for, at all, raises the need for even more action against these regimes.
Posted by Nth Republic | July 16, 2009, 11:25 pmAmen/Ameen, Will. I actually just participated in a demonstration Tuesday near the State House in Boston with fellow activists from several other groups who have members on the Viva Palestina convoy. At the time of our demonstration, which included a press conference, Egypt was still blocking their access through Rafah. I'm elated that the convoy got through, even if half of it was held behind at Alexandria, as this is still the largest aid package to Gaza to come out of the United States, ever. I agree with you and Yaman that we can not let up the pressure on Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, et. al. when it comes to doing their part in working towards a just solution to the greater Israel-Palestine conflict. The fact that so many of these nations have large Palestinian refugee populations that they are not caring for, at all, raises the need for even more action against these regimes.
Posted by Nth Republic | July 16, 2009, 11:27 pmAmen/Ameen, Will. I actually just participated in a demonstration Tuesday near the State House in Boston with fellow activists from several other groups who have members on the Viva Palestina convoy. At the time of our demonstration, which included a press conference, Egypt was still blocking their access through Rafah. I'm elated that the convoy got through, even if half of it was held behind at Alexandria, as this is still the largest aid package to Gaza to come out of the United States, ever. I agree with you and Yaman that we can not let up the pressure on Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, et. al. when it comes to doing their part in working towards a just solution to the greater Israel-Palestine conflict. The fact that so many of these nations have large Palestinian refugee populations that they are not caring for, at all, raises the need for even more action against these regimes.
EDIT: On a separate note, Pharaoh Mubarak's brutal repression and persecution of al-Ikhwan is something I feel very strongly about, and I'm glad you brought it up. Political Islam is so misunderstood in the West and there aren't many better examples of U.S. hypocrisy in anti-democratic practices than the way in which we've been propping up Mubarak for nearly 30 years while he snuffs out the most popular democratic movement in Egypt.
Posted by Nth Republic | July 16, 2009, 11:34 pmIt is puzzling that the 'jailer' of Gaza is portrayed by you as Israel. When Israel withdrew from Gaza, there was an election. Hamas, with a vow to eliminate the "Zionist Entity" was elected to govern. The people chose a government that vowed to destroy its neighbor. The PEOPLE of Gaza endorsed that policy. Did they not lock their own jail cell?
Recognizing Israel and renouncing violence is their key to getting out of 'jail'. Members of the governments of Gaza and the 'west bank' Hamas and the PA, have professed that truce is a step in the direction of reclaiming their view of Palestine. As long as there is a truce there is a state of war. Could you trust someone that shot at you and offered only a truce rather than peace?
Posted by cynic8 | July 17, 2009, 12:37 amActually, Hamas got rid of its charter during the 2006 election campaign. They won on an anti-corruption platform (Israel was hardly mentioned).
Israel knew this, but decided to imprison the Gazans anyway and the US and EU decided to withdraw aid – so much for democracy!
Posted by Shafiq | July 17, 2009, 10:03 amfuck ikhwan. fuck hamas. fuck fatah. fuck hosni mubarak. fuck israel. fuck america. fuck you all. long live palestine!
Posted by ... | July 17, 2009, 4:02 pmCollusion? They are akin to the Israeli forces in all but uniform.
Posted by South/South | July 17, 2009, 4:16 pmWhy is Israel blamed when Egypt could give the Gazans all they need?
Why is it not called the Egyptian siege of Gaza?
Why? Because all arabs are lying scum and all they are interested in is lying about Israel.
Israel should give nothing to the Gaza scum but rockets and morters, it's what the vicious punks deserve.
But if hamass' arab brothers want to provide for their needs, go for it.
They don't so they can point at Gaza and blame Israel for what they themselves are doing.
It's such a bald lie, only an arab could tell it over and over and be believed.
Posted by Daniel | November 10, 2009, 5:56 pm