Egypt Not Serious About Stopping Smuggling?

Dr. Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
06 May '10
Posted before Shabbat

Time and again both analysts and officials have claimed the Egypt genuinely wants to stop the smuggling into Gaza. Yet after close to two years the much touted American tunnel detecting gizmos haven’t put a dent in the smuggling between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. And today BBC News correspondent Jon Donnison revealed that Gazans are already cutting through Egypt’s multi-million dollar steel barrier at the affordable cost of $1,000 a tunnel hole.

Related: Gazans cut through Egypt's border barrier using high-powered oxygen fuelled blow torches

So what’s the real story? Is Egypt serious about stopping the smuggling or just going through the motions?

One thing is certain: if Egypt wanted to it could readily detect and stop the tremendous flow of material reaching the miniscule Egypt-Gaza border. After all, we aren’t talking about a few sacks of contraband being whisked through the desert in the middle of the night on the backs of camels. We are talking about literally hundreds of truckloads making their way to within at most a few hundred yards from the border. A fleet of trucks that can be detected, stopped, inspected and seized.

There is no question about it. If instead of investing in gizmos and steel walls the Egyptians bulldozed a sterile border zone running a few thousand meters in from the Gaza border the remaining tunneling operations would require a magnitude of activity that any serious Egyptian intelligence operation could readily detect.

So is Egypt serious about stopping the smuggling or just going through the motions? And if Egypt isn’t serious about stopping the smuggling, why is Israel essentially silent on the matter?

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Hamas frightened of Egypt

Guest Post by Zvi
Elder of Ziyon
28 January '10

Here's how I see this. It's not about the Saudis at all. It's about Egypt.

Hamas knows that if Egypt ever becomes REALLY SERIOUS about hurting Hamas, Hamas is going to be in extremely hot water. Egypt can shut down the tunnels if it wants to do that, both by building as deep and strong a wall as it wants to build, and (if Egypt gets really serious) by arresting or shooting anyone on the Egyptian side who participates in the tunnel "industry."

The Egyptian steel wall sends that signal very clearly. In fact, ever since the news about the steel wall became public, the Hamas leadership appears - to me, at any rate - to have shown increasing signs of panic. I can see why; if it works, then Hamas can't bring in weapons, can't tax the tunnelers and can't smuggle its people in and out. If it works, then Gazans really WILL have a crisis on their hands, and Hamas will be very clearly to blame.

Egypt, for its part, is furious with Hamas for two reasons: 1. Hamas humiliated the Egyptian government when the Egyptians tried to reconcile the factions, and again when Egypt tried to work out an exchange of prisoners between Hamas and Israel. 2. Hamas has kept parading in front of the world its closeness to Iran, at a time when the Egyptians are absolutely apoplectic to find that Hezbollah was planning for terror attacks against the Suez Canal, which is one of Egypt's primary strategic assets, and against other Egyptian targets. As of last week, Egypt's state prosecutor was asking for the death penalty for the terrorists.

(Read full post including Elder's introduction)
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Reactions in the Arab Press to British MP George Galloway's Viva Palestina 3 Aid Convoy

MEMRI
19 January '10

The Viva Palestina 3 humanitarian aid and solidarity convoy to Gaza, organized by British MP George Galloway, arrived at the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza on January 5, 2010.[1] The convoy, 163 meters long and carrying 590 tons of humanitarian aid, departed from the U.K. on December 7, 2009, and made its way from Europe through Turkey, Syria, and Jordan. The organizers asked Egypt to permit the convoy to sail from the port of Aqaba in Jordan to the Sinai port of Nuweiba on the Red Sea, from which it would proceed to the Rafah crossing. However, Egypt decided that it must enter its territory via Al-'Arish on the Mediterranean coast. This forced the convoy to retrace its steps to Latakia in Syria and from there to Al-'Arish. When it arrived in Al-'Arish, clashes broke out between convoy members and Egyptian security forces, who would not permit some of its vehicles to continue on to Gaza.

Egypt has been the target of harsh criticism, both at home and abroad, because of the convoy's forced wanderings and also because of its construction of an underground barrier along its border with Gaza aimed at blocking the smuggling tunnels into the Strip. In effect, it is being accused of tightening the siege on Gaza. Among the critics was Galloway himself, who accused Egypt, which he called a dictatorship, of strangling Gaza, and called on Britain to reexamine its relations with it.

In response to the criticism against Egypt, senior Egyptian officials attacked Galloway, and also said that Egypt had not tried to prevent the convoy from entering into Gaza, but had only insisted that its entrance be in accordance with guidelines and accepted security arrangements. In fact, the Egyptian authorities declared Galloway a persona non-grata and announced that he would not be allowed to re-enter the country. [2]

On the other hand, opposition elements in Egypt and some writers in the Arab world praised Galloway's efforts for the Palestinians, contrasting them with the Arab and Muslim helplessness in the matter.

The following are excerpts from interviews given by Galloway to the Qatari Al-Jazeera TV and to Iran's Press TV, as well as translated excerpts from articles in the Arab press about Galloway's Viva Palestina 3 convoy.

(Continue article)
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Cairo's plan B

Gamal A. G. Soltan
Bitter Lemons
14 January '10
Posted before Shabbat

No more ad hoc arrangements. This is the message Egypt is sending to Hamas and the other relevant parties by setting up a fortified barrier along Egypt's border with the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian move marks the end of an era in Egypt's policy toward Gaza and Hamas. In 2005, when Israel was getting ready to evacuate Gaza, Egypt demanded that the Israeli redeployment include the border region or "philadelphi strip" separating Egypt from Gaza. This was the first time since 1967 that Egypt had a direct land link with a Palestinian territory with no Israeli mediation. Egypt sought maximum possible maneuverability in conducting its relations with the narrow Gaza Strip. The arrangements made in 2005 helped enhance Egypt's role in Palestinian politics.

Developments in the ensuing years, however, have rendered Gaza a liability rather than an asset. Following Hamas' victory in Palestine's legislative elections of 2006 and the Islamists' takeover in Gaza the following year, Hamas became Egypt's neighbor. While Egypt's border with Gaza granted Cairo effective leverage against the radical Islamic organization, Hamas was also given an opportunity to press Egypt in exchange.

The past two years have witnessed complex maneuvers between Egypt and the Hamas government in Gaza. While Egypt has tried to accommodate Hamas so that Palestinian unity could be restored, Hamas sought to consolidate its grip on power in Gaza and enhance its position in Palestinian politics. Egypt employed tactics of cooptation and containment while Hamas was buying time, hoping it could exploit opportunities as they arose.

The Egyptian strategy reached deadlock when Hamas defied Cairo's efforts to reconcile rival Palestinian factions. Hamas' ability to balance its commitments toward its radical allies in Tehran and Damascus with the need to avoid alienating its big neighbor came to an end: Egypt chose not to continue the game of running in circles in its relations with Hamas. It was Hamas' reluctance that provoked Egypt to change course. Hamas' policy made it look as if it were taking Egypt for granted; Cairo realized the time had come to send Hamas a strong message.

(Read full article)
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Egyptian Chutzpah

Herbert I. London
Hudson New York
11 January '10

How do you spell chutzpah in Arabic? The Egyptian government has railed against Israel for erecting a security fence in the West Bank for years, protesting, its construction in the United Nations and every other international body, and usually employing the phrase “apartheid wall.”

But now, mirabile dictu, Egypt is building a wall of its own along the border of the Gaza Strip -- and, as one might guess, will not entertain any criticism of this project.

The Israeli barrier was built to prevent suicide bombing and other terrorist activities against Israelis; by contrast, the Egyptian fence is designed to stop Palestinians living in Gaza from entering Egypt.

One might well ask why President Hosni Mubarak would want to keep his Arab brothers locked inside the poverty-stricken area of Gaza, among the most congested places on the globe.

He contends, with some legitimacy, that Hamas’s presence in Gaza could be a destabilizing factor in Egypt if the border were porous. Yet Hamas poses a threat to Israel even more formidable than its threat to Egypt. The stated Hamas goal is “Liberate Palestine,” not “Occupy Egypt.” Moreover, if Hamas were an existential threat to Egypt’s national security, why has Mubarak been negotiating with Hamas leaders for years, and why has he been at the center of talks over reconciliation with Fatah?

In fact, by keeping the border crossing into Egypt closed, Mubarak is sending the Palestinians to Israel for help. In the Byzantine world of Middle East politics Arab leaders want the Gaza Strip to remain exclusively an Israeli problem.

The irony, of course, is that the millions of dollars required to build the new fence could have been employed to build hospitals, schools and housing. Palestinians crossing the border generally do so in search of employment or to be reunited with families residing in Egypt. At the moment even medical and humanitarian aid cannot get through the Rafah border crossing and human rights activists are invariably stopped at the border as well.

(Read full article)
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Egypt’s Steel Wall: An Attempt to Placate the U.S.?

Allison Kaplan Sommer
pajamasmedia.com
10 January '10

A Middle Eastern country is building a massive thick steel wall as a barrier between themselves and a Palestinian regime. The country is being condemned for its actions across the Arab world, denounced by Islamist figures like Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, and facing angry demonstrations at its embassies around the world.

Signs with the president’s face daubed with a Star of David are waved, and furious slogans are chanted. The new construction project, written about critically in the world press as “choking” Gaza, has been dubbed the “iron wall” and the “wall of shame.”

Sound familiar? Nothing new? In fact, the situation is very new. The country that is being berated and condemned is not Israel. The wall is being build by the Egyptian government to separate territory controlled by Egypt and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Israel is routinely charged with inhumanely and heartlessly fencing off Palestinian Gazans in a “prison,” despite the fact that Egypt’s official crossing to Gaza is also clamped shut, with the exception of a few days each month. But with the construction of this new wall, Egypt is taking some powerful hits from within the Arab world.

The wall being constructed is designed to stop the flow of smuggling between Egypt and Gaza through the border town of Rafah, an underground economy that is not limited to — but certainly includes — major weaponry and ammunition being stockpiled for terrorist attacks and to help Hamas rearm for the next war between Gaza and Israel. Along with the weaponry brought in to replace the stockpiles decimated in Operation Cast Lead, millions of dollars worth of other commerce flows through the tunnels on a daily basis. Everything from food, to gasoline, to machinery, to farm animals. The tunnels are a major source of revenue for Hamas, which charges a premium for the construction and use of the tunnels and puts a tariff on any goods that are brought in.

The planned 10 kilometer-long wall will include steel sheets that will reach 60 meters underground — an attempt to cut off the tunnels and the commerce that flourishes there. In addition to weaponry, the tunnels are also a conduit for terrorists, both reasons that the tunnels themselves were targeted in Operation Cast Lead.

(Read full article)
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