A Palestinian invasion of Egypt?

I just found this article in The Daily News, headlined "Egyptian handling of Gaza proves popular domestically," in which the author argues that the Egyptian regime's handling of the Gaza crisis "proved a points winner, at least domestically."

Now, while it's certainly true that "many Egyptians got on the defensive and backed the regime’s position" as Egypt came under pressure from demonstrators around the Arab world, I don't think quoting one "24-year-old Mohamed Yassin Ahmed" and a couple of newspaper columns provides a good basis for drawing general conclusions about the popularity of the regime's foreign policy.

The article also refers to the "widely prevalent" fear that an unconditional opening of the Rafah border crossing "would result in a mass exodus and a Palestinian occupation of Egyptian territory." Or, as the "man on the street" Ahmed says: “We don’t want to be another Jordan, where Palestinians outnumber the Jordanians themselves and then we would have lost the Palestinian cause. One of Israel’s plans is to remove the Palestinians from Gaza and relocate them in Sinai."

I definitely think that media should present both sides of this debate. But since this argument is very much in line with the propaganda of the Egyptian regime, I think journalists have a special obligation to examine it critically. So here's a couple of points to consider:

First of all, if the population of Gaza really wanted to invade Egypt and occupy Sinai they would have done so a long time ago. The border itself is a joke: It consists of a fence and a few hundred Egyptian soldiers guarding a 13 kilometer wide area. If the Palestinians decided to cross en masse, they could do so at any time. But it is a mystery to me why they would suddenly abandon Gaza after fighting for their homeland for 60 years, especially considering the hostility and discrimination they would likely face as illegal residents of Egypt.

Secondly, calling for an opening of the border is not the same as calling for its removal. What the Palestinians want is a normal border, open to travel and trade like any other international border. The events following the border breach in January 2008 when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians crossed into Egypt and prices soared, making life difficult for the local population, has been used again and again as an example of what might happen if the border was opened. But the reality is that this "invasion" of Palestinians would never have happened if there wasn't a siege in place to start with. If goods were allowed into Gaza, the Palestinians wouldn't need to cross the border to get them.

Interestingly, the idea of a Palestinian invasion of Sinai seem to be particularly popular among the middle class in Cairo (based only on my own very unscientific observations of course). In contrast, virtually everyone I spoke to during my recent trip to northern Sinai is opposed to the current blockade. While the smuggling industry is making some rich, many Egyptians living in northern Sinai also suffers from the isolation of Gaza because they are denied an important market for goods and services. Thus, most of them want the border opened - but in an organized way. Presenting the choice as one between total anarchy and total closure only plays into the hands of the propaganda apparatus of the Egyptian regime.

Pic above: Palestinians in desperate need of basic necessities as fuel and food "invade" Egypt after the temporary border breach on 23 January, 2008.

In the spirit of Goebbels

To celebrate the killing of 1300 Palestinians in Gaza, including hundreds of children, the youth association of the Swedish ruling rightwing party, made this video which would have made Joseph Goebbels proud.

The text shown translates as:

"Security. Freedom. Democracy. Only one country in the Middle East takes a stand for these values. There you can love whoever you want without, as in Iran, being hanged for it. Join us in supporting freedom in the Middle East. Help us support Israel! Become a member!"

Actually, this recruitment video tells us something important about the significance of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the political culture of Europe. Back in the 60's and early 70's, when the left was strong and massive opposition to the war in Vietnam was discrediting the US as the protector of democratic values, the liberal and conservative establishment turned to Israel as their own "cause" to helpt recruit young members to their parties. By propagating Israel as "the only democracy in the Middle East," surrounded by hostile dictatorships, they tried to counter the radicalizing impact of the Vietnam war and anti-colonial freedom struggles around the world.

Decades later they still cling to this concept, long after the "temporary" and "security-motivated" occupation of the West Bank has turned to permanent colonialism and apartheid. I cannot help but wonder if this is because today, as the neoliberal policies they have been advocating for the past 30 years have led to increasing poverty and inequality around the world - and now a global depression - campaigning for Israel provides a welcome distraction and a way to boost the morale of their members. After all, it always feels good to be cheering for the winning team, and the IDF not only has all the fancy high-tech weaponry, but also proved its ability by killing 100 Palestinians for every Israeli killed in the recent conflict...

Mubaraks "realism" and propaganda

I'd like to recommend a couple of good articles on Egypt's position towards Israel and the Palestinians. Nael Shama does a good job of countering the arguments put forward by the state's "propaganda machine" in this article in The Daily News. The position of Mubarak is explored further by Baheyya, who writes in an interesting post:

"If Mubarak today has no compunction about openly aligning his interests with Israel’s, this isn’t a sharp break from the 1980s so much as a shift in impression management. Before, Mubarak was just as cooperative with Israel as he is today, he simply invested more energy in rhetoric to hide this fact. Today, he’s lost interest in keeping up appearances, and seems perfectly comfortable being a tinpot autocrat with nothing more on his mind than keeping his patrons happy and his population cowed."

Read the rest of the post, which examines the reasons for this change and points the central role played by the idea of inheritance of power:

"On the foreign policy front, the story of Gamal Mubarak is the story of how the Egyptian government ceased to promote a broadly defined Egyptian national interest and worked to promote a narrowly defined ruling class interest organically bound up with Israeli interests."

This, one might add, is the story of the neoliberal wave that has swept the world since the seventies, equating the national interest of third world countries with the interests of big business, multinational companies, and a tiny ruling elite. It's not unique to Egypt, except for the particular form this transition is taking here: a transformation from a populist-authoritarian regime into a pseudo-monarchy.

Blaming the victims - propaganda approaching the surreal

The argument that Hamas is "hiding behind civilians" has been become like the pro-Israeli Declaration of Faith recently. By invoking this religious mantra, targeting any part of the Gaza prison can be justified. But the Secretary-General of "Swedish Israel Information" approaches the surreal in this article where she puts all blame on Hamas for the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza:

"What chocks me even more than Israels warfare is Hamas's total lack of concern for its own civilian population. /.../ Hamas deploys landmines, anti-tank guns, and bombs in regular neighbourhoods in Gaza City, hurting their own more than Israel."

Huh? I'm at a total loss here. Perhaps it would be better if those bombs and anti-tank guns were deployed in regular neighbourhoods in Tel Aviv? Unfortunately for the people of Gaza though, that's not where the Israeli tanks are...