The NST EDITORIAL: Betraying Gaza

2010/01/08

IN stark contrast to the bullets, tear gas, water cannons and rocks that assaulted the Viva Palestina convoy at the port of El-Arish, the first fleet of eight lorries of the humanitarian mission that rolled into Gaza through the Rafah crossing on Wednesday evening was greeted by flowers and flag-waving crowds. The Viva Palestina Malaysia chairman was right to castigate this brutish treatment of the aid activists as "simply unacceptable". When the Egyptian authorities have been uncooperative, placed unreasonable obstacles and imposed onerous conditions not only on the 450-member international convoy but also on the 1,200 activists from 40 countries in the Gaza Freedom Movement, which had also hoped to bring assistance to Gaza on Dec 27 to mark the first anniversary of the "Cast Lead" offensive, like him, we should question their motives because their actions make their "claims of standing in solidarity with the Palestinians" sound "very hollow". All the more so when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was welcomed with open arms at the presidential palace in Cairo last week, praised for his contributions to "peace" and applauded for the "freeze" on settlements, and hundreds of Israelis were allowed to come to Egypt to pray at the grave of a rabbi.

When the blockade of Gaza applies to everything except essential medicine, basic foodstuff and limited fuel and to everyone except the most extreme medical cases, and when the isolation of Gaza could not be complete without concomitant constrictions on the sole entry and exit point which Israel does not control, it is difficult to buy the argument that Egypt is only protecting its borders when it opens the Rafah crossing only sporadically, like it did for three days from Sunday. When the borders have been sealed so tight that underground tunnels have been the sole reason that a catastrophic humanitarian crisis has been held at bay, it is hard to accept the argument that the underground wall of iron and steel being built is there only to stop the smuggling.

Like the Viva Palestina Malaysia chairman, we must reluctantly and regretfully conclude that Egypt has become a "major accomplice" in the crippling siege of Gaza which has reduced the strip to the biggest prison in the world and its 1.5 million inhabitants to the most wretched on earth. With the completion of the underground wall, the ordeal of an already tormented people can only get worse. That is why we must stand in solidarity with those trying to break the siege and end the crimes against humanity taking place in Gaza.