In his weekly Canadian Jewish News media analysis column “According to Reports,†Paul Michaels, CIC Director of Communications, looks at the lack of coverage for the Gaza “aid” convoy.
Even a few years ago, radical British MP George Galloway’s PR stunt earlier this month to pressure Cairo into allowing his pro-Palestinian “aid” convoy into Gaza at the Rafah crossing would likely have received substantial media coverage.
Now, however, world attention is focused on the aftermath of the of the Christmas Day airplane bomb attempt, including Al Qaeda’s and Yemen’s roles – basically, there’s been a re-focus on Islamist terrorism. Consequently, the media gave scant notice to Galloway, other than to report that he had run afoul of Egyptian authorities and had been sent packing back to Britain.
Still, this episode revealed much about Egypt and Gaza – and in particular, about Hamas.
First the background: the group Galloway headed, called “Viva Palestina,” consisted of about 500 activists, mostly British and American. They had gathered in Egypt for a week in late December to protest the “siege” of Gaza, prior to their intended trip there to mark the anniversary of the Gaza war.
However, during the night of Jan. 5, in the northern Sinai town of El Arish, they clashed with Egyptian security forces over the route the convoy was to take, leaving many injured on both sides. (In a separate incident at Rafah, an Egyptian soldier was killed and more than a dozen others were injured, and four Palestinians were wounded in a gun battle during a Hamas-organized protest against an anti-smuggling wall that Cairo is building on the border.)
AFP reported (“Egypt bars Gaza-bound aid convoys” Jan. 9) that in response to the El Arish clash, Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Abul Gheit declared that Galloway had committed “criminal” acts on Egyptian soil. Gheit told Al Ahram: “Egypt will no longer allow convoys, regardless of their origin or who is organising them, from crossing its territory.” Galloway was expelled from the country.
AFP added that “Egypt accused Galloway, who once called at a London rally for the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, of trying to embarrass the country, which has refused to permanently open its Rafah border crossing with Gaza.”
What went unreported was the broader significance of Galloway’s Egyptain escapade.
Two developments stand out: first, Egypt’s angry response to Galloway’s and Hamas’ challenge to open the Rafah crossing to his convoy (Egypt wanted the trucks to go through Israel’s southern crossing) underscores the degree to which Cairo wants to keep the onus on Israel as the party responsible for humanitarian aid to the Palestinians in Gaza – a point made explicit by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry’s labelling of Israel as the “occupying force.”
Keeping the Rafah crossing mostly sealed not only keeps the international focus on Israel, it also hinders ties between Hamas and the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a movement from which Hamas arose and which threatens Mubarak’s regime.
Second, as Amira Hass explained (“Pro-Gaza activists under siege – imposed by Egypt and Hamas,” Ha’aretz, Jan. 8), Hamas so tightly controlled the small number of activists who managed to enter Gaza that they apparently were left bewildered and frustrated.
For instance, claiming “security reasons,” Hamas prevented the activitsts from lodging in the homes of ordinary Gazans (as some NGOs had arranged), forcing them to stay in a hotel – owned by Hamas – where they were bottled up. But Hamas officials went further. They even prevented the activists who were participating in a “Break the Siege” march from speaking with Gazans.
The march itself was a controlled PR exercise for Hamas, as Hass describes: “The march turned into nothing more than a ritual…Especially photogenic were four Americans from the anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jewish group Neturei Karta…There were no Palestinian women among the marchers – a slap to the many feminist organizers and participants, both women and men.
“After the march, the guests voiced protests to some of the official Palestinian organizers. ‘We came to demonstrate against the siege, and we found that we ourselves were under siege,’ they said.
“In meetings [that managed to be arranged] without the security men, several activists got the impression that non-Hamas residents live in fear, and are afraid to speak or identify themselves by name. ‘Now I understand that the call for ‘Freedom for Gaza’ has another meaning,’ one young man told me.”
/cijainfo
@CIJAinfo