Gaza’s Siege Intensifies: The Plan to ‘Moderate’ Hamas, Control Gaza
by Ramzy Baroud - PalestineChronicle.com
On Sep. 17, 2012, Ismail Haniyeh, Prime Minister of the
Hamas government in Gaza, made another appeal to his Egyptian counterpart
Hisham Kandil to consider setting up a free trade area between Gaza and Egypt.
The reasonable idea would allow Egypt to support Gaza’s
ragged economy while sparing Cairo the political fallout from destroying
hundreds of tunnels that provide 1.6 million Palestinians a lifeline under a
continued Israeli siege. Palestinians in Gaza rely on goods smuggled through
tunnels and to a lesser extent United Nations handouts to survive.
“We explained the concept in detail (..) the idea is to
alleviate the economic hardship in Gaza,” Hamas official, Taher al-Nono was
then quoted in Reuters. Kandil promised to look into the matter, indicating
that it was too early for a response.
However this proposal was introduced before and repeatedly
after the September meeting. It should have at least served as the basis for a
serious platform of discussion regarding future cooperation between Gaza and
Egypt on this urgent matter. But Cairo neither responded nor offered an
alternative to end Gaza’s seemingly perpetual misery. Even worse, for several
months now and notably since the deadly August 5 attack in Sinai by unknown
assailants – which killed 16 Egyptian border guards - the Egyptian army has
actively been destroying Gaza’s tunnels.
According to a Gaza-based economist Maher Al-Tabbaa, “30
percent of Gaza's goods come from the tunnels.” But other estimates, cited by
Reuters, place the food reliance on smuggling at 80 percent. Without tunnels,
and no real, long term alterative, Gaza will delve deeper into poverty and the
crisis will likely reach unprecedented levels.
But why is post-revolution Egypt maintaining the very policy
of isolating Gaza which was first espoused by former Egyptian dictator Hosni
Mubarak?
Despite grave humanitarian repercussions of the siege, the
subject is essentially political. Following the demise of the Mubarak regime, a
sense of euphoria was felt in Gaza and across the region that a revolutionary
government - especially one headed by the Muslim Brotherhood - is likely to
reverse an enriched legacy historically financed and guarded by American money
and political leverage. The price of the Camp David treaty signed between Egypt
and Israel in 1978-79 was meant to turn Egypt into a permanent political asset
for Washington and Tel Aviv in exchange for a fixed amount of money which
arrives mostly in the form of military aid. Mubarak had indeed delivered and
the late Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was the personification of
that American success.
When Israel imposed a siege on Gaza following Hamas’
election victory in 2006, it mattered little that Egypt and Gaza had a shared border.
Israel seemed entirely comfortable that the Mubarak regime was on board, while
Palestinians in the Strip subsisted between occasional war and economic
hardship.
To suggest that Hamas orchestrated the murder of Egyptian
soldiers in the Sinai – which served as the army’s cue to further cut off Gaza
– is to have no understanding whatsoever of the collective psychology of
Palestinians in the Strip who continue to see Egypt as an oasis of political
hope and economic salvation. Moreover, the cultural and religious rapports
between Gaza and Egypt - which administrated the Strip for decades between 1948
and 1967 – is easily discounted.
Overwhelmed by the persisting attempts at its removal from
power, the Muslim Brotherhood and President Mohammed Morsi continue to approach
matters concerning Palestinians with utmost caution. Their detractors have
dedicated much energy and time to smear Palestinians, Hamas and Gaza in much of
Egypt’s privately owned media. Bizarre propaganda of completely besieged
Palestinians in Gaza smuggling weapons and drugs to the Sinai is creating a
state of confusion among many Egyptians regarding Gaza and its role in Egyptian
security chaos.
Too timid to challenge the many forces at play in Egypt,
Morsi’s government is offering little by way of helping Gaza overcome its
isolation. This hesitance has proven costly. Using the pretense of protecting
Egypt’s national security, the army is actively destroying the tunnels under
the leadership of defense minister Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. Reporting in
Israeli newspaper Haaretz on April 6, Zvi Bar'el estimated that 250 tunnels
were destroyed in March, while 76 were flooded with sewage, “after locating
them by means of satellite information, probably in cooperation with the United
States.”
‘Probably’ is an understatement, as the US government – and
other western powers - invested much funds and expertise in ensuring that Gaza
is fully quarantine. Throughout most of 2011, it was simply unthinkable in Gaza
that Egypt would continue actively cooperating with western intelligence to
keep Hamas isolated. In 2012 and especially after the August attack in the
Sinai, it became clear that whatever forces that were yielded by the January
2011 revolution, were simply too weak to impact reality on the ground.
According to Haaretz, “Egypt's political (and) military leadership (is) divided
over support for Hamas.” The longer that division persists, the deeper Gaza
sinks into despair. Naturally, some regional and international forces are
actively investing in the Egyptian division, wishing to tame Hamas’ political
independence.
And indeed there are signs that Hamas is now catering to
outside powers in an attempt to preserve itself and withstand the pressures
that preceded and followed its exit from Damascus as a result of the
uprising-turned-civil war in Syria. Some media report that Khaled Meshaal’s
reinstatement as the Hamas political chief would not have been possible without
heavy pressure from the head of Egyptian intelligence Gen. Raafat Shehata. With
Meshaal at the helm, the normalization between Hamas and Jordan and Qatar (a
major Hamas funder), among other regional powers, is likely to continue.
Moreover, according to Adel Zaanoun, reporting for Agence France Presse on
April 3, based on regional experts’ opinions, Meshaal’s re-elections “may
better Hamas ties with (the) West.” The fact that the Hamas elections, took
place in Cairo, one analyst suggested “is proof that Egypt will support the
movement in opening it up to the West.”
It is possible that the price to be exacted from the
Brotherhood to end regional and western interference in Egyptian affairs will
also include bringing Hamas inline. While Hamas’ Gaza leadership are being
denied access to any possible economic independence, some Hamas leaders outside
are being propped up as suitable ‘moderate’ candidates in any possible
Hamas-western normalization in the future.
That dependency is being slowly but cleverly crafted, as
it’s aimed at exacting political ‘compromises’ from Hamas in the long run. And
as if the Israeli siege and the destruction of tunnels are not enough, the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) recently announced a
distribution cutoff of basic aid to 25,000 Gaza refugees, a decision that
“could exacerbate hardship caused by Israeli and Egyptian controls on the
isolated enclave's borders,” reported Al Jazeera on April 5.
Without alternative economic venues in the face of Israel’s
land and sea blockade, Egypt’s crackdown on the tunnels and UNRWA’s budget
cuts, the Hamas Gaza leadership is likely to seek alternatives in the form of
handouts which will come at a political price. In the long run, Hamas will face
difficult options, including splitting up or following the same detrimental
path on which Fatah and the PLO found themselves, leading up to the Oslo
‘peace’ fiasco starting in 1993. Only a constructive end to the Egyptian
political deadlock could offer Hamas in Gaza a third, more dignified
alternative and that is to be seen.
- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is: My Father was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press).
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