Husam Itani

Saying that Egypt’s decision to erect a wall on its border with the Gaza Strip is a “sovereign decision” is not enough to turn the page and stop talking about it. Regardless of the extreme sensitivity with which Egypt is currently handling its sovereign affairs, one should say that many measures adopted by the states deep within their territories or next to their borders, could be considered as hostile moves overstepping the undisputed sovereign right of each country to protect its interests.

The world is not that simple anymore. The joint rivers (and Egypt knows best about its own problems), the underground water basins and the oil fields sprawling across the borders are among the factors drawing today’s international policies, in addition to the immigration activities which can no longer be contained by laws and borders. Therefore, the approach saying that by building its wall Egypt is merely defending its security and interests is extremely deficient. This step, and despite Egypt’s clear right to adopt it, was interpreted as being an act of bias in favor of one of the sides involved in the conflict occurring beyond the Egyptian border, i.e. the Israeli side in its confrontation with the Palestinians and not only with the Hamas movement.

In this context, there is no need to reiterate the considerations which forced the Egyptian authorities to start digging walls deep within the ground in order to prevent the Palestinians from carving their tunnels, since the prevention of smuggling is the number one task of the security bodies, whether the smuggling is linked to the prevention of the transfer of arms, illicit goods or outlaws across the border - whichever border it may be - or for purely political reasons.

However, the shortcomings affecting the tale or the Egyptian refutation of the building of the wall, escalated in light of the non-consideration of the interests of over a million Palestinians who perceive the tunnels of the Rafah area as being a lifeline still supplying them with basic goods in light of the known Israeli blockade imposed on the crossings leading in and out of Gaza on the one hand, and in light of the arbitrary opening and closing of the Rafah crossing over which a lot was said before and after last year’s war on the Strip.

The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are not all loyal supporters of Hamas and are not smuggling arms or illicit goods. Their main concern is to alleviate the Israeli blockade and provide a certain level of normalcy to themselves and their children. The Egyptian step does not serve that inclination, and is thus opposing what some Palestinians perceive as being their rights.

In this context, certain things should be said bluntly: If the Israeli information talking about the introduction of the Iranian Fajr missiles into the Strip is true (knowing that these rockets could reach the Gosh Dan region in the center of Israel), the Egyptian should seek other ways to close the tunnels and not necessarily military ones. Another important thing at this level is the fact that to the Gaza population, the Egyptian wall will merely entail the rise of the prices of smuggled goods, as the owners of the tunnels and those running them will find technological means (some of which are available on the market) to infiltrate the wall and transport the goods, or turn around it via ways which may be complicated but are not impossible. These “solutions” will entail the rise of the prices paid by the ordinary citizens in Gaza, but will ensure the introduction of all the things that the Egyptians are trying to prevent through the building of their wall.

At this point, it would be useless to point to the fact that the Egyptian decision features messages sent to more than one side, i.e. the Palestinian, Israeli and American sides, and maybe even to others. However, what should urgently be said is that the Gaza population which is living under the blockade is the one that will hear the echo of the message louder than everyone else.

Published in the London-based AL-HAYAT on Dec. 28, 2009

quoted from AlArabiya