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The
Israeli government finally put so much pressure on the population of
Gaza that it triggered an explosion.
The Gazan people staged a massive breakout from their outdoor
prison. But there were signs before Palestinian militants blew up the
barriers on the Egyptian border that the Israeli blockade was becoming
untenable. International organizations were raising increasing alarms
about an impending "humanitarian disaster" because of the
Israeli power cuts and blocking of supplies.
It
was likely the evident growth of international outage at the collective
punishments inflicted on the people of Gaza, especially in the Arab
world, that convinced Palestinian militants that the time had come to
challenge the complicity of the Egyptian government with Israel in
maintaining the blockade. As it happened, they judged correctly.
The
Egyptian authorities were unable to block the massive rush across the
border without a major military mobilization and slaughter, and so they
caved in, allowing the Palestinian crowds to pass without hindrance.
Moreover, although the Israeli and U.S. governments demanded that Egypt
restore the border controls, they were obviously unable to put
sufficient pressure on the Mubarak government to get it to do that, at
least under the present conditions.
The
collapse of the Egyptian border has brought an immediate respite for
the people of Gaza and an important victory for Hamas over the
imperialist powers that have been trying to break it by blockading
Gaza. But it is hardly a solution to the problems of the people of the
area.
The
Gazans for the moment are able to buy what they need in Egypt, as long
as they have the money. But where are they going to get it? Moreover,
where is the Gaza buying spree across the border going to lead? The economy of Gaza has been ruined
by the Israeli blockade. Can it be revived by access to Egypt? That is
questionable, no matter how open the frontier remains. The Egyptian
economy itself is very poor, and on the frontier with Gaza, prices are
already soaring because of the Palestinian influx.
The
Egyptian authorities are declaring that the opening of the border is
only temporary. But they have been failing to restore the blockade for
days. On Jan. 26, 36 Egyptian border police were injured in clashes
with Palestinians, two of them seriously, according to Egyptian
reports.
It
is unlikely that the Mubarak regime can restore the blockade as it was.
In fact, the blockade of Gaza in general has been weakened. The
Israelis seem to have recognized this by restoring deliveries of diesel
fuel to the Gaza power plants.
But
the Egyptian authorities may still obstruct cross-border traffic.
Moreover, the Egyptian police are still preventing Gazans from going deeper
into Egypt than the border area. They may simply be moving the border
back for all practical purposes.
Mubarak,
who has ruled on the basis of martial law for decades, is confronted by
the Islamic movement linked to Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, that
denounces the Egyptian government for its subordination to Israel and
U.S. imperialism and to a considerable extent crystallizes the growing
unpopularity of his regime.
Thus, obviously, the government wants to limit the contacts
between Egyptians and Palestinians.
Some
Israeli politicians clearly hope that the opening of the Gaza frontier
with Egypt will lead to the annexation of the area by the neighboring
Arab state. In its Jan. 24
issue, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported: "Israel wants to sever
connections with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and cease supplying it
with basic necessities in the wake of the border breach, Deputy Defense
Minister Matan Vilnai said on Thursday.
"'We
need to understand that when Gaza is open to the other side we lose responsibility
for it. So we want to disconnect from it," Vilnai told Army
Radio." The Zionist state, in fact, has nothing to gain from
maintaining control over the small, overcrowded, and poor enclave that
would justify the costs. It would be happy to dump it on Egypt.
Moreover,
polls have shown that there is a significant, if still minority
support, among the
Palestinians
in both the West Bank and Gaza, for annexation to the neighboring Arab
states. This is a response to the hopelessness many feel after being
exposed for decades to constant Israeli blockades and military attacks.
But it would mean the liquidation of the Palestinian nation.
And
Palestinians living in the neighboring Arab states have continued to
suffer all kinds of discrimination.
In Lebanon, for example, Palestinian refugees are still denied
basic citizenship rights, including access to education and legal
employment.
Thus,
Mahmud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, reacted strongly to
Vilnai's statements, saying that Egyptian control of Gaza would lead to
a lasting division of the Palestinian people.
However,
the Egyptian rulers would regard Gaza as a poisoned gift, among other
reasons because it would be difficult, if not impossible, for them to
prevent the Palestinians in Gaza from attacking Israel. The political
costs of their suppressing the Palestinian militants would be very high
for them, and their failure to do so could undermine their peace deal
with Israel.
That
also would be the dark side of such an arrangement for the Israelis.
Their attempts to punish the Palestinians could lead to clashes with
Egypt. There is really no
solution for the economic problems of the Palestinian people, or the
Egyptians, without breaking from the imperialist control of the region.
Notably,
the Egyptian rulers' attempt to achieve economic development by
capitulating to imperialism, both by opening up the country to
imperialist business (the Infitah) and by signing a separate peace with
Israel have totally failed. The country is sinking deeper and deeper
into impoverishment and social chaos.
And
it is more and more obvious that the Egyptian rulers cannot sidestep
the problem of the oppression and expulsion of an Arab people by an
imperialist colonial project in a neighboring country.
Hopefully,
the defeat the Mubarak government has just suffered on its frontier
with Gaza will help to spur a social revolution in Egypt, since only
that can challenge the power of imperialism in the region, including
that of the Zionist state.
Such
a revolution would have to go beyond the populism and obscurantist
demagogy of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. It could only succeed by
offering equality and economic hope to all the people living in the
region. That is, it would have to be a socialist
revolution,
offering a fundamentally different alternative to the
imperialist-dominated world economy and all the conservative
structures. Without that, there are inevitably going to be more threats
of "humanitarian disasters" in the region—not just in Gaza.
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