EDITOR: Is Cairo forgetting the Palestinians again?
Over the last week, since the attacks on the road to Eilat and the death of five Egyptian soldiers killed by the IDF, it seemed that the Egyptian society is returning to the unfulfilled Camp David agreements, and the fact that both Sadat and Mubarak have abandoned the Palestinians to their miserable fate, becoming Israel’s security guarantor, and delivering its policy in Rafah. Without this willing collaboration, Israel could not have inflicted the terrible massacres on Gaza, especially in 2008-2009 and ever since.
While the million-march has petered out this Friday, one hopes that the fate of the Palestinians will not again be forgotten by the Egyptian revolution.
Report: Egypt convinced Israel not to assassinate Hamas leader in Gaza: Haaretz
Israel planned to target Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh after the terror attacks in south last week but cancelled the operation due to Egyptian pressure, Al-Ahram reports.
Egypt convinced Israel to cancel a plan to assassinate Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh following the terrorist attacks near Eilat last week, the Egyptian Al-Ahram newspaper reported on Saturday, citing Palestinian sources.
According to the report, Egyptian officials also applied pressure on Islamic Jihad to declare a ceasefire. At the same time, Hamas swayed other factions in the Gaza Strip, particularly the Popular Resistance Committees, to halt rocket attacks on Israel.
The report also said that the Palestinian Authority was involved in convincing factions in Gaza to halt rocket fire.
Eight Israelis were killed in the terrorist attacks on the Israel-Egypt border north of Eilat on Thursday, August 18.
The Israel Air Force responded with airstrikes in the Gaza Strip. targeting Popular Resistance Committes operatives.
In the following days, dozens of rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, killing one Israeli.
A ceasefire declared by Gaza militants on Sunday quickly broke down. A second ceasfire was declared on Friday.
April 6 Movement suspends sit-in at Israeli embassy, but demands big changes in Israel-Egypt relations: Ahram Online
The April 6 movement ends their protests at the Israeli embassy, but entrenches their stance; demanding the end to trade agreements with Israel and creating a free-trade zone with Gaza to lift Israel’s siege
Salma Shukrallah, Saturday 27 Aug 2011
Egypt’s April 6 youth movement released a statement on Friday declaring that they have suspended their week-long sit-in in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo, as their stance has been made clear. The movement has also put forward several demands to Egypt’s ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the government that would vindicate troops Israel killed at the border last week.
The Movement demanded that the SCAF and government insist on an official apology from the Israel and a joint investigation into the killings; the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador; cancelling all trade agreements with Israel, including QIZ; amending the Camp David treaty to guarantee that Egypt has full authority over Sinai and the establishment of a free trade zone with Gaza, allowing in all products, in effect, completely ending Israel’s siege on Gaza and ensuring that the Palestinian resistance is fully supported.
Following the killing of two Egyptian police officers and three soldiers by Israel on Egypt’s borders, thousands of Egyptians have been protesting at the Israeli embassy in Cairo, the Israel consulate in Alexandria as well as in public squares in many cities across the country.
Last week, during the protests in front of the embassy, an Egyptian young man climbed 13 floors at the embassy building to take down the Israeli flag.
Last night, hundreds participated in the sit-in in front of the Israeli embassy including members of the April 6 Movement.
Israel must lower its profile in face of the Arab tumult: Haaretz Editorial
The man on the street who brought down his rulers in a fit of rage and demanded that they be tried is directing similar hatred toward Israel, with much less justification.
One after the other the leaders of our Arab neighbors, whom Israel has long considered permanent like the Golan Heights and the Sinai Desert, are falling: Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Muammar Gadhafi in Libya and probably soon Bashar Assad in Syria. Thanks to the Internet and Facebook, a major change is taking place: The hitherto invisible political factor in most of these countries is claiming his place – the man on the street.
In Israel, the joy and enthusiasm in light of the “spirit of Tahrir” are accompanied by a certain sadness and disappointment. Not only has the process of democratization on the Arab street not been accompanied by peaceful intentions, it has been followed – for example in Egypt – by an anti-Israel wave that is so strong the temporary military rulers are having a hard time coping with it. That same man on the street who brought down his rulers in a fit of rage and demanded that they be tried is directing similar hatred toward Israel, with much less justification.
On the face of it, these developments reinforce the old argument of the right wing and those opposed to an Israeli withdrawal and concessions; they said there was no point in agreements with dictators – that we should wait for democratization in the Arab states. Now all they see in the coming of democracy is proof of the Arab nations’ atavistic hatred of Israel; they find in it a new excuse to toughen their stance and freeze the peace process.
But when the Arab street is in tumult and all political, military or diplomatic nuance is picked up simultaneously by modern electronic gadgets and the heart of the man on the street, the last thing Israel needs is to turn its back on the hope for peace in arrogance and aggression, which only provide excuses for hatred of it.
On the contrary, the Israeli government should lower its profile and stick closely to the desire for peace and the proof that it does not seek to expand.
It must radiate calm, conciliation and moderation as much as possible. It must do this in the hope that when the flames die down, the Arab street will also understand that peace is a key element of the spirit of equality, freedom and democracy.
Night of anti-Israeli protest draws hundreds rather than the promised hundreds of thousands: Ahram Online
Anti-Israeli demonstrations continue into Friday night in front of the Israel Embassy in Cairo, but the Facebook call for a million man march was met with little support
Saturday 27 Aug 2011
Demonstrators across Egypt want Israeli ambassador out
Tensions are beginning to flare up, according to users of the social networking site Twitter, after the reported arrest of a protester by the military police.
Protesters began to return to the Israeli Embassy in Dokki, Cairo after Iftar. By about 8pm, a couple of hundred had stood on the bridge and in front of the neighbouring buildings. The blue lines and star of the Israeli flag were being painted on a white banner several metres in length. Demands were written as well as demonstrators stood on the flag and paced back an forth, showing there indignation and outrage.
Earlier, hundreds had gathered in Tahrir Square to march to the embassy in defiance and to mark Al-Quds (or Jerusalem) Day – an annual day of protest against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.A Facebook call urged Egyptians to demonstrate en mass at the Israeli embassy in Cairo to demand the expulsion of the ambassador. The demonstrators marched around Tahrir Square carrying Egyptian flags and chanting “The People want the Israeli ambassador expelled.”
In front of the embassy a dozen or so protesters performed the Ishaa prayer (dusk) as military police looked on from their armoured vehicles. After the prayer, chanting resumed as people waved black flags proclaiming the oneness of God. Signs bore the name of several groups. Some were clearly Nasserists, others pro-Palestinian and still others of a religious nature. One group was called “the Movement of the Oneness of God.”
The metres long Israeli flag, by now completed, was spread across the street, blocking both traffic directions and then set alight. Some protesters called for the “doors of jihad to be opened” and weapons to be given to the volunteers who would go and free Palestine from Zionist bondage. Protesters have not forgotten the military council, however, and many directed their anger at de-facto leader Field Marshall Hussein Mohammed Tantawi and General Sami Anan, the Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces. “We are not cowards,” they shouted, demanding that the council take a position and stick to it.
The main cries among the press of people, however, was centred around two basic demands. The first was the for removal of the embassy and the expulsion of the ambassador. The second demand called for an immediate halt to the sale of natural gas to Israel.
Hundreds of demonstrators started a sit-in in front of the Israeli embassy on 19 August, following the killing of two Egyptian police officers and three soldiers by Israel on Egypt’s borders. Thousands of Egyptians have since taken to the streets in anger, demanding that the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador. An Egyptian young man, dubbed “Flagman”, thrilled protesters across the world after he climbed 13 floors to bring down the Israeli flag and replace it with the Egyptian one.
Social justice also means ending the occupation: Haaretz
Justice is not merely the right to decent housing for Jews, it is also the right to freedom of a nation under occupation.
By Zeev Sternhell
Be the internal ills of Israeli society as they may, and they are too numerous to count, most of them can be treated and even cured; but the occupation and colonialism are terminal illnesses. Therefore anyone who refuses to understand – as did Shelly Yachimovich in her interview with Haaretz’s weekend magazine – that the socialism of masters, and on behalf of masters, is no less ruthless and despicable than the neoliberalism of the rich on behalf of the rich, is not worthy of seeking the leadership of a party that has pretensions of charting the future.
Indeed, in order to achieve quick results in the social sphere, it is possible to take steps that are relatively easy – cancel the tax reductions for companies, raise the tax percentages on high incomes, transfer money from the settlements to the welfare budgets immediately. If it is permitted to impose heavy customs on a small car, it is also permitted to collect luxury tax on a penthouse on the shores of Tel Aviv, or a large yacht in mid ocean. It is reasonable to assume that it is also possible to find a swift way to renew the construction of public housing in the form of small and inexpensive apartments. On the other hand, the occupation is an existential threat – if Israeli society does not find a way to deal with the settlements, there will be an end to the Jewish state.
Already today, Zionism, in the simple and initial significance of the term, has vacated its place to radical and ruthless nationalism that is partially racist and seeped in professed antidemocratic tendencies of the kind that already led to huge disasters in Europe in the previous century.
Traditional Zionism was based on two mainstays. It was a movement to save an entire nation from destruction and expressed the natural right of that nation to self-rule. Both of these goals were achieved with the establishment of the state – that was a special hour of benevolence and it was supposed to put an end to the period of conquering the land. That was also the hour in which Zionism was supposed to absorb the liberal principles of human rights and civic equality. The terrible disaster of the Six-Day War destroyed this possibility when it turned Israelis into lords over another nation whose rights were denied. But our failure to deal with the injustice implicit in the conquest does not justify our coming to terms with it.
Therefore the Labor Party cannot suffice with the role of a pressure group for one issue, be that issue as lofty as it may. Social and political life is not one dimensional; there is no society without politics, there is no economy without political decisions, and there is no worthy life without morals. The correct demand for a revolution, in the way of thinking that will lead to a different social policy, is not cut off from the larger question of freedom and democracy, human rights and the future of the territories; freedom, justice and equality cannot be divided.
Already from the start of the social protest movement, many people have been bothered by the questions: What is the actual significance of the term “justice” to the youngsters protesting in the street? How is it possible to achieve social justice without justice as a universal value? What are the boundaries of justice and its implementation?
In this respect, there was always a big difference between the right and the left in the world, and now also in Israel. The left considers equality to be a universal value, an expression of a human being’s right not merely to the freedom to sleep under a bridge but also to the freedom to live a decent life. The left – and this is the big difference between it and the various types of conservatives – does not consider equality to be an element that restricts freedom but rather a different aspect of a human being’s right to control his life.
This takes us back to the occupation. Justice is not merely the right to decent housing for Jews, it is also the right to freedom of a nation under occupation. An enormous opportunity for changing the face of Israel’s political culture and charting the face of the future will be lost if the flag-bearers of the protest decide to ignore this truth.
Egypt, Israel and Palestine: an awkward three-way dance: Guardian
Relations between Israel and post-revolution Egypt are proving tetchy – but ordinary people hold the keys to peace
Khaled Diab
It has been a tense week in Egyptian-Israeli relations. It all started when unknown assailants crossed from Sinai to carry out a series of co-ordinated terrorist attacks in southern Israel, which left eight Israelis dead.
Terror was met with more terror and counter-terror, as Israel bombed embattled Gaza, leading to the deaths of at least 14 people, despite the absence of evidence that Gazans were behind the attack (some of the alleged perpetrators appear to be Egyptians), and Islamist militants in Gaza fired their Grad rockets into southern Israel.
In a reckless act that could have escalated the situation dangerously, Israeli troops – in a gunship that crossed the border, according to Egyptian security sources – also killed three Egyptian army and police personnel, apparently by accident.
Fortunately, Egypt refrained from taking a leaf out of Israel’s book and did not give chase across the border to apprehend the killers. Instead, it sensibly decided to follow the diplomatic track and demand an apology and a joint investigation into the incident. A statement announcing the withdrawal of Egypt’s ambassador to Israel was later retracted.
Though military tensions seem to have subsided, an escalating war of words is brewing between Egypt and Israel. In Israel, in addition to anger, grief and a desire for vengeance, allegations are flying that Egypt has “lost control” of Sinai. For its part, Egypt counters that the Israeli security apparatus was pretty much caught with its pants down in its failure to protect its borders. There is also a widespread foreboding that this is just a taste of things to come in post-revolution Egypt.
Egypt has also been gripped by anger, grief and calls for vengeance. Outraged protesters have spent days besieging the Israeli embassy – with one even climbing 21 storeys to replace the Israeli flag with an Egyptian one – to demand the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador and the severing of ties.
So, what does the future hold for Egyptian-Israeli relations in light of this latest spat, the Egyptian revolution, the current hardline Israeli government and Palestinian plans to go to the UN next month to seek international recognition? Will the cold peace endure, escalate into a new cold war or warm into a big thaw?
At this juncture, it is very hard to tell which way the wind will blow. My reading of the situation – which I elaborated on at a recent conference – is that in spite of this recent flare-up the Egyptian-Israeli status quo will remain essentially unchanged, though relations between the two governments are likely to grow frostier.
A democratic Egypt more in tune with its public’s mood is likely to collaborate less with Israel on security issues, such as the Mubarak’s regime’s unpopular involvement in the Gaza blockade, and might, I have argued, act as a deterrent against excessive Israeli militarism. In fact, some analysts and diplomats have concluded that the attack on Gaza was cut short out of fear of straining relations with Cairo further.
In my view, Israeli fears that a more radical regime, probably led by the Muslim Brotherhood, would “tear up” the Camp David peace accords are unfounded. Not only is the popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood a lot less than doomsayers have been warning – a recent poll showed its approval rating to be just 17% – now that the possibility of entering government has become realistic, the group has demonstrated its political pragmatism.
Despite the Muslim Brotherhood’s official opposition to peace with Israel, a spokesman has said that the future of the peace treaty would be decided by “the Egyptian people and not the Brotherhood”.
Moreover, the anger on the streets and the strong anti-Israeli stance taken by opposition politicians and ordinary Egyptians notwithstanding, there is little appetite in Egypt to return to the bad old days of confrontation. A number of recent polls, including this one, show that the vast majority of Egyptians are in favour of maintaining the peace treaty with Israel.
Even radical critics of Israel, such as the popular novelist Alaa al-Aswany, who famously refused to have one of his best-selling novels translated into Hebrew, has not called for the reneging of the accord.
Instead, he has demanded that Egypt renegotiate the articles relating to the presence of Egyptian troops in the Sinai. Perhaps al-Aswany will be disappointed to learn that senior figures in the Israel Defence Forces are, following last week’s attack, in full agreement with this suggestion.
It may take two to tango but in the case of Egyptian-Israeli relations, the dance is a three-way one, with the Palestinians making up the hate triangle. Despite the generally pessimistic tone of the Israeli discourse on the Egyptian revolution, Israel is not a passive bystander and can do much to improve future ties with Egypt, namely by working towards or reaching a just resolution with the Palestinians, the thorn in the side of Egyptian-Israeli ties.
Next month’s Palestinian bid to go to the UN should not be read as an act of hostility but as a desperate plea for freedom and justice, albeit a misguided one – something that an increasing number of Israelis are growing to realise. Sadly, such enlightenment is not shared by the ideologues currently leading the Israeli government, and the Palestinian leadership; both the PA and Hamas benefit in their own warped ways from the status quo.
With such inertia, what can be done to change the dynamics of the situation for the better? I believe that it is time to follow a new track in which ordinary people lead the process and not just sit back and wait for their ineffective leaders to do something or wait for the arrival some unknown saviour.
Palestinians and Israelis need to awaken to their own power and unlock their dormant potential to steer their own destiny towards peace and reconciliation, through mass, peaceful joint activism. Likewise, ordinary Egyptians need to cast aside their ideological opposition to dealing with Israelis and help facilitate and mediate such a “people’s peace”.
Lebensraum as a justification for Israeli settlements: Haaretz
We were fortunate when we occupied the West Bank because had we not done so, where would we have come to live? And who knows how high housing prices would have risen?
By Yossi Sarid
Until now Israel had supported the occupation of the territories with two pillars: history and security – its right to inherit the land and its obligation to defend it. In recent weeks a third pillar was added, which all these years was hidden under straw and stubble. And maybe it’s not a pillar but a snake, whose head must be crushed while it’s still small.
According to the school of thought based on history and faith, the Land of Israel was received by the Jewish people from the hand of God, and we are commanded to take all of it by dint of the Covenant of the Pieces that God made with Abraham. That was a nice big gift, we have to admit, stretching from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates. It was granted on various festive occasions not only to Abraham but to his heirs as well. Eventually it was forced to shrink, and now there is really no reason to shrink it further out of choice.
The second, security-based school of thought stipulates that we need virtually all the territories for self-defense. Without them we’ll never be able to live in security without feeling threatened. Therefore, if we are ever forced to leave certain parts of the country, even then we’ll evacuate only in order to remain, relying forever on temporary “security arrangements,” which even social-welfare-oriented MK Shelly Yachimovich will sign.
Sometimes one school of thought overlaps the other and the difference between them becomes blurred. It often happens that members of the security school – people who do not lead a religious way of life – put a knitted skullcap on and then prophesy in the same messianic style. And the opposite happens as well: Rabbis and students bring up reasons in the name of security so as not to rely on the promise alone.
And now, in the middle of the summer, when the social protest is putting the housing shortage at the top of the agenda for a moment, the third school of thought is developing and taking hold. The interior minister – in advance of a Black September of his own – approves the construction of 1,600 housing units for the ultra-Orthodox in Jerusalem’s Ramat Shlomo neighborhood, another 624 units in Pisgat Ze’ev and another 930 in Har Homa Gimmel – all beyond the Green Line. Defense Minister Ehud Barak, for whom the election threshold is a sharp knife at his throat, approved 277 homes in the settlement of Ariel, may it be established in his day. And 42 MKs are calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to ease the housing shortage in the country via accelerated construction in the territories.
Suddenly we are short of space here in Israel, which has become full to capacity and needs lebensraum. Every cultured person knows that this is a despicable German concept, banned from use because of the associations it brings up. Still, people are starting to use it, if not outright then with a clear implication: We are short of land, we are short of air, let us breathe in this country.
When we embarked on the Six-Day War did we want to remove a threat or did we want to gain control in order to spread out? That’s what happens after 44 years of mire and moral corruption, which distort things and make us forget the original objective and replace it with an entirely different one. We were fortunate when we occupied the West Bank because had we not done so, where would we have come to live? And who knows how high housing prices would have risen? The divine promise is now being revealed in all its ability to prophesy about real estate.
The founding fathers, as opposed to the Diadochi who fought for control after Alexander the Great’s death, represented a different approach, for the most part. Between “A little goes a long way,” and “Don’t bite off more than you can chew,” they chose to bite; they even agreed to the 1947 UN partition plan for lack of choice. They believed that all the objectives of rational Ben Gurion-style Zionism could be fulfilled even in “Lesser Israel,” which is more complete and more at peace with itself. And it has no need for lebensraum, may God preserve us.