The cross(ing) Cairo has to bear - Haaretz

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Thu., February 14, 2008 Adar1 8, 5768

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The cross(ing) Cairo has to bear

By Zvi Bar'el

Tags: Hosni Mubarak

"The revolutionary extremist has a strategy that states: 'Always participate in dialogue. And when you reach an agreement, sign it. After that, rise from your chair and place several warm kisses on the cheek of your adversary. Then give him a blow and demand another dialogue. Always prepare for the next dialogue." That is how the sharp Egyptian playwright Ali Salem this week mocked the leaders of Hamas, who keep asking for a dialogue, once with the Egyptians and then again with the Palestinian Authority. And each time it is a dialogue without prior conditions.

Salem's opinion piece, which appeared in Asharq Alawsat, a newspaper published in London but which is owned and censored by Saudi Arabians, indicates that it is not just Egypt that is angry with Hamas. Saudi Arabia, Egypt's partner in the political process, is also very disgruntled.

Salem is just one in a long list of Egyptian intellectuals who have vehemently attacked Hamas' behavior - in particular its attacks on Egyptian soldiers and policemen along the border. It seems as though if someone were to ask the Egyptians to compare the degree of their hostility toward Israel with that toward Hamas, Hamas would come out the worse.

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An indication of this sentiment was actually provided by the bureau of President Hosni Mubarak, who is fed up with the reports of Al Jazeera - which was followed by other Arab channels and media - about how terrible the situation is in Gaza. The reports about the incompetence of the Arab countries, and in particular neighboring Egypt, have pushed the latter into a corner. The country's "open fence" policy was a result of this sense of siege.

That was until it transpired that the Gazans streaming into Sinai were not merely interested in food and fuel, but that they were also sending terror squads into the peninsula. Zakaria Azmi, the head of the presidential bureau, hastily reported to the Egyptian parliament that "30 terrorist squads were caught. They had crossed the border from Gaza and were on their way to Bani Suweif, carrying suicide belts."

Azmi was deliberate in reporting these facts to parliament. After all, it was from this very body that the Muslim Brotherhood had raised its voice in loud protest against Egypt's tight-fisted policy toward Gaza. Mubarak had even been accused of collaborating with the Israeli blockade of the Strip.

With one wave of the hand, Mubarak shook up the "nationalist" press owned by the government and instructed it to contain and confront the media attack on Egypt, especially that of Al Jazeera. Sympathy for the Palestinians is one thing, but love of the Egyptian motherland comes first. The result could be seen immediately. As such, the magazine Rose El-Youssef wondered why the media had ignored the fact that "armed terrorists had crossed the border into Egypt."

Osama Soraya, the editor of Al- Ahram, wrote that, "The cruelty of Israel, its justifications and the force that supports them, are well known indeed, but Hamas' position, and the chain of suffering that emanates from it, continues to be unjustified." Soraya, who is aware of the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, adds that it is possible Hamas is being supported by some body that would like to leave this Islamic movement on the map - especially in view of the fact that "the influence of Islamic political movements in many of the countries of the region is clearly on the decline."

And Al-Akhbar's editor in chief, Mohammed Barakat, issued a clear warning to Hamas not to become a pawn in Israel's hands by transferring responsibility for what is happening in Gaza into Egyptian hands. Ibrahim Mansour, editor of the opposition paper Al-Dustour, was left with no choice but to summarize that, "The government press takes pains to smash the sympathy of all strata of the Egyptian public for their brethren in Gaza. No one is asking any longer what the reason was for breaking through the fence and why the Arab countries cooperated with this siege."

Applying the brakes

Meanwhile, it seems as though Egypt has successfully overcome the media attack launched against it. The breaking down of the border fence, which was widely viewed as an act of bravery in the face of the Israeli blockade and immediately turned into a business opportunity for the shopkeepers of the Egyptian towns of el-Arish and Rafah, also clearly showed the danger that had been brought to Egypt's threshold. The wounding of Egyptian policemen, the large photo of a bearded Hamas man aiming a revolver at the head of an Egyptian citizen who tried to cross over into Gaza, this week's suicide bombing in Dimona and the reports about terrorist squads in Sinai have all had an effect.

Egypt now faces a reality that requires it to apply the brakes to two developments - Hamas' intention to set up a Palestinian entity in Gaza, independent but reliant on Egypt, thereby making the latter responsible for the quality of life in the Strip; and Israel's desire to transfer responsibility for security on the Gaza border on the shoulders of President Mubarak.

The words of Ahmed Youssef, an adviser to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who said that Gaza wanted to break away from Israel, and the proposal from exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, who was summoned to Cairo last week, by which Hamas would sign a separate border crossing agreement with Egypt, met with a decisive Egyptian response. Egypt made it clear to Hamas that any arrangement on the Rafah crossing would be based on the agreement that was signed in 2005 - meaning complete partnership with the Palestinian Authority, covert supervision by Israel via electronic devices, and the presence of European Union representatives.

Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad announced that Egypt had no intention of "stretching" the Palestinian presence from Gaza into its own territory, allowing the refugees from Gaza to settle in the Sinai. "We have freed every bit of our land in war and in peace. We are not planning to relinquish any part of it, nor are we planning to add to it any territory outside Egyptian soil, neither in Gaza nor in the Negev," Awad clarified.

The Hamas representatives who returned to the Strip from Egypt last weekend still tried to present their meeting with the Egyptian leadership as a success, claiming that their interlocutors had recognized the role of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and were in effect holding negotiations with the group about arrangements for crossing between Gaza and Egypt. But the Egyptian denials and the public presentation of the Egyptian point of view made it clear that Hamas had in fact achieved very little in Egypt.

Not without Europe

Hamas' attempt to reach an agreement with Egypt about the border crossing without European representation has not gone well either. Egypt, which is not a signatory to the crossing point agreement, is not interested in forgoing the Europeans, without whom Gaza could resemble an independent entity. This Egyptian position was aimed at preventing Israel from shedding its responsibility for Gaza, thereby strengthening the Strip's dependence on Egypt. True, Egypt is happy to provide Gaza with goods and services in return for payment - but it doesn't want to become the patron of one and a half million civilians.

According to Egyptian sources, Javier Solana, the EU's envoy for foreign affairs, has agreed to renew the activities of the European supervisors at the Rafah crossing, on condition that there be a body responsible for protecting the representatives and ready to cooperate with them. By "responsible body," he is referring to a representative of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and not Hamas.

But this is exactly where Mubarak's problem lies. That same "responsible body" is unable to get to the crossing points without coming into conflict with Hamas, which controls the area. Hamas is prepared to cooperate with the PA but the PA is not prepared to grant Hamas the status of a partner without first reaching an agreement on all the other conditions Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has laid down - which include returning the situation in Gaza to its pre-June 2007 state and for Hamas to issue an apology for conquering Gaza and killing Palestinians in the process.

For its part, Hamas - as playwright Ali Salem wryly wrote - is prepared for a dialogue, provided that it leads to the creation of a national unity government, a redistribution of positions of power between Hamas and Fatah, and a reorganization of Fatah in such a manner that Hamas would be ensured a decisive say in that organization.

The conditions set by both the PA and Hamas are currently standing in the way of a real breakthrough. But Egypt is under pressure and it understands that if the issue of the border crossings is not resolved soon, it will face another invasion of Palestinians in the future, and this time, the clashes between Hamas and Egypt are likely to be much more violent.

All the parties involved are currently busy outlining a new technical plan for the border agreement, whose main points include a renunciation of an Israeli presence (even a purely electronic one) at the crossing, so as to overcome Hamas' opposition to the plan; the establishment of a joint Fatah-Hamas task force responsible for the crossing points, which will appease Abbas, who wants agreement on all the paragraphs; and a European presence, which will satisfy the Egyptians.

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