Palestinian girls stand near Egyptian border guards in the border
town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
(Wissam Nassar, Maan Images)
The dramatic recent developments on the
Palestinian-Egyptian border are direct and
predictable results of the internationally supported
Israeli siege on Gaza. It should have been expected
that the mounting pressure on Gaza would cause a
popular explosion. The Egyptian border was the
weakest link in the prison wall, since all other
escape routes, including the sea, are blocked by Israel.
That the Egyptian border should be the weakest link
is not a reflection of the performance of Egyptian security.
Rather it is a reflection of Egyptian and Arab public
sympathy with the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza
and a sign of support for the challenge they pose to
Israel. The Egyptian government has paid a heavy
internal political price for the Israeli siege, which has
not been successful in weakening Hamas but has rather
backfired by stimulating public sympathy for the movement.
There is no doubt that in the short term this
Hamas-orchestrated move has complicated the situation
for Hamas' opponents and enemies. It has granted Hamas
a notable success in finding a solution to the
humanitarian crisis in Gaza created by the Israeli
closure, and has given the movement leverage over
the Egyptians who will need Hamas to close the
border again. Equally importantly, the move managed
to sabotage the plan by Palestinian President Mahmoud
Abbas and the Salam Fayyad-led Palestinian Authority
government to take over control of the Gaza crossings,
including at Rafah, which had been gaining momentum
and was embarrassing Hamas.
Hamas aims to achieve international recognition and
force Egypt and the PA to deal with it, something both
parties have resisted so far. Egypt, which cannot live
with the current situation, has two options: to use
force, which needs Israeli and American cooperation; or
to enter into dialogue, which needs Hamas cooperation.
The political costs of the first option could be irredeemably
steep, and Egyptian statements on the situation and
Egypt's invitation to Hamas and Abbas for dialogue
suggest Cairo will go for the second option. The
price Hamas will want to extract for such a dialogue
to succeed is a role in running the border crossings,
especially at Rafah. If Hamas achieves this, it will count
as a strategic gain for the movement, on both the political
and financial levels.
In the long term, however, the current situation will
play into the hands of the strategic Israeli agenda of
separating Gaza from the West Bank and getting
rid of its responsibility as occupier for the impoverished
strip of land by throwing this particular hot potato
to Egypt. The unilateral Israeli disengagement plan
that was designed and executed by stricken former
Israeli PM Ariel Sharon included exactly such a
component to de-link Gaza from both the West Bank
and Israel and thereby de facto connect it, without
agreement, to Egypt. The same was supposed to
happen with the populated areas of the West Bank
and Jordan, once Israel's wall there was completed.
That plan was interrupted by the victory of Hamas
in the last Palestinian elections.
The root cause of these complications is the
internal contradiction in the position of the international
community. On one hand, the international community
encouraged, supported and monitored fair and democratic
elections in Palestine. On the other, the world
refused to accept the result. What is further aggravating
the situation is that the policies pursued to reverse
Hamas' electoral victory have instead reinforced the
factors that strengthened the movement in the first
place. Palestinians suffer continued economic
deterioration, there is little hope of ending the
occupation through peaceful negotiations and
Fateh's poor performance on the political and
governance levels has not improved.
Ghassan Khatib is coeditor of the bitterlemons.org
family of internet publications. He is vice-president of
Birzeit University and a former Palestinian Authority
minister of planning. He holds a PhD in Middle East
politics from the University of Durham.
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