Egypt’s Steel Wall: An Attempt to Placate the U.S.?
There was a similar scene at the Egyptian embassy in Lebanon, organized by an Islamist party loyal to Hezbollah and Nasrallah. And like the efforts against Israel’s wall, political activity is spreading to Europe, al-Jazeera reported:
A galaxy of Italian human rights organizations and dignitaries warned that the steel wall being built on the Palestinian-Egyptian borders would equalize Egypt with Israel in its blockade on the Gaza Strip.
In a letter to be handed Thursday to the Egyptian ambassador in Rome, the Italian organizations and figures said that Egypt has the right to take measure to protect its borders, but the blockade and starvation of Gaza people would not lead to stability in the region or give Egypt prestige and dignity.
AdvertisementThe letter warned that Egypt’s wall would spread hatred between nations and would serve Israel alone, adding that it would cause a deep pain to the free peoples of the world.
Certainly, Egypt is not taking such a controversial measure out of affection for or a desire to protect Israel from Hamas in Gaza. Clearly, it is doing so out of self-interest. The Hamas regime in Gaza may not be as direct a threat to Egypt as they are to Israel, but tied as closely as they are to those who would destabilize the current regime in Egypt and replace it with a fundamentalist Islamist regime, they are far from trusted allies as far as Egypt is concerned. Gaza would be a conveniently located base for groups to organize and launch attacks. (Currently, Egypt is trying 26 men charged with planning attacks inside their country, linked with Hezbollah.) Therefore, Egypt has no interest in seeing Gaza loaded with powerful weaponry.
The most public battleground that the controversy over the wall is being played in is the Islamic religious world. “Dueling fatwas” are being handed down, as clerics loyal to Hezbollah and Hamas and those connected to the Egyptian government argue as to whether the wall deserves the Islamic stamp of approval, or Islamic condemnation. A group of clerics affiliated with the government, the Islamic Research Council of Al-Azhar University, declared:
It is one of Egypt’s legitimate rights to place a barrier that prevents the harm from the tunnels under Rafah, which are used to smuggle drugs and other (contraband) that threaten Egypt’s stability. … Those who oppose building this wall are violating the commands of Islamic law.
A harsh backlash ensued in the wake of this ruling — led by clerics from inside Al-Azhar itself and then echoed by other Arab clerics. For now, officials like Egypt’s Foreign Minister Ahmad Abu-al-Ghayt are continuing to do their best to avoid addressing the issue when asked by reporters about the steel wall. Sounding defensive, the Egyptian minister declared:
Constructions Egypt is carrying out is to defend itself and defend its national security. This means the right of self-defense. … The secrets of the Egyptian state will not be material discussed on satellite TVs or the press.
The wall critics accuse Egypt of taking the step to placate the United States. Egypt’s blind eye to the smuggling activity has been costly in terms of its relationship with the United States, jeopardizes the millions of dollars in aid received by the regime, and has cast doubt as to whether Egypt can play the broker role it seeks in the Mideast peace process.
Cynics suggest that Egypt is playing for maximum advantage by building a wall to please the Americans and Israelis now. Later, once it is completed, there will be a wink to Hamas as they quickly construct new tunnel routes circumventing the wall, which will presumably silence the criticism in Islamist circles and allow Egypt to continue its tightrope act — balancing Western diplomatic respectability and Middle Eastern street credibility.
Why would it be so bad for Egypt to placate America, whose dollars keep Egypt financially afloat and Israel, who with whom it maintains a long, peaceful border?
It seem the crtiics of Egypt want it to return to was with Israel but are not willing to either fight or accept the consequences of losing that war.
countries are morally obligated to protect citizens from immoral, perverted terrorists such as hamas and the others found crawling in gaza. hamas forces egypt and israel to make the least worst moral choice between whose citizens will suffer. because hamas refuses to cease acting like the fascist barbarians they are, they have demanded that more civil societies rightly protect their own at the cost of the gazan civilian population.
hamas doesn’t have to act this way, but since they proudly do we should not worry about the ramifications of their choices.
Rats being chased out of there holes.
we will see who has more pull, the Egyptians or the Palestinians. they are both Arabs so we will see who can play the victim card better or if Egypt will call the Palestinians on their victim hood. wait what? the ones who we want to look like friends of my enemy are my now my enemies also.
those who do not enable us in our pathos, are now friends of our enemy.
Rhet Butler comes to mind but, this has long term ramification, between Arabs and the puppets of Iran.
I was born in Cairo Egypt sixty years ago, even though I have always been an American, born to American parents from the midwest living in Egypt. The Egyptians are a proud, but often misguided people who usually follow their fellow Arabs politically. This time they are absolutly in the right and it is quite refreshing to see.
“A jackhammer pounded large steel beams side by side into the sandy soil”
The AP reporter, typically, is not only biased but ignorant: it’s a pile-driver, not a jackhammer. What an idiot.
The pally scum will turn on the Egyptians…. Oh wait they already did. This closing of the tunnels will increase terror attacks by the muslim brotherhood on innocent vacationers. But so goes the world when the muslim savages of the occupied ares of Egypt and Jordan are concerned……religion of peace…..
Hamas is the Islamic brotherhood. The Brotherhood is the leading opponent of the Mubarak regime. Egypt would be building this wall if Israel were 12,000 miles away.
Hey – maybe the Egyptians can build us a border fence too.
ms. kaplan: what is your point here? trapping innocent people by building walls around them is a terrorist act. the egyptian governmebt and israeli government are two of the most dispacable governments out there. both building walls and killing innocent people with our federal tax dollars.
#7 phrance: religion of peace does not believe in child molestation…
This is all bs by the other Arab countries. Not a one of them want Palestinians in their countries. Palestinians are fanatics that cause problems wherever they settle.
It’s good to see media at least acknowledge that Gaza has a border with Egypt. Way too often it is presented as if Israel has total control to stop the movement of people and goods in or out.
10. mr:
#7 phrance: religion of peace does not believe in child molestation…
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Yet the warmongering, illiterate fool Mohamed raped a 9 year old girl he called his favourite “wife”. So clearly it does.
When you lie you have no credibility. And you just lied.
The wall will also create some distance between the other Arabs and their mindless claims of solidarity with the Palestinians. These claims have always been bogus: Nobody wants the Palestinians in their midst, because they make trouble (it’s a rather well-paid profession, really) wherever they go. Once the wall is complete, it will no longer be possible for the Arabs to claim solidarity with the Palestinians, because evidently the closer you are to them, the more you need to protect yourself from them, and this is not just the product of some Israeli weakness of character.
The Arabs, of course, are rather silent about the “wall of shame” dividing Morocco from Western Sahara (1,500 miles), and the soon-to-be-completed, ten-foot-high barrier along the entire border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen, built by the Saudis to discourage terrorist infiltration.
#13 Phrance: i have to handed to you. you are right. she was 8…..
#15: you too are correct.
Can’t the Palestinians cut through the steel plates? Wouldn’t an oxy-acetylene cutting torch do the job? If you can dig a tunnel, it seems to me you would would not be stopped by the Egyptian wall, but I have no experience with such things. Anybody?
The ‘Modern’ Ops plan for fighting terror is built around walls and assassination. Build the walls to keep the terrs away from those they wish to terrorize and then track down the leaders and technicians and kill them. Building the wall underground is an proper response to the terrs going underground. Egypt has a terrorist problem that is just as bad as Israel’s, it just doesn’t get the press.
It is no surprise that the Arab civilization (umma) is against anything that makes it harder to kill jooooooos. Only those in love with the delusion that it is a small minority of Muslims that support terrorism are surprised by the reaction to the Underground wall. After all, the Arabs in Gaza could bring in anything they want thru the Israeli roadblocks, so long as it isn’t useful for military purposes. The Arabs in Gaza are not interested in bringing in a 100 pound bag of flour UNLESS it has a mortar shell inside.
Benson, yes and no. Tunnels are hard to find if they are deep enough. Ground Penetrating Radar is good down to about 12 meters, IIRC. 30 to 40 feet. You can detect diggers by sound with some luck and several listening posts. Driving steel down means you can put a sort of motion detector on each one. When somebody hits one, an alarm goes off. With sound, you only know a direction. Radar will, with luck, give a line on a map. It won’t tell you if the tunnel is occupied or not. That alarm will tell you exactly where the digger is. Then you kill him. Anything that will collapse the tunnel works. See my above post about technicians.
With an above ground wall, you can see the terr climbing the wall. You put a burst into him and it’s a done deal. Like the song says, “Another one bites the dust.”
The Arab digging the tunnel knows when his shovel hits the metal, he is dead. I expect they will think about it and come up with a way to defeat the wall. Watch the pildriver and you have a line where the fence is. If you are careful with your measurement, you should be able to get pretty close to where the “fence” is, then dig under it. Of course, the Egyptian army will just start driving on a slant. That will throw off the measurements.
If the Arabs dig deeper at the start, it means they have to hide more dirt. That gives the Army a better chance of finding the entrance.
The ‘game’ is eternal. What’s important about playing it is that every minute the Arabs spend on something like the fence is one less minute they have to murder innocents.
Wow. The underground struggle against the tunnels seems complex, expensive, endless. How’s this: Egypt establishes a border zone several kilometers deep, and inspects all structures within the zone. Transport into the zone is strictly controlled, and there are checkpoints within the zone. Yes, bribery, but there are effective ways to deal with that, such as rotating border guards irregularly and using randomly-selected soldiers instead of civil servants.
Why is it that Muslims claim Moses was a prophet and the 10 Commandments given to Moses by OUR HEAVENLY FATHER on Mount Sinai clearly gives OUR HEAVENLY FATHER’s Commandment not to kill while they believe in killing those who will not convert, and killing for other various reasons under Shari’a Law? Do Not Kill; there are no ifs, ands, or buts. OUR HEAVENLY FATHER, who created all in Heaven and on Earth, made that Commandment expressly clear. Any prophets to come along later have supported all those Commandments given by OUR HEAVENLY FATHER. OUR HEAVENLY FATHER is greater than absolutely everyone and absolutely everything. Do Not Kill; there are no ifs, ands, or buts. We apparently are not to kill others; that is not our purpose. Supposedly Mohammed said something different. So either Mohammed agreed with those Commandments and didn‘t actually say what he supposedly said, or Mohammed wasn’t a prophet. And if Mohammed agreed that those Commandments came from OUR HEAVENLY FATHER, then Mohammed didn’t try to argue with them or change them to fit his own agenda. Maybe that ‘Book Burning’ in the 7th century A.D. (C.E.) wasn’t just to ‘standardize’ but to ‘cover-up’ the Truth. I’m not trying to argue religion here; or trying to argue doctrine. It just does not make any sense. If Christians and Jews killed people as Muslims kill people, then most of the world would kill each other off. Do Not Kill; there are no ifs, ands, or buts. May OUR HEAVENLY FATHER’s Will Be Done.