With brothers like these, who needs enemies?

By Khalid Amayreh

(Note: This piece was written before the latest Israeli massacres in Gaza)

There is more than just a whiff of hypocrisy in the way Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia as well as the American-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) are dealing with the continuing nightmare in the Gaza Strip.

A fleeting examination of recent statements by Egyptian and Saudi officials indicate that the rulers of the two countries are effectively adopting the Israeli stance on the Gaza plight.

For example, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit recently blamed Hamas for the collapse of the Egyptian-mediated tacit ceasefire understanding in Gaza , forgetting the obvious fact that it was Israel , not Hamas, that violated the ceasefire when Israeli forces carried out a deadly foray in Gaza in mid November, killing a number of Palestinian resistance fighters.

Abul Gheit has also been oblivious to the fact that throughout the duration of the ceasefire (June 19-June19-2008), Israel kept up, even intensified, the cruel blockade of the Gaza Strip, pushing desperate Gazans to the edge of physical annihilation.

Egypt, too, we must not forget, knowingly or unknowingly assisted Israel by making sure that the Rafah border crossing remained almost hermetically closed, so that the estimated 1.5 million Gazans would suffer and die both at the hands of Israeli Nazi Nazism and by brotherly Arab love and solidarity.

I can’t really understand why Egypt , the largest and most powerful Arab state, is behaving the way it is.

Egyptian officials present a number of confused and inconsistent arguments to justify the scandalous stand of their government.

They claim that the continued closure of the Rafah crossing was serving Palestinian national interests since opening the crossing would free Israel from its responsibility as an occupying power.

This is a mendacious argument because all that Gazans want is to be able to buy food and consumer products from Egypt for survival.

Occasionally, Egyptian officials defend their cruel treatment of Gazans seeking to get back to Gaza or get out of it for medical treatment by invoking the “international agreement” governing the operation of the border crossing.

According to that infamous agreement, the Rafah border-crossing can only be opened with Israeli consent.

Well, a scandalous agreement as such is not worth maintaining in the first place, since it gives Israel the right to besiege and strangle and starve Gazans to death, very much like the Nazis did at Ghetto Warsaw.

I don’t know if the Egyptian authorities are giving more weight to honoring a brazenly shameful agreement than to the survival of 1.5 million Palestinians who are being subjected to a slow-motion genocide because they dared elect a government that Israel and the Bush administration didn’t like.

Are agreements that effectively place the people of Gaza under the mercy of Israeli whims, cruelty and blood lust worth maintaining? This is a question that the leader of Egypt ought to answer faithfully and honestly.

Last year, Abul Gheit claimed that Egypt was keeping the Rafah crossing closed based on a request to that effect by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Well, but the Egyptian leadership should know better than just heeding instructions from a “leader” that is willing to go to any extent in order to appease the occupiers of his country and enemies of his people at the expense of his suffering people and their enduring just cause.

Besides, Israel has been telling the world that it ended its occupation of the Gaza Strip more than three years ago. If so, why is Egypt so reluctant to tell the Zionist regime and its American guardian-ally that Israel can’t have it both ways, keeping Gaza under tight Israeli control and at the same time claim to have ended its occupation of the coastal enclave?

Otherwise, Egypt is allowing itself to be party to the Israeli designs to annihilate the people of Gaza under the rubric of keeping the moribund peace process a live.

More disturbing still is the silence with which Egyptian officials, including Abul Gheit, met the insolent remarks made by visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in Cairo on Thursday, 25 December.

Livni, the racist woman who earlier this month called for the expulsion of Israeli non-Jewish citizens to a prospective Palestinian entity on the West Bank , made a series of arrogant threats to destroy Hamas and end its rule in the Gaza Strip.

Well, since when are such Judeo-Nazi leaders allowed to speak in this tone in the capital of the largest Arab state, the home of al-Azhar, without any retort by Egyptian leaders and spokesmen.?

Is Egypt completely impotent, sterile, dead?

And now to the ruling Saudi dynasty?

It is really shameful that while the rulers of the desert Kingdom are currying favor with Zionist Jews, especially by organizing “inter-religious conferences” in Europe and North America , they are being so harsh on the Palestinians by demanding that they give up the bulk of their legitimate rights to freedom and liberation from the claws of Israeli Nazism.

Well, the Saudi rulers are well-advised to keep their mouths shut. If they want to continue their promiscuous relationship with Israel and her Zionist agents, that is their business. But they must stop telling us to give up the right of return. For us Palestinians, the right of return is as sacred as the Makka and Madina

If the Saudis are interested in obtaining a certificate of good conduct from Zionist Jews, then this shouldn’t be at the expense of the Palestinian people and their inalienable right.(palestina-info)