Tracy Dove: Egypt's Troubled History With Gaza
[Tracy Dove, editor of The Russia News Service, is a Professor of History and the Department Chair of International Relations at the University of New York in Prague.]
Hamas militants used explosives first, then Palestinian bulldozers cleaned the path for walkers, bike riders and donkeys. After 7 months of standoff between Israel and Hamas-led Gaza and 7 days of sealed border crossings, residents took their fate into their own hands and helped the militants literally blow their way into Egypt to buy groceries. The cement border wall separating Egypt from Gaza is a sensitive place and is heavily guarded by Israel, but most of the guards on both sides of the border seemed disinterested or bewildered by the menagerie. After a while, Egyptian forces gave up keeping the hole in the border plugged. In less than 24 hours, Palestinians by the thousands had replenished their cooking oil, stocked up on cigarettes and headed back over the border to wait for the lights to go back on, while the international community wagged their fingers at the IDF. The topic of Israeli-Palestinian relations is a mainstay of hundreds of chat rooms and blogs, but the Egyptian-Gaza relationship is seldom mentioned for fear of driving an ethnic wedge between the two peoples.
Gaza has never been a peaceful place in history, and the turmoil predates the biblical misfortune of Samson being delivered up in bondage by his lover, Delilah. The Territory is strategic for its position along the coastal road that connected Egypt with Syria in the north, and thanks to its international character it often drew a great amount of refugees fleeing political turmoil. It changed hands several times before falling to the Ottomans in 1517- after that, the political identity of the Gazans was directed toward Egypt first, and the Ottomans second. Interestingly, it was Great Britain that drove a literal wedge between Egypt and the rest of the crumbling Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century with the construction of the Suez Canal. After that, Egyptians began to look at anything beyond the Sinai Peninsula as external territory yet to be added to Egypt proper.
World War I brought an end to the Ottoman Empire, and the vast expanse was mostly partitioned between the two colonial powers of Britain and France. Because Egypt to the west was already territorially complete and semi-autonomous in the 19th century, it emerged after the war as a sovereign country with an eastern border that ended at the Gaza Strip, and from there Great Britain administered the entire territory as Palestine. During this period that ended with the 1948 emergence of Israel, the Gazans watched the Jewish dominance in the region expand in leaps and bounds while the British either didn't care or couldn't understand the demographic changes that would eventually make a peace settlement there close to impossible.
Enter the Egyptians. Once it became clear on the eve of World War II that the Jewish lands would soon declare statehood, Arabs within the mandate began to stage attacks on the British administration- and often these were conducted from safety of Egypt beyond the border. With the advent of the UN on the scene in 1947 a partition into Palestinian and Jewish territories was suggested as a first step to statehood. The Arabs rejected it, and when the Israelis declared independence in 1948, the "First Arab-Israeli War" was launched from Egypt. Most of the brunt of the fighting was born by the Palestinians who lived between the powers, and since then, this position has served to disadvantage the Gazan Palestinians considerably.
The Egyptians, despite Nasser's polemics about Arab Nationalism, never warmed to the Gaza Palestinians, although the territory was theirs, finally, to administer after 1948. The territory was never annexed into Egypt proper and the population was never given Egyptian passports. Nasser understood the public relations value of a martyred people and he misused it to advance his calls for unity in the Arab world. Even after he rallied the Arabs to his cause, the Palestinians in Gaza never enjoyed any of the rewards of being part of that "Arabism". Instead, their territory was used as a launch pad for armed attacks against Israel, and the more they suffered with each military retaliation from Israel, the more they fed into Nasser's propaganda machine.
For this reason Gaza is considerably more run-down and poverty-stricken than West Bank Palestine, and it also explains how Hamas was able to wrest control of the government so easily. With every day, the West Bank develops more in the direction of cooperation with Israel, while Gaza has fallen into nothing less than what is being called "the biggest prison camp" in the world.
The scene of Egyptian border guards reluctantly letting the Palestinians through a giant blast hole certainly sent shudders through Cairo, but there isn't much that the Egyptian government can afford to do. The sentiments of all Arabs are with the Palestinians in this case, so the most the government can do is practice disaster management. The border will be sealed up again- this time with Israeli cameras and guard towers- and the Gaza situation will likely disintegrate further unless Egypt rises to the opportunity to reverse its negative history vis a vis Gaza.
Read entire article at US Politics Today/The Naked Historian
Hamas militants used explosives first, then Palestinian bulldozers cleaned the path for walkers, bike riders and donkeys. After 7 months of standoff between Israel and Hamas-led Gaza and 7 days of sealed border crossings, residents took their fate into their own hands and helped the militants literally blow their way into Egypt to buy groceries. The cement border wall separating Egypt from Gaza is a sensitive place and is heavily guarded by Israel, but most of the guards on both sides of the border seemed disinterested or bewildered by the menagerie. After a while, Egyptian forces gave up keeping the hole in the border plugged. In less than 24 hours, Palestinians by the thousands had replenished their cooking oil, stocked up on cigarettes and headed back over the border to wait for the lights to go back on, while the international community wagged their fingers at the IDF. The topic of Israeli-Palestinian relations is a mainstay of hundreds of chat rooms and blogs, but the Egyptian-Gaza relationship is seldom mentioned for fear of driving an ethnic wedge between the two peoples.
Gaza has never been a peaceful place in history, and the turmoil predates the biblical misfortune of Samson being delivered up in bondage by his lover, Delilah. The Territory is strategic for its position along the coastal road that connected Egypt with Syria in the north, and thanks to its international character it often drew a great amount of refugees fleeing political turmoil. It changed hands several times before falling to the Ottomans in 1517- after that, the political identity of the Gazans was directed toward Egypt first, and the Ottomans second. Interestingly, it was Great Britain that drove a literal wedge between Egypt and the rest of the crumbling Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century with the construction of the Suez Canal. After that, Egyptians began to look at anything beyond the Sinai Peninsula as external territory yet to be added to Egypt proper.
World War I brought an end to the Ottoman Empire, and the vast expanse was mostly partitioned between the two colonial powers of Britain and France. Because Egypt to the west was already territorially complete and semi-autonomous in the 19th century, it emerged after the war as a sovereign country with an eastern border that ended at the Gaza Strip, and from there Great Britain administered the entire territory as Palestine. During this period that ended with the 1948 emergence of Israel, the Gazans watched the Jewish dominance in the region expand in leaps and bounds while the British either didn't care or couldn't understand the demographic changes that would eventually make a peace settlement there close to impossible.
Enter the Egyptians. Once it became clear on the eve of World War II that the Jewish lands would soon declare statehood, Arabs within the mandate began to stage attacks on the British administration- and often these were conducted from safety of Egypt beyond the border. With the advent of the UN on the scene in 1947 a partition into Palestinian and Jewish territories was suggested as a first step to statehood. The Arabs rejected it, and when the Israelis declared independence in 1948, the "First Arab-Israeli War" was launched from Egypt. Most of the brunt of the fighting was born by the Palestinians who lived between the powers, and since then, this position has served to disadvantage the Gazan Palestinians considerably.
The Egyptians, despite Nasser's polemics about Arab Nationalism, never warmed to the Gaza Palestinians, although the territory was theirs, finally, to administer after 1948. The territory was never annexed into Egypt proper and the population was never given Egyptian passports. Nasser understood the public relations value of a martyred people and he misused it to advance his calls for unity in the Arab world. Even after he rallied the Arabs to his cause, the Palestinians in Gaza never enjoyed any of the rewards of being part of that "Arabism". Instead, their territory was used as a launch pad for armed attacks against Israel, and the more they suffered with each military retaliation from Israel, the more they fed into Nasser's propaganda machine.
For this reason Gaza is considerably more run-down and poverty-stricken than West Bank Palestine, and it also explains how Hamas was able to wrest control of the government so easily. With every day, the West Bank develops more in the direction of cooperation with Israel, while Gaza has fallen into nothing less than what is being called "the biggest prison camp" in the world.
The scene of Egyptian border guards reluctantly letting the Palestinians through a giant blast hole certainly sent shudders through Cairo, but there isn't much that the Egyptian government can afford to do. The sentiments of all Arabs are with the Palestinians in this case, so the most the government can do is practice disaster management. The border will be sealed up again- this time with Israeli cameras and guard towers- and the Gaza situation will likely disintegrate further unless Egypt rises to the opportunity to reverse its negative history vis a vis Gaza.