Egypt Warns Israel: Don’t Interfere With Opening of Gaza Border Crossing
NEWS, 2 May 2011
Haaretz Service – TRANSCEND Media Service
Rafah’s opening would be a violation of an agreement reached in 2005 between the U.S., Israel, Egypt, and the EU; Israel official tells the Wall Street Journal developments in Egypt could affect Israel’s national security.
Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces General Sami Anan warned Israel against interfering with Egypt’s plan to open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza on a permanent basis, saying it was not a matter of Israel’s concern, Army Radio reported on Saturday [30 Apr 2011].
Egypt announced this week that it intended to permanently open the border crossing with Gaza within the next few days.
The announcement indicates a significant change in the policy on Gaza, which before Egypt’s uprising, was operated in conjunction with Israel. The opening of Rafah will allow the flow of people and goods in and out of Gaza without Israeli permission or supervision, which has not been the case up until now.
An Israeli official on Friday told The Wall Street Journal that Israel was troubled by the recent developments in Egypt saying they could affect Israel’s national security at a strategic level.
Israel’s blockade on Gaza has been a policy used in conjunction with Egyptian police to weaken Hamas, which has ruled over the strip since 2007.
Rafah’s opening would be a violation of an agreement reached in 2005 between the United States, Israel, Egypt, and the European Union, which gives EU monitors access to the crossing. The monitors were to reassure Israel that weapons and militants wouldn’t get into Gaza after its pullout from the territory in the fall of 2005.
Before Egypt’s uprising and ousting of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak, the border between Egypt and Gaza had been sealed. It has occasionally opened the passage for limited periods.
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This decision is most regretable. Obviously, Egypt does not have peace with Israel on its agenda. One of the reasons that conflict exists so widely across Africa and the Middle East, and beyond, is that the stewards of these regions fail to connect the need to bring under control the unsustainable birth rates of these poor nations that are in turmoil. Gaza has a high birth rate. The question must be asked: Why? Is this the source of security in the minds of that culture? Perhaps people in these regions have not heard the Christian Gospel that if you have need for rain, security, food, peace or anything else, then you – without the need of a mediator – have recourse to expressing your needs directly to God. (Symbolized by the tearing of the temple curtain that separated the Most Holy Place from the rest of the temple at the time of Christ’s death.) Every solution that I read involves political concepts. There is no discussion of metaphysics; no questoning with regards to where God is? This is the fault of the clerics, and of those who suppress a link between social policy and widespread religious beliefs. Israel needs ever to be mindful of what Moses (recognized as a prophet among Moslems, too) taught regarding the covenant and social prosperity. These biblical excerpts are relevant to that teaching: Lev 26; Jer 11;31:31-34. I would not advise anyone to take those teachings too lightly, as they
presently seem to be – by Israelis, Christians and Moslems.