| The Rafah Crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt reopened on Saturday, May 28 on a continuing permanent basis, as a joint affair of the sovereign Egyptian government and the administration of the Gaza Strip. The State of Israel was not consulted about anything that will be put in place on the Egyptian side of that border. Neither were the United States nor the European Union which was playing a monitoring role there during 2006-2007. This effectively brings to an end the siege of the last four years rigged up by the United States, the former Mubarak regime in Egypt, the State of Israel and the European Union to keep the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip caged like animals. The people have resisted heroically, even tearing the border fence down completely in broad daylight on January 23, 2008 and walking into the Egyptian portion of Rafah to do some shopping for essentials before returning home. The Israeli air force wreaked its revenge during Operation Cast Lead between December 28, 2008 and January 20, 2009. They used the Gazan civilian population for target practice as extensive stocks of U.S. white phosphorus, U.S. dense inert metal explosive (DIME) bombs and other aerial munitions that were reaching their expiry date rained down on the populace, killing more than 1,400 and maiming more than 4,000 others. The air force returned to barracks in Israel the day before Barack Obama was formally inaugurated as President of the United States. On the last official business day of the outgoing Bush Administration, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met in Washington to sign a "Memorandum of Understanding." In the name of preventing smuggling of weapons to Hamas, this MoU formally committed U.S. forces to participate indefinitely into the future in Israeli-initiated emergency measures at either the Mediterranean or Red Sea ends of the Suez Canal aimed at tightening the siege of Gaza. Less than six months into his term, Obama deployed retired U.S. Senator George Mitchell as its official envoy to renewed Israeli-Palestinian "peace talks." One of his explicit missions in this role was to prevent any unity talks or agreement proceeding among the various factions of the Palestinian polity. The entire strategy was going along swimmingly until February 11 of this year. On that date, the U.S. was forced to give up its chief Egyptian agent President Hosni Mubarak and his "vice-president" and former chief of intelligence Omar Suleiman to a Transitional National Council of Egyptian National Army leaders. In the policy intention announced during its first 10 days in office of ceasing to participate in the strangulation of the people of the Gaza Strip by the U.S. and the State of Israel, the new Egyptian leadership found the only reliable card to play in its desperate efforts to retain a modicum of popular support for the other measures of its program. Meanwhile, since April 27, thirteen Palestinian political factions including Fatah and Hamas have set forth a unity accord. Backed by the Egyptian regime, it sets out preparations among the factions for new simultaneously-conducted presidential and legislative elections to coincide both with elections that are supposed to replace the Egyptian generals with a civilian government and with a UN General Assembly debate of a resolution to recognize a Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967 borders of the State of Israel. Mitchell subsequently resigned, having failed ignominiously. The following week, Obama publicly cocked U.S. and Israeli guns at the unity accord, calling it the "greatest obstacle" to Israeli-Palestinian "peace." Such was the atmosphere in which the Transitional National Council announced the explicit plan to reopen the Rafah Crossing six days a week -- immediately without a visa requirement for all categories except men aged 18-40.[1] While remaining almost unmentioned in North American media, this momentous event has resounded throughout the Arab world and its basic significance noted elsewhere as well. At the annual convention of the America-Israel Political Affairs Committee and at a special joint session of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, before the U.S. and world media in Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and U.S. President Obama staged an elaborate dance earlier in the week. The timing, specificity and evident background preparedness of this announcement of the permanent reopening of the Rafah Crossing is understood everywhere to represent a sharp and shocking public repudiation of this disgusting display. The entire Arab world public opinion has been unanimous in denouncing this dancing on the graves of the generations of those who fought for Palestine's national liberation as, at the very least, highly premature. No matter the conditions of its day-to-day existence, and despite the extreme oscillations imposed on those conditions by a military occupation administered on top of a fundamental founding act of territorial theft and negation of the rights of an indigenous people even to be, the Palestinians' struggle remains that of a nation that always seeks and finds ways to affirm itself. This holds many important lessons for the Canadian working class: to prepare an increasingly tenacious and sharp struggle against the forces of darkest reaction. The working class upholds the principle of genuine solidarity with all the oppressed peoples fighting to affirm themselves. The main content of that genuine solidarity is the struggle developed to eliminate the U.S. yoke over the politics, economy and culture of Canada, as well as other countries. Notwithstanding the Harper government's pretence to support "official" humanitarian aid missions to the Gaza Strip, eliminating the kowtowing to the U.S. is the surest guarantee Canadians can provide towards the success of the Palestinians' struggle. Notes 1. Once an Egyptian visa office promised for the Gaza Strip opens, members of this category will be able to acquire a visa without bureaucratic interference from the Palestinian Authority, which had created many obstacles before the recent unity accord was signed. 2. Hamas will not call on international observers to supervise its newly opened border crossing with Egypt, Ghazi Hamad, deputy foreign minister in the Hamas government and the head of Gaza's border authority, said on al-Aqsa radio. "The Palestinians have proved their ability to operate the Rafah crossing," he said. Israeli Home Front Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said Israel now held Egypt responsible for security at the border. "The moment the Egyptians opened, they are responsible," he told reporters at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. Benoit Cusin, a spokesman for the European Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) in Rafah, told the DPA news agency the mission would only be able to resume their work at the invitation of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The decisions of the signatories to the 2005 agreement that established the mission were decisive and not unilateral action by Egypt, he said. The Europeans suspended their mission after Hamas seized sole control of Gaza in 2007. Referring to the 2005 agreement, Hamad said it "had its special circumstances when it was signed, but the situation now is completely different." He listed the Egyptian revolution, the reconciliation pact brokered between Hamas and the West Bank-based PA earlier this month after years of feuding, and Hamas' control of Gaza. Gazans celebrated the opening of the border for the first time in four years Saturday, with scores of men, women and children heading to the crossing. Gaza Committee Holds UN Secretary General Responsible for Danger Facing Freedom Flotilla The International Committee to Break the Gaza Siege (ICBGS) has held UN secretary-general Ban Ki Moon responsible for any danger which may befall the Freedom Flotilla 2 set to deliver aid to Gaza in late June, the Palestine Information Center reports. In the name of avoiding a conflict with Israel, Ban recently called on states along the Mediterranean coast to help thwart the flotilla. The ICBGS said in a statement that followed on Saturday that the calls served as a "cover for Israeli piracy and encourages the attack of the flotilla." The Israeli navy attacked the first Freedom Flotilla during an attempt to defy the siege and deliver aid to Gaza, killing nine activists and injuring dozens. The ICBGS held that the calls came in submission to Israeli threats and "conflicted with the natural and legal right to show solidarity with Palestine." It also conflicts with UN resolutions calling for an end to the four year siege, the committee pointed out. More than 12 ships are to depart from European ports carrying 1,200 activists, including European legislators. Ban's calls will not deter the flotilla, the group said. The activists are carrying out a "noble humanitarian task that the UN secretary-general should encourage and provide protection rather than try to thwart," the committee's statement said. |