‘The Palestine Cables’: Head of Egypt’s military council was seen as ‘obstacle’ to Israeli blockade of Gaza

This article originally appeared in Mondoweiss:

WikiLeaks has partnered up with the Israeli newspapers Haaretz and Yedioth Ahronoth and the Lebanese outlet Al Akhbar to release over 6,000 State Department cables on Israel. A series of posts on the new cables will be published in Mondoweiss in the coming days as part of the “Palestine Cables” feature.  Read the whole series here.

Israel knows who it likes in Egypt–Omar Suleiman, the former intelligence chief–and who it doesn’t, like the current head of the ruling Egyptian Higher Military Council Mohamad Hussain Tantawi.

Haaretz publishes a report on a cable detailing Israel’s complaints about Tantawi:

IDF officers complained to their American counterparts in November 2009 that Gen. Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, Egypt’s defense minister at the time and the current leader of the ruling military council, was “an obstacle” to the efforts to counter arms smuggling to Gaza through Sinai. The comments came during a meeting held as part of U.S.-Israel strategic dialogue.

The significance of the cable lies in what it may portend for the future of Egyptian-Israeli relations in the post-Mubarak era.  Publication of the cable comes in the midst of the most heavy Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip since “Operation Cast Lead,” and a large Palestine solidarity demonstration in response at the Israeli embassy in Giza, Cairo.

The ongoing demonstration at the embassy reflects the Egyptian populace’s overwhelming opposition to the Israeli occupation and the siege of Gaza.  But under Hosni Mubarak, Egypt has been Israel’s chief regional partner in enforcing the crippling four-year-long blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Since Mubarak’s overthrow in February, a looming question has been to what extent the Egyptian government and military would continue to enforce a blockade that the vast majority of their population detests.  The cable makes clear that there is some tension between the Egyptian and Israeli militaries.

What that may mean for the blockade of Gaza remains to be seen, but there have been mixed signals so far from Egypt’s military.  While a delegation calling itself “Tahrir 4 Gaza” managed to bring in a symbolic bag of cement–the “first bag of cement not approved by Israel” and that hadn’t come through smuggling tunnels, according to a press release–the delegation had to contend with a recalcitrant Egyptian military.  Posts by activists on tahrir4gaza.net claimed that the military, beforehand, pressured them to “reschedule the event,” and that authorities warned bus companies against transporting delegation members to the border.

Currently, only 300 Palestinians are allowed to leave Gaza daily through the Rafah crossing, and the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported March 6 that “getting out of Gaza is harder than ever.” The agency stated that the “blacklist” — Palestinians who are banned from entering Egypt — “has got longer since the Egyptian revolution, quashing hopes that the new regime would lift the siege.”

I recently spoke with Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, to get her take:

Israel has been hoping to rid itself of responsibility for Gaza for “a long time now, and I would think that the military would be very aware of that,” said Hijab. “The military will probably walk a fine line between loosening up the blockade without inheriting Gaza.”

Noura Erakat, a Palestinian attorney and analyst, had this to say on the future of the blockade:

“Given the considersations that this new regime will have, and the threats that it will face, it can’t [decide to lift the blockade] in a vacuum.” Those threats include Israel’s powerful military as well as the possibilities of strict conditions on or cuts to U.S. military aid. The worst-case scenario, according to Erekat, could be Israeli forces threatening to police the border themselves on the Egytian side.

The cable on Tantawi isn’t conclusive at all.  But if things weren’t smooth sailing between Israel and Egypt’s respective military commands in 2009, what will happen now if a truly democratic Egypt asserts itself in the region and charts a somewhat more independent course?

Cracks Appear in the Gaza Blockade

This piece originally appeared in the Indypendent’s latest issue.

The popular revolution that ousted Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak has focused renewed attention on Egypt’s role in the blockade of the Gaza Strip. For nearly four years Egypt has aided Israel and the United States in strangling Gaza’s economy, but there are small signs that the siege may be easing.

“The world keeps watching as Gaza is blockaded,” said Mousheera Jammal, a Palestinian activist in Gaza who has been involved with organizing against the clampdown, but “there is hope because of the Egyptian youth.”

On March 6, a delegation organized by Tahrir 4 Gaza successfully crossed the Egyptian border into Gaza and delivered a “symbolic 50-pound bag of cement.” It was the “first bag of cement not approved by Israel” and that hadn’t come through smuggling tunnels, according to a press release from Tahrir 4 Gaza.

Organizers had to contend, however, with a recalcitrant Egyptian military which is currently running the show in Egypt. Posts by activists on tahrir4gaza.net claimed the military pressured them to “reschedule the event,” and that authorities warned bus companies against transporting delegation members to the border.

Organizers are now planning to bring 30 tons of cement into Gaza as part of a series of trips that would “eventually culminate in the permanent opening of the border to people and goods between post-revolutionary Egypt and Palestine,” according to delegation head Ahmed Elassy.

Since 2007, both Israel and Egypt have imposed a crippling siege on the 1.3 million Palestinians in Gaza to undermine the government led by Hamas, which won elections in January 2006 for the Palestinian parliament and the following year defeated a coup launched by the U.S. and Israeli-backed Fatah.

Cementing its role as junior partner in U.S. and Israeli dominance in the region, Egypt shut the Rafah crossing along Southern Gaza, closing a critical point of access for trade, goods and people.

Palestinian attorney and analyst Noura Erekat explains that Egypt’s cooperation with the blockade is largely due to pressure from the United States and Israel, as well as a view shared with Israel that the Islamist Hamas movement is a threat.

Yet the revolution in Egypt has altered this equation. Prominent Egyptian figures such as Arab League General Secretary Amr Moussa and Nobel laureate Mohamed ElBaradei have spoken out against the blockade. The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, is also against the blockade. And Egypt’s Foreign Minister Nabil al-Arabi has called for an end to the siege.

The key player is Egypt’s military, however. It has close ties to Israel, receives $1.3 billion a year in U.S. military aid and is ruling the country by decree while elections are organized.

The Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reported March 6 “getting out of Gaza is harder than ever.” The agency stated that the “blacklist” — Palestinians who are banned from entering Egypt — “has got longer since the Egyptian revolution, quashing hopes that the new regime would lift the siege.”

According to observers, the Egyptian military’s position on the blockade, and its insistence on allowing only 300 Palestinians per day to leave Gaza stems from various factors.

Nadia Hijab, a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies told The Indypendent that Egypt’s rulers fear any further opening of Rafah could provide impetus for Israel to throw Gaza into Egypt’s lap. Egypt occupied Gaza for nearly two decades starting in 1948. Following its sweeping victory over Arab states including Egypt in the 1967 Six Day War, Israel began the direct military occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, among other lands.

Israel has been hoping to rid itself of responsibility for Gaza for “a long time now, and I would think that the military would be very aware of that,” said Hijab. “The military will probably walk a fine line between loosening up the blockade without inheriting Gaza.”

Noura Erekat adds, “Given the considersations that this new regime will have, and the threats that it will face, it can’t [decide to lift the blockade] in a vacuum.” Those threats include Israel’s powerful military as well as the possibilities of  strict conditions on or cuts to U.S. military aid. The worst-case scenario, according to Erekat, could be Israeli forces threatening to police the border themselves on the Egytian side.

“Fundamentally, the official position is the same for now,” wrote Issandr El Amrani, and Egyptian journalist, in a March 7 blog post on arabist.net. “Egypt has a moral responsibility to address the humanitarian situation in Gaza, as well as encourage the international community to pressure Israel into lifting the siege.”

Mona Eltahawy’s speech signals shift in mainstream discourse that Zionists don’t want

Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy’s speech at the J Street conference was more than just another good speech–it’s a further indication of the shift in discourse on the Middle East following the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and around the region.  Slowly but surely, alternative narratives about the Middle East and Israel/Palestine, voiced by Arabs, are making a dent on how Americans think about the region.

Eltahawy didn’t mince words in speaking to the liberal Zionist lobby group, and she received a standing ovation.  She called the 2008-09 assault on Gaza a “massacre” and told the audience that Arab “hatred for Israel… will not end until you lift the siege on Gaza and treat Palestinians with freedom and dignity.”  It’s a message that, coming from a woman who has become one of the corporate media’s go-to people on the Middle East, is significant, and not something you would hear at some of the other J Street panels (Nachman Shai of Kadima said that Israel won’t lift the siege until Gilad Shalit is freed).

Eltahawy’s star speech at the conference is part of what is shattering the Zionist narrative on Israel/Palestine, and they’re not liking it one bit.

Ron Radosh at the neoconservative Pajamas Media goes after Eltahawy here. And Ben Sales, writing for the Jewish student magazine New Voices, derides the response Eltahawy got by saying the J Street crowd was “clapping for hate.”

Eltahawy’s speech is concerning to Radosh and others because it exposes Israel as what it is:  a state that is in deep trouble, a state that is an occupier state, a state that committed war crimes in Gaza.  Indeed, as Phil Weiss put it, “the Egyptian revolution is coming–to the USA.”  And Eltahawy is one of the leaders.

Will Mideast revolts force U.S. to talk to Islamists?

Since at least the Clinton administration, U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has propped up dictatorial regimes that were favorable to U.S. and Israeli interests while refusing to engage with the forces of political Islam.  Could the current wave of uprisings shaking the Middle East and North Africa force the U.S. to deal with Islamist movements that are integral parts of these societies?  That’s what journalist and author Mark Perry argued in a recent Palestine Center panel discussion–a development that would have far-reaching implications for Palestine, among other countries.

Upcoming elections in Egypt could be the first major test for the Obama administration on whether the U.S. will respect the democratic will of Egyptians, regardless of whether the Muslim Brotherhood makes electoral gains.

The Muslim Brotherhood, while promising to not field any presidential candidates for elections scheduled for later this year, is certainly angling to be a part of a new Egyptian government.

The Obama administration has sent mixed signals on their stance on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ominously warned against Egyptians allowing their revolution to be “hijacked,” a veiled reference to the Muslim Brotherhood.  But President Obama, in a speech given after Hosni Mubarak stepped down, said that “all” Egyptian voices must be brought “to the table.”  In an interview with Fox News‘ Bill O’Reilly, Obama said that he thinks “that the Muslim Brotherhood is one faction in Egypt. They don’t have majority support in Egypt but they are well organized and there are strains of their ideology that are anti U.S., there is no doubt about it.”

This is what Perry, the author of Talking to Terrorists: Why America Must Engage with its Enemies, said on the subject:

We’re going to have to deal with the governments that emerge from what I think is an unstoppable revolution across the region, and that means talking to political Islam.  We’re not going to be able to not talk to Hamas after we talk to the Muslim Brotherhood and we’re going to have to talk to them.  So, once we start down that road, of recognizing the political currents and movements that matter in the region, everything else will follow.

Still, it’s clear the pro-Israel lobby, and the American right, will continue to line up against talking to any Islamist movement.

‘Israeli filter’ colors U.S. response to Egyptian revolution

Hosni Mubarak’s former regime got many things wrong, but Egyptian officials sure knew how to accurately read at least some parts of U.S. foreign policy.  A State Department cable written in December 2007 recently released by WikiLeaks describes how the Egyptian government believed that “their discussions with the United States” passed “through a perceived ‘Israeli filter.’”  It’s fair to assume that Egypt was referring to how, as Helena Cobban writes in Salon, “pro-Israeli groups and individuals in Congress and the rest of the American political elite” have enormous influence on how Washington conducts foreign policy.

The pro-Israel apparatus’ influence, which has created a powerful “Israeli filter” that affects the conduct of U.S. foreign policy, was fully on display during the Obama administration’s noticeably confused and flat-footed response to the anti-Mubarak popular uprising.

Immediately after the beginning of the uprising, President “Obama began placing calls to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel,” according to the New York Times. Netanyahu “feared regional instability” and “urged the United States to stick with Mr. Mubarak.”

The administration itself was split over what do to about Mubarak.  The faction of the administration that favored having Omar Suleiman–the former Egyptian VP who was also Israel’s favorite– lead a “transition” included Dennis Ross, a core pillar of the Israel lobby inside the administration.  The Los Angeles Times explained:

The other camp includes Dennis Ross, a former Middle East peace negotiator for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Ross, who has strong ties to Israel, is the author of a 2007 book that advised against treating the Muslim Brotherhood as a potential partner in Egypt’s political future, noting the group’s refusal to renounce violence “as a tool of other Islamists.”

Apart from managing the crisis, the White House is consulting with outside interest groups and foreign governments to ensure that its message is getting through.

National Security Council member Daniel Shapiro has sought to reassure pro-Israel groups that the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt’s political negotiations would not undermine the country’s peace treaty with Israel, according to people who have talked with him. Shapiro, who led outreach to Jewish voters in Obama’s presidential campaign, has tended to the president’s relations with Israel and other regional partners, as well as with Jewish leaders in the U.S.

While the Egyptian protesters forced Mubarak out, as well as ending any possibility that Suleiman would be the new dictator, the U.S. remains deeply concerned with how the revolution will affect Israel and its peace treaty with Egypt.  Following Mubarak’s resignation, the White House insisted that “it’s important that the next government of Egypt recognize the accords that have been signed with Israel.”

 

The ugly face of the U.S. in Egypt: ‘This is an American grenade. American! American!’

The Obama administration has not taken a strong and unequivocal stand against Hosni Mubarak’s regime yet, and have instead opted for calling for an “orderly transition” to a new government.  The latest news on the administration’s reactions to the Egyptian uprising is that the U.S. ambassador to Egypt “spoke today with Mohammed El-Baradei.”

Regardless of the administration’s outreach to a major opposition figure, though, it’s hard to be viewed as a neutral player when the U.S. has not cut off the more than $1 billion in military aid annually to the repressive dictatorship.  This fact has not been lost on the Egyptian demonstrators, who have had to deal with the violence meted out by Egypt’s security forces using U.S.-made weapons.

يوم الغضب- ٢٨ يناير ٢٠١١ Days of Anger- Arabic version from tabulagaza on Vimeo.

This amazing video (above), produced by Philip Rizk and Jasmina Metwaly for the Electronic Intifada, provides a taste of how ordinary Egyptians view the United States government.  At about 2:30 in the video, a young Egyptian man tells the camera (thanks to Lubna Alzaroo for the Arabic translation):  “This is an American grenade. American! American! Hosni Mubarak is a spy, he is a collaborator and we don’t want him. We’ve had enough, we are suffocating, the nation is hungry, we’ve had enough.”

Until the U.S. halts its military support to Egypt, Israel and all of the other authoritarian states in the Middle East, the “American grenade” being used to harm pro-democracy demonstrators will be the ugly U.S. face in the region.

A democratic Egypt may save Palestinian and Lebanese lives

When Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty in 1979, one of the big dividends for Israel was the removal of a major military threat on their doorstep.  Egypt had participated in wars against Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973.  But since the Camp David peace treaty, Israel has been able to wage war on the Palestinians and other Arab states like Lebanon without having to worry about Egypt’s military stepping in. 

That may change once again if a democratic Egypt emerges from the uprising shaking the Mubarak regime.  Israel has been watching the unrest in Egypt closely and has begun to publicly air their support for the Mubarak dictatatorship. 

The potential for a radical change in the regional status quo–one where Israel has shored up peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt, making it the preeminent military power in the region with no contest–has Israel’s military worried.  Ethan Bronner’s latest report in the New York Times quotes Giora Eiland, “a former national security adviser and a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University,” as saying:

During the last 30 years, when we had any military confrontation, whether in the first or second Lebanon wars, the intifadas, in all those events we could be confident that Egypt would not try to intervene militarily

A democratic Egypt may make Israel more reticent about waging a reprise of the devastating assaults on Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2008-09, which has been openly talked about in the Israeli press and among Israeli officials.  A democratic Egypt that would reflect popular opinion in the country would also strike a blow against the Israeli/Egyptian siege of Gaza, as Eli Lake points out. 

And the importance of this, measured in human lives, cannot be underestimated:  An Israel that is afraid of an Egyptian response to their assaults could save Palestinian and Lebanese lives.

Israel and its American friends want to stop the Egyptian ‘earthquake’

The Israeli government and its many friends in the U.S. media are rushing to support the brutal Mubarak dictatorship as it copes with the most serious challenge to its rule.

As I noted yesterday, Israel is worried about a reliable ally being toppled next door. The Israeli government recently told journalists that there is “an earthquake in the Middle East … but we believe the Egyptian regime is strong enough and that Egypt is going to overcome the current wave of demonstrations.”

M.J. Rosenberg reports on “AIPAC’s Egypt miscalculation” at Media Matters.

Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic joins the lobby’s misgivings about the uprising in Egypt here:

Fifty years of peace has meant propping up dictators for fifty years.

3) Is that such a bad thing? Friends of mine like Reuel Gerecht believe that Arabs, given their druthers, might choose Islamist governments, and that would be okay, because it’s part of a long-term process of gradual modernization. I’m not so sure. I support democratization, but the democratization we saw in Gaza (courtesy of, among others, Condi Rice) doesn’t seem particularly worth it.

Lee Smith, a neoconservative at the Hudson Institute, laments in the Weekly Standard that Gamal Abdel Nasser “owns the affections of the Egyptian masses”:

That is to say, we don’t know exactly what the protestors want. There are those who hate the regime because it jails and tortures bloggers and those who hate it because it won’t make war on Israel.  No doubt some of the young are just fed up they have never known another Egyptian ruler in their lifetimes. Some of the youth are democrats and others are decidedly not.

It is not always a good thing when people go to the streets; indeed the history of revolutionary action shows that people go to the streets to shed blood more often than they do to demand democratic reforms. Perhaps it is an appetite for activist politics that explains why so many Western observers are now captured by the moment. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain why it seems as if no one had learned from the failures of the Bush administration’s freedom agenda—namely the Palestinian Authority elections that empowered Hamas—or could remember its successes. The Iraqis and Lebanese went to the streets, too, and our allies there are under pressure and ignored not only by the Obama administration, but also by a press corps and intelligentsia that mostly seems just fascinated by the spectacle of Arabs throwing themselves against a wall, regardless of the outcome.

The posture of Goldberg and Smith is striking.  They were certainly not airing such anti-democratic sentiments when the Iranian “Green Revolution” was going on.  But now that a revolt is threatening a pillar of the U.S./Israeli order in the Middle East, an order that is suffocating the people of Palestine, their zest for democracy fizzles.  This will be noted.

The Egyptian intifada and what it may mean for Israel/Palestine

The Egyptian uprising against the Mubarak regime is historic and important in its own right.  But it may also lead to significant changes in the region that could be positive for the Palestinian cause.  Israel is worried about a reliable ally being toppled next door.

The Mubarak dictatorship is a core pillar of the U.S./Israeli order in the Middle East, an order that completely ignores the wishes and aspirations of people on the ground.  The U.S. and Israel are scared of the new order that is to come.

As As’ad Abu Khalil notes at his blog, “the Israeli strategy in the Middle East has been firmly set on the continuity of the Sadat-Mubarak dictatorship.”  Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt in 1979 removed a military threat to Israel and secured millions of U.S. dollars and military support for the Egyptian dictatorship.  The Mubarak regime got carte blanche for its repressive rule.

Currently, there is extensive cooperation between Egypt and Israel.  Cables obtained by WikiLeaks, and published by Counterpunch, reveal that the Israeli military coordinated bombing runs with the Egyptian military during the 2008-09 assault on Gaza and closed the Rafah border when told in advance that Israel’s ground invasion was to begin.  WikiLeaks’ documents shed further light on Egypt currently building a wall meant to choke off smuggling tunnels into the Gaza Strip.

The fall of the Mubarak regime, which is what the youth revolt currently sweeping Egypt is calling for, could mean a number of things related to the siege of Gaza, continued efforts to crush Hamas and the political situation Israel finds itself in.

All told, what happens in Egypt will not stay in Egypt.  It will have ripple effects across the Middle East, and especially in Israel/Palestine.

 

‘The Palestine Cables’: WikiLeaks exposes Egypt, PA cooperation with Israel during Gaza assault

This is the fifth installment of my column on WikiLeaks and Israel/Palestine at Mondoweiss.  You can read all the installments here.

The left-wing publication Counterpunch has obtained eleven U.S.-authored cables “accessed” from WikiLeaks that deal solely with “Operation Cast Lead,” the 2008-09 Israeli assault on Gaza.  Kathleen Christison, a former CIA analyst and co-author of Palestine in Pieces, has the scoop:

Though the cables often simply rehash Israeli press reporting, providing little new insight into Israel’s attack or the planning behind it, they show with pitiless clarity the U.S. government to be little more than a handmaiden and amanuensis of the Israeli military machine.

The State Department cables also reveal for the first time that while Israel waged a devastating assault on the Gaza Strip, eventually killing an estimated 1,400 Palestinians, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority (PA) were actively working with Israel.  Previous cables from WikiLeaks revealed that Israel had “consulted” with Egypt and the PA prior to the beginning of “Cast Lead.”  The PA denied the allegations then.

A December 29, 2008 cable from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv reports (in bold on the Counterpunch page on the leaks):

At 16:00 on December 28, the IDF bombed the Phiadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, destroying 39-40 smuggling tunnels. No Egyptian border guards were harmed. IDF contacts have repeatedly told DATT that the targeting of the tunnels was coordinated with Egypt, and that they had passed the coordinates of the attack points to the Egyptians to enable them to ensure the safety of their border forces.

A January 4, 2009 cable from Cairo notes:

As of 1500 hrs. local on January 4, Egyptian military contacts said Egypt closed the Rafah border crossing on January 4 after the Israelis gave advanced warning of their ground invasion and additional air strikes on the smuggling tunnels along the Gaza-Rafah border

One December 30, 2008 cable from Jerusalem details the contacts made between the PA and Israel regarding protests against the assault in the West Bank:

PA commanders complained about IDF use of live ammunition, responsible for three Palestinian fatalities in December 27-28 protests. MG [Thiab Mustafa] Ali [the commander of the Palestinian security forces] said IDF commanders told them live ammunition is the last resort when dealing with Palestinian demonstrators, and IDF rules of engagement only authorize it when the lives of IDF soldiers or Israeli citizens are at immediate risk

Despite the “complaints,” the next section of the Dec. 30 cable notes that “both sides” agreed to “increase coordination”:

PA commanders said they told IDF officers that President Abbas and PM Fayyad both directed them to avoid situations that could develop into confrontations with the IDF. The security chiefs said Abbas and Fayyad passed a message to all Palestinian factions, at a PLO Executive Committee meeting on December 29, that only peaceful marches away from flashpoints would be permitted. PA commanders noted they have no control on over B/C areas such as Qalandiya and Nil’in, and would need IDF approval to move PA forces to those areas to prevent clashes between protesters and the IDF…

PA commanders said their IDF counterparts agreed to expedite coordination and movement requests and exchange information on possible disturbances, as both sides have an interest in preventing West Bank violence. They said both sides also agreed not to leak substantive discussions about the meeting to the press, given the sensitivity of security coordination in a time of Palestinian outrage over events in Gaza.

The new leak of what Al Jazeera is calling the “Palestine Papers” are likely to confirm the WikiLeaks revelations by publishing “details of the PA’s security cooperation with Israel” over the next few days.