THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 27, January 29, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
GIVE GAZA TO EGYPT
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
HIGH TIME FOR A MAJOR CHANGE IN THE WEST'S POLICY TOWARD GAZA: THE NEED FOR THE U.S.A. & OTHER
WESTERN STATES TO DECLARE THE EXPERIMENT IN GAZAN SELF-RULE A FAILURE, WITHDRAW SUPPORT FOR ANY
POLITICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN THE GAZA STRIP & THE PALESTINIAN ARAB WEST BANK, & CONTRIVE THE RETURN OF
GAZA TO EGYPT, PRESSURING THE EGYPTIAN GOVERNMENT TO ANNEX, TIGHTLY CONTROL, & TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY
FOR GAZA
FULL STORY:
Startling developments in Gaza highlight the need for a change in Western policy toward this troubled territory of 1.3
million persons.
Gaza's contemporary history began in 1948, when Egyptian forces overran the British-controlled area and Cairo sponsored
the nominal "All-Palestine Government," while de facto ruling the territory as a protectorate. That arrangement ended in
1967, when the Israeli leadership defensively took control of Gaza, reluctantly inheriting a densely populated, poor, and
hostile territory.
Nonetheless, for twenty years, Gazans largely acquiesced to Israeli rule. Only with the Intifada beginning in 1987, did
Gazans assert themselves; its violence and political costs convinced Israelis to open a diplomatic process that culminated
with the Oslo accords of 1993. The Gaza-Jericho Agreement of 1994 then off-loaded the territory to Yasir Arafat's Fatah.
Those agreements were supposed to bring stability and prosperity to Gaza. Returning businessmen would jump-start the
economy. The Palestinian Authority would repress Islamists and suppress terrorists. Yasir Arafat proclaimed he would
"build a Singapore" there, actually an apt comparison, for independent Singapore began inauspiciously in 1965, poor and
ethnically conflict-ridden.
Of course, Arafat was no Lee Kuan Yew. Gazan conditions deteriorated and Islamists, far from being shut out, rose to
power: Hamas won the 2006 elections and in 2007 seized full control of Gaza. The economy shrunk. Rather than stop
terrorism, Fatah joined in. Gazans began launching rockets over the border in 2002, increasing their frequency, range, and
deadliness with time, eventually rendering the Israeli town of Sderot nearly uninhabitable.
Faced with a lethal Gaza, the Israeli government of Ehud Olmert decided to isolate it, hoping that economic hardship would
cause Gazans to blame Hamas and turn against it. To an extent, the squeeze worked, for Hamas' popularity did fall. The
Israelis also conducted raids against terrorists to stop the rocket attacks. Still, the assaults continued; so, on January 17,
2008, the Israelis escalated by cutting fuel deliveries and closing the borders. "As far as I'm concerned," Olmert announced,
"Gaza residents will walk, without gas for their cars, because they have a murderous, terrorist regime that doesn't let people
in southern Israel live in peace."
That sounded reasonable, but the press reported heart-rending stories about Gazans suffering and dying due to the cutoffs,
and these immediately swamped the Israeli position. Appeals and denunciations from around the world demanded that
Israelis ease up.
Then, on January 23, 2008, Hamas took matters into its own hands with a clever surprise tactic: after months of preparation,
it pulled down large segments of the 12-km long, 13-meter high border wall separating Gaza from Egypt, simultaneously
winning goodwill from Gazans and dragging Cairo into the picture. Politically, Egyptian authorities had no choice but
uneasily to absorb 38 wounded border guards and permit hundreds of thousands of persons temporarily to enter the far
northeast of their country.
Israelis had brought themselves to this completely avoidable predicament through incompetence – signing bad agreements,
turning Gaza over to the thug Arafat, expelling their own citizens, permitting premature elections, acquiescing to the Hamas
conquest, and abandoning control of Gaza's western border.
What might Western states now do? The border breaching, ironically, offers an opportunity to clean up a mess.
Washington and other capitals should declare the experiment in Gazan self-rule a failure and press President Hosni Mubarak
of Egypt to help, perhaps providing Gaza with additional land or even annexing it as a province. This would revert to the
situation of 1948-1967, except, this time, Cairo would not keep Gaza at arm's length, but take responsibility for it.
Culturally, this connection is a natural: Gazans speak a colloquial Arabic identical to the Egyptians of Sinai, have more family
ties to Egypt than to the West Bank, and are economically more tied to Egypt (recall the many smugglers' tunnels). Further,
Hamas derives from an Egyptian organization, the Muslim Brethren. As David Warren of the Ottawa Citizen notes,
calling Gazans "Palestinians" is less accurate than politically correct.
Why not formalize the Egyptian connection? Among other benefits, this would (1) end the rocket fire against Israel, (2)
expose the superficiality of Palestinian nationalism, an ideology under a century old, and perhaps (3) break the Arab-Israeli
logjam.
It's hard to divine what benefit American taxpayers have received for the US$65 billion they have lavished on Egypt since
1948; but Egypt's absorbing Gaza might justify their continuing to shell out $1.8 billion a year.
© Daniel Pipes 2008
Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post, January 30, 2008
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, January 29, 2008
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5426
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
Egypt, Arabs, & the Middle East
North Africa -- The Arab States of Islamic North Africa
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the
U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and
Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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