The walls of sovereignty are mythical. But in international law they are real whether they are between the borders of the State of Arizona, and Mexico, or between Sinai of Egypt and Gaza of Hamas.
Due to the Israeli blockade around Gaza, the Gazans have dug up hundreds of tunnels through which all kinds of goods are smuggled. From cars to cement; from vegetables to armament; from person to equipment. However, it seems that Egypt's tolerance of these very lucrative tunnels, lucrative to Palestinian tunnel owners and diggers, has now come to an end.
From the succession of events and the official and non-official declarations of the Egyptian armed forces guarding Sinai, it appears that secular Egypt under Mubarak had turned a blind eye to the tunneling under Egypt's sovereign boundaries. By contrast, the leadership of Egypt's armed forces does not entertain such tolerance. Sinai has become a priority security concern.
President Morsi has deep Islamic (Muslim Brotherhood) roots. Thus he may have been expected by Hamas, an offshoot of the Brotherhood, to be in favor of the tunnels even more than before. Events are now proving the contrary, at least as far as the armed forces are concerned. Their primary duty is to ensure secure borders, and the tunnels are nothing but a form of invasion.
The attack on Egyptian armed forces in the Sinai region late last year resulted in the death of 16 armed forces personnel and a greater number were injured. "Intolerable and shameful" screamed the Egyptian media. And now the finger of accusation is pointed by the armed forces to suspects from Gaza.
The main headline in Al-Ahram newspaper which speaks for the Government headlined on Tuesday, March 19, "The Army Fortifies Sinai." Then, in a sub-heading, it added "Unprecedented Security measures. The arrest of 3 Palestinians accused of unlawful entry." The Governorate (Province) of North Sinai has recently been flooded by heavy equipment for the destruction of the tunnels leading from Gaza into Sinai. We have also been witnessing large concentrations of armed forces and police personnel in that region. The change of military uniforms of the Third Egyptian army which is based in Sinai, had been the result of impersonating these forces.
Egypt's armed forces have discovered large quantities of the cloth from which Egyptian army uniforms are made. Those goods were about to be smuggled through the tunnels from Rafah, Egypt, into Gaza. That discovery was followed by a stern warning by the armed forces against insinuating persons bent upon creating mischief into Sinai. The immediate background of that episode was a deadly clash against the police during the civilian uprising in Port Said. During that clash, shots were fired which were later falsely described as clashes between the army and the police. Nonsense!! --said both the army and the police. The engagement included persons dressed in Egyptian army uniforms.
General Osama Askar, commander of the Third Army declared that army uniforms have been changed to foil the plots of smugglers who use the tunnels to create conflict between the army and the Egyptian masses, or between the army and the police.
Questions about the Egypt vs. Gaza case arose also on the diplomatic front. It seems that General El-Sisi, Egypt's Minister of Defense, has refused to see Khalid Meshaal, Hamas political chief, when he was recently in Cairo. The media attributed this rebuff to the still to be proved involvement of Hamas operatives in the murder of those 16 Egyptian army personnel, last year. The Egyptian street is abuzz with the rumors that El-Sisi has vowed to bring those accused of that heinous aggression at the Egyptian-Gaza border to justice.
Thus when Ismail Haniyah, head of the so-called Gaza government, called for security coordination between Hamas and Egypt, his call fell on deaf ears in Cairo.
The Arab Spring has brought about an Egyptian regime with an Islamic orientation. But Islamism on one side of the border does not translate into a religious/ideological orientation on the two sides of that border. The sovereignty of Egypt is standing in the way of such a coalition based on religion. The hundreds of illegal tunnels between Rafah (Egypt) and Gaza seem now to be doomed. They have stood for underpasses which in effect undermined Egypt's control over its troubled border to the east.
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