Gaza has managed to replenish its fuel supply by using smuggling tunnels from Egypt, and residents of the Strip rejoiced as benzene prices hit a low of just NIS 1.5 (around 40 cents) per liter, after having previously paid up to NIS 7 (around $1.9). (full article…)

Yousef Abu Zuhri, a Hamas member and brother of the movement’s spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri, died in an Egyptian jail. Hamas is outraged, claiming he was tortured to death. (full article…)

When the government killed the pigs in Egypt in an attempt to combat swine flu, it was warned that Cairo would be overwhelmed with trash. Now, it is. (full article…)

Egypt on Tuesday condemned the Hamas move to ban Fatah members from traveling to a key party convention in the West Bank, saying the decision was “unacceptable.” (more…)

Imagine the positive reaction Obama would have received throughout the Arab and Islamic world if, instead of simply expressing eloquent but vague words in support of freedom and democracy, he had said something like this:

“Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells.”

Could he have said such a thing?

Yes. In fact, those were his exact words when, as an Illinois state senator, he gave a speech at a major antiwar rally in Chicago on Oct. 2, 2002. (more…)

Bahaieddin Hasan, head of the Cairo Centre for Human Rights Studies, described the address as “superficial” and devoid of details. “There didn’t appear to be any concern for either democratic reform or human rights,” he was quoted as saying in the Friday edition of independent daily Al-Dustour. “This came as a major disappointment.” (more…)

Of course, I didn’t expect much, but I found Obama’s brief remarks yesterday about the Palestinians extremely disingenuous and misleading. After pontificating to the audience in Cairo on the Holocaust (as if he were addressing a crowd of affirmed anti-Semites), Obama said the following about Palestine:

“[I]t is also undeniable that the Palestinian people – Muslims and Christians – have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations – large and small – that come with occupation.”

Suffered in pursuit of a homeland? They had a homeland—and it was stolen from them in 1948. Let’s call a spade a spade. This was ethnic cleansing, not the “pain of dislocation” as Obama euphemises.

And why did Obama not mention Israel specifically in relation with the Palestinians’ suffering? Instead, your average viewer in the United States is justified in coming away with the impression that the occupation is prosecuted by some nameless evil. Everyone talks about a change in rhetoric from Washington, but I don’t see it. When it comes to the Middle East, the ritual transition of power called democracy in the U.S. causes a mere fluctuation in the degree of slavish support for the Zionist project.

Labeling America’s “other” as a nebulous and all-encompassing “Islam” (even while professing rapprochement and respect) is a way to avoid acknowledging what does in fact unite and mobilize people across many Muslim-majority countries: overwhelming popular opposition to increasingly intrusive and violent American military, political and economic interventions in many of those countries. This opposition — and the resistance it generates — has now become for supporters of those interventions, synonymous with “Islam.” (more…)

US President Barack Obama met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Thursday as he continued his trip to the Middle East.

Amnesty International has documented a series of human rights violations in Egypt. It is particularly concerned about the extension of the state of emergency and the planned new anti-terrorism law, which seeks to grant security forces emergency-style powers.

Counter terrorism continues to be used to justify human rights violations, such as administrative detention lasting in hundreds of cases for more than a decade, prolonged incommunicado and secret detentions, torture an unfair trials before emergency and military courts.

US involvement in these practices has extended to “renditions” by US intelligence services to Egypt, making it a key transit and destination country for the interrogation or indefinite detention and torture of terror suspects. (more…)

President Obama should not have decided to come to Egypt. The visit is a clear endorsement of President Hosni Mubarak, the ailing 81-year-old dictator who has ruled with martial law, secret police and torture chambers. No words that Mr. Obama will say can change this perception that Americans are supporting a dictator with their more than $1 billion in annual aid. The Western press is clearly excited about Mr. Obama’s “significant” choice of Egypt, and his destination, Cairo University, which the news media seem to consider a symbol of enlightenment, secularism and freedom. The truth is that for years, Cairo University students have been demonstrating against the rising cost of education, demanding the university subsidize expensive text books, only to be rebuked by the authorities, who claim no funds are available. Yet the university somehow managed to find the money to polish up the building dome that will shine above Mr. Obama’s head when he delivers his address. As for the other host of the president’s visit, Al Azhar University, one of its students, Kareem Amer, is languishing in prison after university officials reported his “infidel, un-Islamic” views to the government, earning him a four-year sentence in 2007. In advance of the visit, Egyptian security forces have rounded up hundreds of foreign students at Al Azhar. We do want allies in the West, but not from inside the White House. Our real allies are the human rights groups and unions that will pressure the Obama administration to sever all ties to the Mubarak dictatorship. Their visits to Egypt are more meaningful, even if unlike Mr. Obama, they do not get a lavish reception. (more…)

Obama said he was “very much looking forward” to that part of his trip, but that he wanted to meet with Mubarak first because he is someone “who obviously has decades of experience” on a range of issues. (more…)

Yeah, a whole range of issues: torture, censorship, eradication of political opponents, etc.

But on human rights, I fear he will disappoint: I asked him straight whether Hosni Mubarak (the Egyptian leader for 28 years!) was an autocrat. Mr Obama told me he was a force for stability and good. (more…)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we always raise democracy and human rights. It is a core pillar of American foreign policy. And I think that there is a great awareness on the part of the Egyptian Government that with young people like this and with enhanced communications, it is in Egypt’s interest to move more toward democracy and to exhibit more respect for human rights. And so we’re going to continue to engage in that dialogue. (more…)

So what’s wrong with Cairo? Let me count the ways… The main problem, of course, is Mubarak’s repressive regime. It’s difficult to stomach rewarding a regime which has been systematically rolling back its limited democratic opening of a few years ago. The choice of Cairo is already being interpreted by many Arabs and Egyptians as proof that Obama has abandoned democracy and human rights promotion. A Presidential speech in Cairo will inevitably be compared to the 2005 speech by Condoleeza Rice calling for democracy in the Arab world. Never mind that the Bush administration did very little to actually advance the cause of democracy in the region, barely objected to Mubarak’s crackdown midway through the 2005 Parliamentary elections and the escalating repression which followed, and by the January 2006 Hamas electoral victory had abandoned even its democratizing pretensions. The rhetoric will be compared and contrasted. (more…)

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke of the Bush administration’s goal to promote freedom in the Middle East at the American University in Cairo in June 2005. “For 60 years, the United States pursued stability at the expense of democracy in the Middle East — and we achieved neither,” Rice said. “Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.” But Washington looked the other way during abuses in Egyptian parliamentary elections held in the fall a few months later, and its appetite for democracy in the Middle East noticeably waned when the Muslim Brotherhood, and later Hamas in the Palestinian territories, did well. (more…)

Mr. Mubarak and his fellow Arab autocrats are widely despised across the region — and the United States is blamed for unconditionally propping them up. In fact, Mr. Bush won credit from many Egyptians for pressing for democratic change; he was criticized because he failed to follow through. Now, Arabs around the region are learning that the Obama administration is returning to the old U.S. policy of ignoring human rights abuses by Arab dictators in exchange for their cooperation on security matters — that is, the same policy that produced the Middle East of Osama bin Laden, Hamas and Saddam Hussein. (more…)

Three months after the end of the war, much of the aid has either rotted or been irreparably damaged as a result of both rain and sunshine, and Egypt’s refusal to open the Rafah crossing.

“To be honest, most of this aid will never make it to Gaza,” a local government official told IPS on condition of anonymity. “A lot of the food here will have to be thrown away.” (more…)

We have been stuck in Cairo airport for nearly a day now. We are neither being allowed entry or exit by Egyptian authorities, who insist that as long as Rafah Crossing is closed, they are under strict orders not to allow Palestinians in. (more…)

“Celebration for what?” he said people would wonder. “Killing Palestinians? For Lieberman and Netanyahu?” (more…)

Earlier this month, newspapers here in Cairo carried front-page photographs of Clinton being kissed by Israeli President Shimon Peres during her visit to Jerusalem. Arabs saw in that a clear message. Ditto what she said – and did not say – about Gaza, Israeli settlements, Hamas, and human rights in Egypt. Many Arabs fear it’s Condoleezza Rice redux. (more…)

“Everything’s okay,” he gasps and lies down on the ground, breathing heavily. “A lot of sand has got in, it’ll take us a while to shovel it all out. But I managed to get across to the other side. Our friends in Egypt send their regards.” (more…)

His itinerary does not include a stop in Gaza because of the ongoing conflict. “I really wanted to visit Gaza at this time to share their sufferings,” he told reporters in Egypt, but said it was impossible because of the current circumstances. (more…)

But each time a Palestinian ambulance does make it across the no man’s land between Gaza and Egypt, the hospital erupts into activity. “Which body part haven’t I seen missing?” says one paramedic when asked what type of shrapnel injuries he had witnessed in victims being transported to al-Arish. According to hospital records, one in six of those victims have been children.

Outside the ER, her face illuminated by flickering blue ambulance beacons, Nawal Wasa prays for the life of her daughter Hanin, as doctors fight to save her. “She’s only 16 years old,” Nawal says fiercely. “She wanted to finish high school and go to university. That’s all she ever wanted.” (more…)

“That in 2009 they have people in need of help from a doctor and we can go to help and they won’t let us; this is crazy,” he added. (more…)

The disproportionate and heavy-handed Israeli attacks on Gaza have been a bonanza for Hamas. The movement has renewed its standing in the Arab world, secured international favour further afield and succeeded in scuttling indirect Israeli-Syrian talks and direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. It has also greatly embarrassed Israel’s strongest Arab neighbours, Egypt and Jordan. (more…)

The one exception to the view that our values and interests were inextricably linked had really been the Middle East, where I think we had really focused more on stability at the expense of values. We didn’t talk much about democracy in the Middle East. (more…)

Let’s put aside Condi’s view that the Middle East is an exception rather than a rule when it comes to U.S. foreign policy…

In the Middle East, American foreign policy means support for dictators across the region, the invasion and devastation of Iraq, the suppression of the democratically-elected Hamas government in Palestine, blocking a ceasefire during Israel’s murderous bombardment of Lebanon, and subsequently backing the unpopular (but pro-Western) government in Lebanon.

Bravo.

Condi came to this conclusion all by herself.

Ironic text messages of goodwill for the great festival of Eid Al Adha – easily as central to the Muslim calendar as Christmas is in the West – became the vogue in Gaza this week.

“Despite there being no salaries, the money we don’t have to give to our children, the high price of Egyptian lamb, and the switching off of power, we will celebrate by the light of an Egyptian candle,” read one. It summed up the daily power cuts, the utter impossibility for most families this year of affording the traditional Eid sheep and the fact that smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt have turned into a lifeline for the 1.5 million inhabitants of blockaded, Hamas-controlled Gaza.

The sardonic text message marking the most miserable Eid in Gaza anyone can remember came up on the mobile belonging to Adel Razeq. He runs Gaza’s National Agency for Family Care and has been struggling with meagre resources to set up a “food bank” intended to distribute meals – in some cases repackaged leftovers from restaurants, wedding parties and even funerals – to the growing legion of undernourished in Gaza, where more than 50 per cent of families have for the first time been classified as living below the “deep poverty” line of £315 per month for two adults and six children. (more…)

The U.S. government does not have a monopoly on hypocrisy, but no other government can match the hypocrisy of the U.S. government.

It is now well documented and known all over the world that the U.S. government tortured detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and that the U.S. government has had people kidnaped and “renditioned,” that is, transported to Third World countries, such as Egypt, to be tortured.

Also documented and well known is the fact that the U.S. Department of Justice provided written memos justifying the torture of detainees. One torture advocate who wrote the DOJ memos that gave the green light to the Bush regime’s use of torture is John Yoo, who somehow secured a U.S. Justice Department appointment and a tenured professorship at the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law.

Members of Berkeley’s city council believe that Yoo should be charged with war crimes. The U.S. government has charged lesser offenders than Yoo with war crimes. Yoo helped the DOJ achieve the Bush regime’s goal of finding a way around the torture prohibitions of both U.S. statutory law and the Geneva Conventions. (more…)

One of the biggest foreign policy challenges facing the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama will be reinvigorating what looks like a completely stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace process.

Repeated failures in the struggle for peace make clear that a change in direction is needed. And many observers think that taking advantage of the Arab Peace Initiative put forward by the Arab League in 2002 is just the ticket to jumpstarting the process.

A push by Pres. George W. Bush in the final year of his two-term presidency yielded the Annapolis process which, though having made minimal procedural gains and bringing in regional players, largely ignored the existing Arab proposal spearheaded by then-Crown Prince and now King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. (more…)

The Hamas government is preventing thousands of Muslims from leaving the Gaza Strip to go on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca – a religious duty – on the Id al-Adha (feast of the sacrifice) holiday.

What a sensational headline, what a fascinating paradox. What Israel has never dared to do – certainly not to this extent – is being done by a Palestinian government for which Islam is the basis of its platform and provides personal guidance for each of its ministers.

Why does the Ismail Haniyeh government need the headache of the images of security roadblocks on the main road in Gaza preventing would-be pilgrims from reaching the Rafah crossing, which Egypt has announced will be temporarily opened, and the reports, including exaggerated ones, about people beaten by Hamas security forces because they insisted on getting close to the crossing? Why did the government decide not to allow out some 3,000 Gazans registered for the pilgrimage with the Palestinian religious affairs ministry in Ramallah as long as Egypt and Saudi Arabia don’t allow an additional 3,000 Gazans who registered with the religious affairs ministry in Gaza to go on hajj? (more…)

This week, we have seen once again how Israel employs the “unlimited use of limited force” to provoke a response from Gaza and to thereby undermine the fragile tahdiya—the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire in place since last June.

Last Tuesday, while the world’s attention was focused on the United States’ presidential election, Israel invaded the Gaza Strip… Ostensibly there to destroy several smuggling tunnels, they encountered resistance (naturally) and killed six Palestinian militants. In response, dozens of Palestinian rockets were subsequently fired into Israel. And in response, Israel made a statement “regretting” Hamas’s hostility and eagerly shut Gaza’s borders, exacerbating the already disastrous humanitarian conditions. Soon after, Israel also forced Gaza’s main power plant to close by cutting fuel supplies, a move which plunged hundreds of thousands into darkness (yet again). Ehud Olmert threateningly declared that a “full-scale” Israeli operation in Gaza is not a question of “if” but “when”, even as he blamed Gaza for breaking the truce! And in response, rockets continue to fly over the border from Gaza into Israel.

And in response… and in response…
(more…)

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns in the strongest possible terms the killing of six Palestinians carried out by the Israeli Occupation Forces in the Gaza Strip yesterday evening and this morning. The victims were all killed by air strikes. This escalation is the first of its kind since the Tahdi’a (the Egyptian-brokered truce between Palestinian resistance groups and Israel) entered into force on 19 June 2008.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 20:30 on Tuesday, 4 November, an IOF infantry unit moved almost 400 meters into Wadi al-Salqa village, east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. IOF troops raided a house belonging to Mofeed Suleiman al-Rumaili. They held the family hostage in one room, and used the house as a military base. Additional IOF troops besieged a house belonging to Hassan Suleiman al-Humiadi, using a megaphone to order the twenty three residents to leave the building. (more…)