MUBARAK LOSES HIS CHANCE AT DECENCY ~ AGAIN

In early 2008 the US gave $23m in military aid to the Egyptians to stop the tunnels, sending in a team from the engineer corps to advise and train in several techniques, including ground-penetrating radar. Another plan was to build a deep canal along the border to prevent tunneling. ~ Guardian UK

The same news­pa­per reported yes­ter­day that for the first time ever and con­trary to the pre­vi­ous years, the U.S. aid to Egypt (Mubarak regime) in 2010, which is about $48.76 Bil­lion will be uncon­di­tional because of Egypt’s good coop­er­a­tion and assist­ing the U.S. in the Mid­dle East. ~ Grid Focus

Egypt’s President Mubarak
blows his chance to behave decently

(What is a little decency compared to almost $49+ BILLION?

By Stuart Littlewood

27 December 2009
Redress Information & Analysis

My $.02 of Snippits and Snappits in green. But right from the start, did anyone ever really expect this puppet with power to be decent? He has repeatedly sold out his fellow Arabs and begun the Westernizing of Egypt. He snuggles up with war criminals like Tzipi and starves the Palestinians. If I did not know better, I would suspect he is Jewish, he certainly is Zionist in his allegiances.

Stuart Littlewood argues that time is running out for Egyptian President Husni Mubarak to prove that he is not an Israeli stooge and allow the Viva Palestina international humanitarian aid convoy to reach the besieged Gaza Strip in time for the first anniversary of Israel’s mass slaughter of Gazans.

”The convoy’s request for easy passage was Mubarak's big chance to show that he was not, after all, the cruel and unprincipled Zionist stooge that civilized people across the world had already consigned to the dustbin of history. It is not too late to make amends. But if he doesn’t act quickly he’ll blow it for everyone, including himself.”

Gee, thanks President Mubarak. Thanks for ruining Christmas for so many.

Gosh, a Christian celebration. And for Palestinians. Two strikes against the convoy right there. Bah humbug!

But that’s par for the course in the cesspit of treachery that is the Middle East.

Despite Saudi Arabia's record (and it is getting worse but not reported back in the West), Egypt wrote the book on treachery. Perhaps that is the secret of the Sphinx.

The human tragedy of Gaza just gets worse and worse. Nobody seriously believed the Viva Palestina convoy would get through unmolested; and so it came to pass. It is stranded at Aqaba, and its precious cargo is spoiling in the heat, because Mubarak’s henchmen will not allow it to enter Egypt through the port of Nuweiba.

The excuse, we hear, is that the road across the Sinai from Nuweiba to Rafah runs close to the border and the sight of 250 trucks and ambulances laden with food and medical supplies might distress the oh-so-sensitive Israelis. Some vehicles might cause “a big infiltration problem”.

Odd how sensitive these people are. Such tender constitutions! But then, as the only human beings on the planet, the rest of us being unfeeling goyim chattel/cattle, incapable of intelligent thought or the delicacy to feel true pain and emotions, they are truly the only ones capable of such experiences. Despite their bloody slaughter of all others, somehow, when it comes to seeing such things as international aid, or even a Christmas manger, they are sensitive to the point of nausea.

Surely, Egypt is capable of providing an escort to ensure that no trucks leave the column and defect to Israel. Why would they wish to do so anyway when they have taken great trouble and gone many hundreds of extra miles especially to avoid Israel?

The question here is why help Palestine? What's in it for Mubarak? Can it outbid the offers at the top of this post?

That’s not the only nonsensical thing about the situation. Fully 24 hours before Viva Palestina owned up to it, news reports were saying that Egypt’s Foreign Ministry had issued a statement announcing that “

the Egyptian government welcomes the passage of the convoy into the Gaza Strip on 27 December, on condition that it abides by the mechanisms in place for humanitarian aid convoys to the Palestinian people, including most importantly the entry of convoys through the port of El-Arish".

Local pressures being what they are, it might well make things awkward for President Mubarak if the convoy were to travel close to the border with Israel. But one would expect a powerful man like him to overcome any difficulties for human decency's sake and for the sake of his brothers and sisters imprisoned and bombarded by Israel.

He is powerful only if Israel loosens his tethers. I imagine those great humanitarians Lieberman and Netanyahu are giving him instructions ~ or perhaps the fellows up in the banking area of London pull the strings. Or maybe America. Or maybe the lot of them together, but someone is guiding him.

Nevertheless, the convoy organizers must have obtained prior permission for their route. Were they aware of the El-Arish stipulation? Although asked to be precise about what the Egyptian authorities told them, the organizers remain vague. This makes it difficult to explain to well-wishers, and particularly to waiting Gazans, why the convoy is kicking its heel in Aqaba and going nowhere.

Egypt, sadly, has failed miserably to honour its obligation under the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA), in which it undertook to keep the Rafah crossing open.

Honor? Mubarak? In the same sentence? Unlikely.

Now, incredibly, this Arab country is actually collaborating with Israel and the US in the construction of an iron wall to hermetically seal the tiny enclave of Gaza and ensure its inhabitants suffocate to death ~ a project of unspeakable evil.

It is beyond evil. They say there will most likely be another confrontation with Israel and Palestine in the coming year; the Israelis having never ended the last Holocaust on Gaza. They have remorselessly continued to prod, kill, push, and test the people of Palestine further. They are pushing until the people, desperate beyond human endurance, to action, ~ whether large or small ~ out of pure frustration; then they can justify going in and slaughtering, as they did the last time. This is their usual mode of doing things.

The convoy’s request for easy passage was Mubarak's big chance to show that he was not, after all, the cruel and unprincipled Zionist stooge that civilized people across the world had already consigned to the dustbin of history. It is not too late to make amends. But if he doesn’t act quickly he’ll blow it for everyone, including himself.

Who cares what he does to himself? You should hear what the Egyptians say about him. It ain't pretty at all! I have many Egyptian friends who refuse to say the traditional greeting "Eid Mubarak" an old common Muslim greeting during the celebration of Eid. They use a substitute word instead.

Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.

GOOD NEWS! (MAYBE!)

December 28, 2009

PRESS.TV

Cairo forces Viva Palestina to take detour

Thanks to Cairo's obstruction, Viva Palestina humanitarian convoy en rout to the Gaza Strip will take a detour and head to Syria Latakia, in a bid to enter Egypt through El-Arish.

The convoy of 250 vehicles has been stranded in the Jordanian port city of Aqaba after Egypt refused to allow it to go through the Red Sea port of Nuweiba ~ the most direct route. Cairo insisted that the convoy can only enter through the Mediterranean port city of El-Arish.

"The aid convoy will leave Aqaba for (the Mediterranean port of) Latakia in Syria before going to El-Arish, in line with Cairo's decision," said Maysara Malas, of Jordan's powerful trade union federation, which has been helping to organize the aid convoy.

"We hope that Egypt does not put more obstacles. It's unfortunate that Israel has interfered in Egypt's decision, which serves the Zionist entity," he added.

It is my belief that, in the long run, this wall will not stop the ingenuous and desperate Palestinians from the smuggling, but it will force them to go deeper and will likely cut both profits for the smugglers as well as use of the hundreds of superficial tunnels closer to the surface that are used to move the bulk of the goods.