Egypt keeps its border crossing with Gaza closed, tightly controlled

The Guardian

Gaza border at Rafah tightly controlled as Egypt remains hostile to Hamas

The new Egyptian regime is suspicious of political Islam and only 140 injured Gazans have gone to Egyptian hospitals since 8 July

 

Friday 1 August 2014 

 

Louisa Loveluck 

 

As the death toll in Gaza passes 1,400, Egyptian hospitals have treated more than a hundred casualties of an Israeli military campaign drawing an otherwise muted response from Egypt, as its political establishment weighs humanitarian responsibilities against domestic politics.

Egypt's Rafah border crossing – Gaza's only exit route not controlled by Israel – has opened sporadically since Israel began Operation Protective Edge on 8 July. According to Egypt's health ministry, 140 people have entered the country for treatment since then.

The Egyptian authorities cite security concerns as the reason for repeated closures: Rafah is in Egypt's restive north Sinai region, where the army is attempting to root out al-Qaida-affiliated Islamist militants.

Throughout the Gaza crisis fluorescent ambulances have queued on the Egyptian side of Rafah, waiting to receive the slow stream of patients chosen for evacuation by Gaza's health ministry. At least eight hospitals within the Palestinian enclave have been damaged in the violence, cutting the number of beds by more than 500.

Inside Egypt's hospitals, doctors say they have been shocked at the number of child casualties. "It's more than 20% … the situation is bad," says Dr Sami Anwar, director of the Arish hospital, 50km from Rafah. "One four year-old girl had a panic attack when she awoke – she couldn't see anything or find anyone. She'd been blinded," he says.

Egypt's muted response to the crisis over its border is a contrast to its efforts in the previous round of violence, in 2012, when the former president Mohamed Morsi, a staunch Hamas ally, was central to ceasefire negotiations.

This time, Egypt is part of a coalition of Arab states, including regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia, that has aligned itself with Israel, signalling their deep suspicion towards Hamas and political Islam in general.

Egypt remains a central player in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas – it was due to host fresh talks today, but delayed the meetings after the collapse of a freshly announced 72-hour ceasefire – but hostility toward Hamas has resulted in a less flexible political approach to diplomacy, and tight control of aid deliveries through Rafah.

The crossing authority says 130 tonnes of humanitarian aid was transferred to Gaza on 25 and 26 of July, using donations from Morocco, Saudi Arabia, the Arab doctors' union in Egypt, and a Jordanian donor. An Egyptian military convoy also delivered food and medicine in a crossing the previous week.

But other convoys have been turned away – notably those organised by Cairo-based activists. According to Issandr el-Amrani, International Crisis Group's north Africa project director, the Egyptian government is unlikely to allow aid convoys that may be seen to carry a political message of support for Hamas, or to provide support for the group's call for the border at Rafah to be thrown open. The latter is a central demand of Hamas.

"[Egypt's] official line is pretty clear: we support the Palestinian people, condemn Israel's attacks on civilians and want to facilitate aid, but we blame Hamas for the current situation," says Mr Amrani. "In practice, this policy means that the humanitarian aid is stalled, hostage to Cairo's desire to keep up the pressure on Hamas."


*Additional reporting by Mohamed Ezz

**Photograph by Nasser Nuri courtesy of Reuters

Collective Punishment in Gaza

The New Yorker 
Collective Punishment in Gaza

July 29, 2014

Rashid Khalidi

Three days after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched the current war in Gaza, he held a press conference in Tel Aviv during which he said, in Hebrew, according to the Times of Israel, “I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan.”
 
It’s worth listening carefully when Netanyahu speaks to the Israeli people. What is going on in Palestine today is not really about Hamas. It is not about rockets. It is not about “human shields” or terrorism or tunnels. It is about Israel’s permanent control over Palestinian land and Palestinian lives.

That is what Netanyahu is really saying, and that is what he now admits he has “always” talked about. It is about an unswerving, decades-long Israeli policy of denying Palestine self-determination, freedom, and sovereignty.


What Israel is doing in Gaza now is collective punishment. It is punishment for Gaza’s refusal to be a docile ghetto. It is punishment for the gall of Palestinians in unifying, and of Hamas and other factions in responding to Israel’s siege and its provocations with resistance, armed or otherwise, after Israel repeatedly reacted to unarmed protest with crushing force. Despite years of ceasefires and truces, the siege of Gaza has never been lifted.

As Netanyahu’s own words show, however, Israel will accept nothing short of the acquiescence of Palestinians to their own subordination. It will accept only a Palestinian “state” that is stripped of all the attributes of a real state: control over security, borders, airspace, maritime limits, contiguity, and, therefore, sovereignty.

The twenty-three-year charade of the “peace process” has shown that this is all Israel is offering, with the full approval of Washington. Whenever the Palestinians have resisted that pathetic fate (as any nation would), Israel has punished them for their insolence. This is not new.

Punishing Palestinians for existing has a long history. It was Israel’s policy before Hamas and its rudimentary rockets were Israel’s boogeyman of the moment, and before Israel turned Gaza into an open-air prison, punching bag, and weapons laboratory.

In 1948, Israel killed thousands of innocents, and terrorized and displaced hundreds of thousands more, in the name of creating a Jewish-majority state in a land that was then sixty-five per cent Arab.

In 1967, it displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians again, occupying territory that it still largely controls, forty-seven years later.
 
In 1982, in a quest to expel the Palestine Liberation Organization and extinguish Palestinian nationalism, Israel invaded Lebanon, killing seventeen thousand people, mostly civilians.

Since the late nineteen-eighties, when Palestinians under occupation rose up, mostly by throwing stones and staging general strikes, Israel has arrested tens of thousands of Palestinians: over seven hundred and fifty thousand people have spent time in Israeli prisons since 1967, a number that amounts to forty per cent of the adult male population today.

They have emerged with accounts of torture, which are substantiated by human-rights groups like B’tselem. During the second intifada, which began in 2000, Israel reinvaded the West Bank (it had never fully left.) The occupation and colonization of Palestinian land continued unabated throughout the “peace process” of the nineteen-nineties, and continues to this day.

And yet, in America, the discussion ignores this crucial, constantly oppressive context, and is instead too often limited to Israeli “self-defense” and the Palestinians’ supposed responsibility for their own suffering.

In the past seven or more years, Israel has besieged, tormented, and regularly attacked the Gaza Strip. The pretexts change: they elected Hamas; they refused to be docile; they refused to recognize Israel; they fired rockets; they built tunnels to circumvent the siege; and on and on.

But each pretext is a red herring, because the truth of ghettos—what happens when you imprison 1.8 million people in a hundred and forty square miles, about a third of the area of New York City, with no control of borders, almost no access to the sea for fishermen (three out of the twenty kilometres allowed by the Oslo accords), no real way in or out, and with drones buzzing overhead night and day—is that, eventually, the ghetto will fight back.

It was true in Soweto and Belfast, and it is true in Gaza. We might not like Hamas or some of its methods, but that is not the same as accepting the proposition that Palestinians should supinely accept the denial of their right to exist as a free people in their ancestral homeland.

This is precisely why the United States’ support of current Israeli policy is folly. Peace was achieved in Northern Ireland and in South Africa because the United States and the world realized that they had to put pressure on the stronger party, holding it accountable and ending its impunity.

Northern Ireland and South Africa are far from perfect examples, but it is worth remembering that, to achieve a just outcome, it was necessary for the United States to deal with groups like the Irish Republican Army and the African National Congress, which engaged in guerrilla war and even terrorism. That was the only way to embark on a road toward true peace and reconciliation. The case of Palestine is not fundamentally different.

Instead, the United States puts its thumb on the scales in favor of the stronger party. In this surreal, upside-down vision of the world, it almost seems as if it is the Israelis who are occupied by the Palestinians, and not the other way around. In this skewed universe, the inmates of an open-air prison are besieging a nuclear-armed power with one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world.

If we are to move away from this unreality, the U.S. must either reverse its policies or abandon its claim of being an “honest broker.”

If the U.S. government wants to fund and arm Israel and parrot its talking points that fly in the face of reason and international law, so be it. But it should not claim the moral high ground and intone solemnly about peace. And it should certainly not insult Palestinians by saying that it cares about them or their children, who are dying in Gaza today.


*Photo courtesy of RT News

Egypt's 'Maximum Wage' - Contradictions & Conflicting Information

Mada Masr

Hitting the salary ceiling

Egypt’s new maximum wage law is cloaked in confusion and conflicting information

 

Sunday July 27, 2014

 

Jano Charbel and Isabel Esterman

 

During a June 24 speech, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared that no public employee in Egypt would be paid more than LE42,000 per month, the same salary the president is entitled to.

  A month later, a decree by Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb gave more detail about how a new maximum wage law is to be implemented. Debate has since raged over the wisdom of capping wages, with opponents and proponents taking to the media to argue their positions.

The maximum wage ceiling of LE42,000 per month (US$6,000) has been criticized by high-earners as being too little, while labor groups say it’s too much.

For nearly seven years, labor activists have been demanding a monthly minimum wage of LE1,200 and a maximum wage of no more than 15 times that amount. Since the January 2011 uprising, successive governments have promised to forge ahead with one that’s 30-40 times the minimum, in an attempt to address demands for social justice.

The new law finally sets the maximum wage at 35 times the minimum received by public sector employees.

According to worker and activist Nagy Rashad, “The maximum wage is a good starting point for the realization of social justice. It will be a positive step forward if the ruling authorities are actually able to implement it.”

However, he still maintains that the maximum wage is excessive. “The income differential is very large — this is not what we were hoping for,” he says.

Sources familiar with the wage structure of public sector companies say that the LE42,000 ceiling will not affect the vast majority of workers.

Eslam, a National Bank of Egypt employee, who asked that his last name not be used, explains that entry level workers earn LE2,000-3,000 per month, rising to LE9,000 after years of experience.

Branch managers can earn around LE20,000 per month. Only board members and top managers, who are eligible for huge bonuses and profit sharing schemes, can expect to earn more than LE42,000 monthly.

In the petroleum sector, only a few top managers and board members are likely to exceed the maximum wage. Nonetheless, for those at the top end of the scale, the cap has come as unwelcome news.

In press statements issued this month, spokespersons from the Central Bank of Egypt and other public sector banks expressed concern that the new maximum wage law may deter young bankers from working in the public sector. They would instead seek employment in private sector banks were there is no ceiling, leaving public institutions vulnerable to a lack of skills and experienced labor.

According to Angus Blair, head of the Cairo-based Signet Institute, this may not be a bad move for the country, which is burdened by a huge public sector wage bill.

“Egypt needs to send more people to the private sector,” he says. “It’s sending a message to say ‘if you want a decent salary, the government is not for you.’”

Enforcing a maximum wage law also signals an end to the old days, where Egyptian ministerial employees might expect to out-earn their counterparts in Europe. Blair says it also sends a message of  “no more corruption of high salaries.”

Rashad, however, worries that a wage cap could push some of Egypt’s brightest talents out of the country entirely — a country in which many competent and skilled laborers already seek job opportunities abroad.

Despite his general stance that the maximum wage is excessive, he does call for exceptions in special cases.

“Someone of the caliber of Dr. Ahmed Zuweil, or his like, should not be confined to LE42,000 per month, otherwise they'll opt to work elsewhere in the world,” he said in reference to the internationally renowned Egyptian chemist/physicist and Nobel prize winner.
 
LEGISLATIVE LOGISTICS

There are two decrees regulating Egypt’s new maximum wage: Presidential decree 63/2014, concerning the maximum income for state employees — issued on July 2, and prime ministerial decree 1265/2014, issued July 19, which sets the executive regulations pertaining to decree 63/2014.

The former sets the maximum wage as a law to be imposed nationwide on all state ministries, authorities and public sector offices, while the latter specifies the detailed regulations of this legislation.

The second decree stipulates in Article 1 that the net sum income will be capped at LE42,000 per month, with no exemptions in the form of additional bonuses, extra wages, monetary benefits or pay raises. This is significant, since such bonuses often form the bulk of wage packets in Egypt.

However, this does not include transportation or accommodation allowances for work, missions, or any other official business.

Article 2 lists the 30 state sectors to whom these regulations apply, which include public sector banks, the judiciary, police, armed forces, ministries, state-appointed national councils, public sector utilities and service companies. The maximum wage also applies to state-employed advisers, technicians, experts and specialists.

However, the provisions of this law do not apply to diplomats, consular staff, commercial/trade officials or any other official representing the Egyptian state abroad.

In an interview with the Sada al-Balad news outlet this month, Prime Minister Mehleb explained that these categories of civil servants are exempt from the maximum wage in order “to maintain their high performance” and “in light of the high living expenses abroad.”

According to Article 3 of the law, committees or working groups are to be established within each state body to monitor the maximum wage as well as to earmark all money in excess to specialized bank accounts or to the Ministry of Finance.

Those who earn more than the maximum wage have to settle any overpayment within 30 days of the end of the year.

Article 4 states that in the case of non-compliance, the government can deduct additional income from employees, beginning in December in the year following the year of payment. Any money deducted is to be sent to the public treasury.

According to Article 5, state entities employing consultants or specialists must disclose any payment to state auditors within 30 days. Failure to do so will lead to a disciplinary hearing, and could result in the consultant being obliged to return any remuneration he or she received.

The law leaves a number of questions unanswered. For example, it is unclear how the salary structure will be adjusted in agencies where employees at various levels of seniority are currently earning more than LE42,000 a month.

The language in the law also refers to “year of payment,” an obscure term that leaves room for confusion as to whether regulations are linked to calendar or fiscal year. It is also unclear how the new legislation will affect entities, such as petroleum companies, that are joint ventures between the Egyptian state and foreign investors. 

The law also does not clarify the extent to which the committees tasked with monitoring enforcement in each state agency will be subject to independent oversight. Nor is it clear how much money the government hopes to save by enforcing a maximum wage.

Figures issued by the state’s financial authorities suggest enforcing a maximum wage will save LE2 billion per year, while other sources have claimed it will save the public treasury LE13 billion.

While the law is set to enter into effect by the end of this month, whether or not state authorities will comply is another matter. 

The lack of clarity surrounding the maximum wage law has led to officials waging a battle for public opinion via the pages of local newspapers.

A number of statements attributed to Hesham Geneina, head of the Central Auditing Organization, have accused various state agencies — including the judiciary and police — of refusing to cooperate. Meanwhile, the organizations named have taken to the media to refute the claims. 

In terms of state officials with the highest pay, media attention has focused primarily on board members of public-sector banks, ministers, the judiciary, diplomats and generals in the both the police and armed forces. However, virtually none of these highly-paid categories have admitted to earning LE42,000 per month, while all authorities have claimed that they are in compliance, or are in the process of doing so.
 
YEARS IN THE MAKING

The idea of setting a maximum wage is not a novel concept introduced by the new president or his prime minister — it dates back well over 40 years. Article 24 of the 1971 Constitution calls for both minimum and maximum wages to be set.

An amended form of this provision was included in Article 14 of the Muslim Brotherhood-era 2012 Constitution.

In April 2012, under the Muslim Brotherhood-dominated parliament, a maximum wage of LE50,000 was reportedly imposed on all ministers and members of parliament — although these regulations were criticized on the basis that they were not comprehensively implemented amongst leading state employees.

Moreover, there were exemptions from the maximum wage for certain categories of advisors, scientists and technical specialists.

In the new 2014 Constitution, Article 27 also stipulates for both a minimum and maximum wage. Yet, there are concerns over the actual implementation of both.

In January of this year, a monthly minimum wage of LE1,200 was issued by law, yet, out of a total workforce of some 27 million, only some 4.9 million public sector employees were granted this new wage. The public sector employs some seven million people.

“The ruling authorities seek to portray themselves as being populist leaders of a populist government, much like [ousted President Hosni] Mubarak sought to portray himself to the populace,” says labor activist Rashad.

“I expect that heavyweight officials and the ruling regime’s fat cats are going to find a way to exempt themselves from the maximum wage and its regulations,” he suspects, saying that since the minimum wage law is weakly enforced, the maximum would be also.


*Photo courtesy of Royalty Free Stock Photos

How Israel Spins its War Crimes

CounterPunch 

How Israel Spins War Crimes

 

The Secret Report That Helps Israelis Cover Atrocities

 

July 28, 2014

Patrick Cockburn

Israeli spokesmen have their work cut out explaining how they have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, compared with just three civilians killed in Israel by Hamas rocket and mortar fire.

But on television and radio and in newspapers, Israeli government spokesmen such as Mark Regev appear slicker and less aggressive than their predecessors, who were often visibly indifferent to how many Palestinians were killed.

There is a reason for this enhancement of the PR skills of Israeli spokesmen. Going by what they say, the playbook they are using is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe.

Written by the expert Republican pollster and political strategist Dr Frank Luntz, the study was commissioned five years ago by a group called The Israel Project, with offices in the US and Israel, for use by those “who are on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel.”

Every one of the 112 pages in the booklet is marked “not for distribution or publication” and it is easy to see why.

The Luntz report, officially entitled “The Israel project’s 2009 Global Language Dictionary, was leaked almost immediately to Newsweek Online, but its true importance has seldom been appreciated. It should be required reading for everybody, especially journalists, interested in any aspect of Israeli policy because of its “dos and don’ts” for Israeli spokesmen.

These are highly illuminating about the gap between what Israeli officials and politicians really believe, and what they say, the latter shaped in minute detail by polling to determine what Americans want to hear.

Certainly, no journalist interviewing an Israeli spokesman should do so without reading this preview of many of the themes and phrases employed by Mr Regev and his colleagues.

The booklet is full of meaty advice about how they should shape their answers for different audiences. For example, the study says that “Americans agree that Israel ‘has a right to defensible borders.’

But it does you no good to define exactly what those borders should be.

Avoid talking about borders in terms of pre- or post-1967, because it only serves to remind Americans of Israel’s military history. Particularly on the left this does you harm.

For instance, support for Israel’s right to defensible borders drops from a heady 89 per cent to under 60 per cent when you talk about it in terms of 1967.”

How about the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled in 1948 and in the following years, and who are not allowed to go back to their homes?

Here Dr Luntz has subtle advice for spokesmen, saying that “the right of return is a tough issue for Israelis to communicate effectively because much of Israeli language sounds like the ‘separate but equal’ words of the 1950s segregationists and the 1980s advocates of Apartheid.

The fact is, Americans don’t like, don’t believe and don’t accept the concept of ‘separate but equal’.”

So how should spokesmen deal with what the booklet admits is a tough question? They should call it a “demand”, on the grounds that Americans don’t like people who make demands. “Then say ‘Palestinians aren’t content with their own state. Now they’re demanding territory inside Israel’.”

Other suggestions for an effective Israeli response include saying that the right of return might become part of a final settlement “at some point in the future.”

Dr Luntz notes that Americans as a whole are fearful of mass immigration into the US, so mention of “mass Palestinian immigration” into Israel will not go down well with them. If nothing else works, say that the return of Palestinians would “derail the effort to achieve peace.”

The Luntz report was written in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009, when 1,387 Palestinians and nine Israelis were killed.

There is a whole chapter on “isolating Iran-backed Hamas as an obstacle to peace”. Unfortunately, come the current Operation Protective Edge, which began on 6 July, there was a problem for Israeli propagandists because Hamas had quarrelled with Iran over the war in Syria and had no contact with Tehran. Friendly relations have been resumed only in the past few days – thanks to the Israeli invasion.

Much of Dr Luntz’s advice is about the tone and presentation of the Israeli case. He says it is absolutely crucial to exude empathy for Palestinians: “Persuadables [sic] won’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Show Empathy for BOTH sides!”

This may explain why a number of Israeli spokesman are almost lachrymose about the plight of Palestinians being pounded by Israeli bombs and shells.

In a sentence in bold type, underlined and with capitalisation, Dr Luntz says that Israeli spokesmen or political leaders must never, ever justify “the deliberate slaughter of innocent women and children” and they must aggressively challenge those who accuse Israel of such a crime.

Israeli spokesmen struggled to be true to this prescription when 16 Palestinians were killed in a UN shelter in Gaza last Thursday.

There is a list of words and phrases to be used and a list of those to be avoided. Schmaltz is at a premium: “The best way, the only way, to achieve lasting peace is to achieve mutual respect.”

Above all, Israel’s desire for peace with the Palestinians should be emphasised at all times because this what Americans overwhelmingly want to happen. But any pressure on Israel to actually make peace can be reduced by saying “one step at a time, one day at a time”, which will be accepted as “a commonsense approach to the land-for-peace equation.”

Dr Luntz cites as an example of an “effective Israeli sound bite” one which reads: “I particularly want to reach out to Palestinian mothers who have lost their children. No parent should have to bury their child.”

The study admits that the Israeli government does not really want a two-state solution, but says this should be masked because 78 per cent of Americans do. Hopes for the economic betterment of Palestinians should be emphasised.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is quoted with approval for saying that it is “time for someone to ask Hamas: what exactly are YOU doing to bring prosperity to your people.”

The hypocrisy of this beggars belief: it is the seven-year-old Israeli economic siege that has reduced the Gaza to poverty and misery.

On every occasion, the presentation of events by Israeli spokesmen is geared to giving Americans and Europeans the impression that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians and is prepared to compromise to achieve this, when all the evidence is that it does not.

Though it was not intended as such, few more revealing studies have been written about modern Israel in times of war and peace.

Egyptian army demolishes another 13 tunnels to Gaza

Straits Times
Egypt has destroyed to date 1,639 Gaza tunnels

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Egypt’s army said Sunday it has destroyed 13 more tunnels connecting the Sinai Peninsula to the Gaza Strip, taking to 1,639 the overall number it has laid waste to.

Cairo has poured troops into the peninsula to counter a rising insurgency since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi last year, and its security operation involves the destruction of these tunnels.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is the main power in Gaza, reportedly uses the tunnels to smuggle arms, food and money into the blockaded coastal enclave.

Israel has been waging a military offensive on Gaza since July 8 to halt rocket fire, and it launched a ground assault on July 17 aimed at destroying the network of tunnels.

Egypt: Court claims "devil guided" jailed Al-Jazeera staff

Agence France Presse

Egypt court says 'devil guided' jailed Jazeera journalists

July 22, 2014

CAIRO: An Egyptian court that jailed three Al-Jazeera journalists for alleged ties with Islamists said on Tuesday that "the devil guided" the group to spread false news defaming the country.

Australian journalist Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy and Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed were convicted in June of aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood and spreading false news that portrayed Egypt as being in a state of "civil war."

Greste and Fahmy received seven-year terms, while Mohamed was jailed for 10 years, in a case that sparked international outrage.

Eleven defendants tried in absentia, including one Dutch and two British journalists, were given 10-year sentences.

"The defendants took advantage of the noble profession of journalism... and turned it from a profession aimed at looking for the truth to a profession aimed at falsifying the truth," the court said in a statement explaining its verdict.

"The devil guided them to use journalism and direct it toward activities against this nation," it said.
Since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, the authorities have been incensed by the Qatari network's coverage of their deadly crackdown on his supporters.

They consider Al-Jazeera to be the voice of Qatar, and accuse Doha of backing Morsi's Brotherhood, as the emirate openly denounces the repression of the movement's supporters which has killed more than 1,400 people.

Sixteen of a total of 20 defendants in the trial were Egyptians accused of belonging to the Brotherhood, which the authorities designated a "terrorist organisation" in December.

Foreign defendants were alleged to have collaborated with and assisted their Egyptian co-defendants by providing media material, as well as editing and broadcasting it.


*Photo courtesy of Getty Images

Egypt's mainstream media applauds Israel & its assaults on Gaza

France 24
Egyptian media applauds Israel’s Gaza offensive

Since the beginning of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, much of the Egyptian media has laid the blame squarely on the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the tiny Palestinian enclave. 

2014-07-21

Some journalists have even said that all Palestinians are to blame for their current plight.

Israel’s escalating attack on the Gaza Strip has triggered worldwide debate. Egypt is no exception.

But there is little of the traditional Arab solidarity towards Palestinians to be found in the Egyptian media.

Adel Nehaman, a columnist for the Egyptian daily El-Watan, said bluntly: "Sorry Gazans, I cannot support you until you rid yourselves of Hamas."

Azza Sami, a writer for government daily Al-Ahram, went so far as to congratulate Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Twitter: "Thank you Netanyahu, and God give us more men like you to destroy Hamas!"

Star presenter of the Al-Faraeen TV channel, Tawfik Okasha, an ardent supporter of Egypt’s military regime and known for his firm stance against the ousted Muslim Brotherhood, attacked the entire Palestinian population live on air.

“Gazans are not men,” he declared. “If they were men they would revolt against Hamas.”
His broadcast was even picked up by Israeli TV to demonstrate Egyptian support for Israel.

WHY THE HATRED FOR HAMAS?

The hostility of these journalists is part and parcel of the movement that saw democratically elected president Mohammed Morsi removed from power in a military coup in 2013.

They are now applying the same logic behind the ouster of Morsi, who was the favoured candidate of the now-censured Muslim Brotherhood, to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

In 2013, a significant chunk of the Egyptian media called for the Muslim Brotherhood’s “liquidation”. That same sentiment is now applauding Israel’s efforts to disarm Hamas, originally the Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch.

These Egyptian journalists link Hamas to ongoing violence in the Sinai Peninsula where in the last 12 months, armed Islamist groups have attacked Egyptian security forces on an almost daily basis.

Egypt’s current rulers insist that the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas are behind these attacks (even though other groups, such as Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis and Ajnad Misr regularly claim responsibility.)

Much of Egypt’s media toes the government line. They see the neutralisation of Hamas as crucial to winning Egypt’s undeclared war in the Sinai Peninsula.

They don’t hesitate to criticise Hamas and Palestinians generally, who they hold in contempt for failing to revolt against their Islamist leaders as Egyptians did in 2013.

‘WIDE OF THE MARK'

Some Egyptian journalists are shocked by this stance. Tarek Saad Eddin, deputy editor of Al-Musawar magazine, told FRANCE 24’s Arabic service: “These people are part of a media that takes its orders straight from the government.

“They have claimed that it was Hamas that was responsible for killing protesters in Tahrir Square during the 2011 revolution [which saw unpopular former president Hosni Mubarak removed from power].

“But going so far as to criticise all Gazans is appallingly wide of the mark.”

Media campaigns against an entire nationality are not unprecedented in Egypt. In the aftermath of Morsi’s ouster in the summer of 2013, Syrians were targeted.

Tawfik Okasha accused all Syrian refugees in Egypt of being supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the wider media onslaught resulted in violent attacks on Syrian refugees on the streets of Cairo.

There are 80,000 Palestinian refugees living in Egypt. Many of them fear an escalation in anti-Palestinian rhetoric.

A GENERAL DISTRUST OF PALESTINIANS

Not all Egyptians are hostile to their besieged Arab neighbours.

There have been demonstrations against Israel’s attack on Gaza in Cairo and Alexandria in recent days, but these only attracted a few thousand people at the most.

A group of young Egyptian activists, mostly linked to far-left groups, also organised a solidarity convoy to the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza.

The group was turned back by the Egyptian army and sent back to Cairo.

Beyond this very small minority of pro-Palestinian militants, Egyptians are broadly unsympathetic to the plight of their Gazan neighbours.

Hosni Mubarak fostered a general distrust of Palestinians for years. It hasn’t gone away.

Egyptian armed forces block aid convoy to Gaza

Agence France-Presse

Egyptian military block activist aid convoy to Gaza

 

Saturday, 19 July 2014

Egyptian soldiers in north Sinai prevented an aid convoy of activists from reaching the Rafah border crossing with the embattled Palestinian Gaza Strip on Saturday, an AFP correspondent said.

An army officer at the Balloza checkpoint, one of many along the desert highway to Rafah, told an AFP correspondent that the security situation in the restive peninsula was too unstable to allow the convoy of 11 buses and 500 activists to pass.

There was a brief scuffle between some activists and soldiers but no arrests were made.

Egypt usually keeps the crossing closed, citing a counter-insurgency operation against militants in north Sinai, but has allowed entry to Palestinians wounded in the 12-day conflict between Hamas and Israel.

At least 333 Palestinians and three Israelis have died in the unrest, the third conflict to erupt in and around Gaza in seven years.

The Egyptian military had earlier said it was sending 500 tonnes of food and medical aide to the besieged enclave.

Hamas, militant Islamist rulers of Gaza, have refused to accept a ceasefire with Israel until it receives guarantees that border crossings to Gaza -- all but one under Israeli control -- will be opened.


*Photo courtesy of Reuters

Egypt: Al-Jazeera staff spend their 200th day behind bars

Mada Masr
Conflicting statements about Jazeera detainees on 200th day in prison

Thursday, July 17, 2014

As of Wednesday, three Al Jazeera staff members have been languishing in prison for 200 days. Their arrest on December 29, and their conviction on June 23, has sent shockwaves across Egypt and the world.

Since the June 23 verdict, Egypt’s ruling authorities have issued a number of conflicting statements regarding the trial, its outcome, the independence of the judiciary, and press freedoms.

Australian reporter Peter Greste was sentenced to seven years in prison along with the bureau chief of Al Jazeera English Mohamed Fahmy (Egyptian-Canadian), while producer Baher Mohamed (Egyptian) was sentenced to 10 years. Another two UK journalists — Sue Turton and Dominic Kane — and Dutch journalist Rena Netjes were all sentenced in absentia to 10 years imprisonment.

On Wednesday, Australian media outlets citing the Egyptian Ambassador in Canberra reported that a presidential pardon for Greste and his colleagues was “unlikely.”

When asked if he thought the verdict was right or wrong, Ambassador Hassan al-Laithy told ABC Radio Canberra: “The word right or wrong is not applicable, I would have loved to see Peter Greste reunited with his family.”

Laithy went on to say: “It's not about my wish, or our wish. It’s about when the rule of law is the case.”

When asked if he thought such verdicts against journalists were moving Egypt forward or backward, Laithy added: “I hope it is only a phase that will be over in the near future. I can see encouragement in this direction.”

The day after the verdict was issued, President Sisi announced on June 24 that he would not intervene in the affairs of the judiciary, which he described as “independent” and “exalted.”

Sisi would later tone down his statements. On July 7, in a meeting with leading Egyptian editors and writers, he commented that the court verdict: “Had very negative effects” and had hurt Egypt’s image abroad.

The military-chief-turned-president added: “I wished they were deported right after they were arrested instead of being put on trial.”

Sisi’s preference for the deportation of journalists has also been criticized, especially given that two out of three jailed defendants are Egyptian nationals.

More recently on July 14, Egypt’s official State Information Service website issued a press statement from the Ministry of Justice in which it defended the country’s judicial system, while condemning the Al Jazeera journalists as “criminals.”

“The Ministry of Justice has received numerous complaints and inquiries from nongovernmental organizations and human rights activists all around the world,” the statement maintained, at the same time as defending the verdict against three journalists guilty of “aiding terrorists and endangering national security.”

Citing the Office of the Prosecutor General, the statement claims the three Al Jazeera staffers are also guilty of: “joining an illegal group — the purpose of which was to disrupt the Constitution and laws — preventing the state's institutions and public authorities from exercising their duties, and infringing upon the personal freedoms of citizens, in order to endanger public order and compromise the integrity and security of society, using terrorism as a method to carry out the purposes called for by the aforementioned illegal group.”

The statement further claimed that, “all defenses were verbally examined during the hearings” and “the court was bound to render its verdict based only on the evidence produced during the trial.”

Amongst this so-called evidence examined in court were recorded interviews conducted in other countries (not relating to Egypt), and a music video by Australian pop star Gotye.

The SIS statement also mentioned that the Egyptian Constitution of 2014 upholds freedom of expression, opinion and publication (stipulated in Article 65), but added that, “rights and freedoms cannot be extended to all individuals.”

According to a statement published on July 16 on Mohamed Fahmy’s blog — which is updated by his family: “200 days of injustice, solitary confinement and collective punishment has left me and my colleagues, Peter Greste and Baher Mohammed, more determined than ever to fight this war against freedom of speech.”

Fahmy points out that prosecutors explained to him from the beginning of the trial: “You are here because of Qatar.” Al Jazeera is based in the Qatari capital Doha, where the ruling monarchy is widely perceived as supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

The statement issued by the Ministry of Justice adds that Al Jazeera’s staff members “were tried without undue delay.” However, a fourth Al Jazeera staffer, reporter Abdallah al-Shamy, was jailed for more than 10 months without charge or trial. After being locked-up in the Scorpion Maximum Security Prison, where he embarked on a hunger strike lasting 140 days, Shamy was eventually released on June 17.

On the occasion of his 200th day behind bars, Fahmy commented: “We all respected the Egyptian judicial system and played along in what has become a theatrical trial broadcast all over the world.
“As the authorities paraded me and my colleagues out of the cage, it became evident to the journalistic community that this trial was another sign of the crackdown on any dissent in Egypt and a subliminal message to local journalists who do not conform to the government’s line.”

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) described the June 23 verdict as: “A politically orchestrated trial” and “a sign of the Egyptian regime’s increasingly totalitarian nature.”

Amnesty International issued a statement describing the aforementioned verdict as “a dark day for media freedom in the country.” While Amnesty’s Philip Luther announced, “This is a devastating verdict for the men and their families, and a dark day for media freedom in Egypt, when journalists are being locked up and branded criminals or ‘terrorists’ simply for doing their job.”

“The only reason these three men are in jail is because the Egyptian authorities don’t like what they have to say. They are prisoners of conscience and must be immediately and unconditionally released,” Luther added.

After clearing the US handover of Apache Helicopters to Egypt on June 22, the following day Secretary of State John Kerry described the verdicts as: “chilling and draconian.”

The UK’s (former) Foreign Secretary William Hague announced on June 23 that he was “appalled by the guilty verdicts handed down against Egyptian and international journalists.”

Hague added: “I am particularly concerned by unacceptable procedural shortcomings during the trial process, including that key prosecution evidence was not made available to the defense team. Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of a stable and prosperous society.”

According to Amnesty’s Luther: “Instead of locking up journalists and others perceived to pose a threat, the authorities should focus their efforts on conducting credible investigations into abuses by the security forces.”

While Egypt’s judiciary claims to be independent, its track record points in another direction. Over the course of the past year, judges have issued lengthy prison sentences against opposition forces and journalists, while simultaneously acquitting police forces of any wrongdoing, despite the hundreds killed. This will continue to raise questions regarding the extent of the politicization of Egypt’s judicial system.

RSF ranked Egypt as the third deadliest country (after Syria and Iraq) for journalists in 2013, while in terms of press freedoms it ranked 158th out of 179 in 2013, and 159th out of 180 countries in 2014.

The Al Jazeera network insists that its staff members in Egypt are innocent of the “false accusations” levelled against them. It calls for vigils and rallies for the release of these three staffers, along with online campaigns using the hashtag: #FreeAJStaff.

Online petitions for the release of the three Al Jazeera staffers also include: “Journalism Is Not A Crime.”


*Photo by Amir Makar

Court allows Mubarak-era politicians back into all elections

Anadolu Agency

Egypt court allows Mubarak-era figures back in politics

Following Egypt's 2011 popular uprising, which ended Mubarak's 30-year rule, the party was given a new name by a group of politicians who had hoped to reanimate it.

 

14 July 2014 

An Egyptian court on Monday overturned an earlier court ruling barring former members of ousted president Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) from contesting presidential or parliamentary polls, judicial sources have said.

According to the sources, Cairo's court of urgent matters overturned a May ruling banning former members of the NDP – dissolved in the wake of Mubarak's 2011 ouster – from running in either presidential elections (which were already held on May 26-27) or parliamentary polls slated for later this year.

The NDP, which had been headed by Mubarak, was officially dissolved by court order on April 16, 2011.

Following Egypt's 2011 popular uprising, which ended Mubarak's 30-year rule, the party was given a new name by a group of politicians who had hoped to reanimate it.

The 2011 court ruling, however, ended the party's existence on Egypt's political stage.

In its May ruling, the court said the NDP had "played a leading role appointing corrupt governments and approving unconstitutional laws" since its establishment in 1978.

Egypt now plans to hold parliamentary polls sometime before the end of the year in line with a transitional roadmap imposed by the army following last year's ouster of elected president Mohamed Morsi.

President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, widely seen as the architect of Morsi's ouster and subsequent imprisonment one year ago, was declared the winner of Egypt's presidential election in May – the second phase of the army-imposed roadmap.

Despite protest ban, 100s protest in solidarity with Gaza

Ahram Online

Egyptians protest in solidarity with Gaza

 

Solidarity march in downtown Cairo is also critical of Egypt's rulers - who protesters say haven't done enough to help besieged Gazans

 

Sunday 13 Jul 2014

Mai Shaheen

A few hundred Egyptians took part in a solidarity rally with the Palestinian Gaza Strip in downtown Cairo on Sunday, chanting against Israeli attacks that have killed over 165 Gazans, mostly civilians, during the past week.

The protest call was launched by a solidarity movement, the Popular Campaign to Support the Palestinian Intifada, which is putting together a convoy of medical supplies needed in Gaza.

Protesters gathered at Egypt's Journalists Syndicate headquarters in downtown Cairo to have Iftar, the meal that breaks Muslims' fast in the holy month of Ramadan, and then held the demonstration, marching in a rally throughout the area.

Ahmad Saqr, 23, an artist, said Palestinians are facing all kinds of human rights violations. "I support Hamas since it represents resistance against Israel," he told Ahram Online. Saqr is worried the convoy won't be allowed in Gaza.

Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades fired hundreds of rockets into Israel after the launch of Israel's Operation Protective Edge on Tuesday.

Some chants were critical of Egyptian authorities, accusing them of colluding with Israel against Palestinians by closing the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza.

The crossing was opened intermittently to allow injured Palestinians to seek medical care in Egyptian hospitals.

"The crossing must be opened permanently," said Nashwa Ahmed, 45, who will ride with the convoy to Gaza this week.

She thinks Egypt's stance towards Gaza is disappointing.

Protesters carried pictures of killed Gazans and chanted defiant slogans. "Oh Palestinian my beloved, destroy Tel Aviv," which rhymes in Arabic, was chanted.

"Down with Israel," protesters repeated.


*Photo by Mai Shaheen

A year of legal setbacks under Judge Adly Mansour

Mada Masr

A year of legal setbacks

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Jano Charbel

Since July 3, 2013, Egypt’s human rights record has been widely criticized both domestically and internationally. Over the course of the past year, a host of laws and decrees have been issued to restrict rights and limit freedoms.

This drastic decline in rights and freedoms took place during the 11-month administration of former interim President Adly Mansour. The ex-chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court is responsible for issuing dozens of presidential decrees, while hundreds of ministerial decrees were also issued during his 330 days in office.

This article will focus on the most prominent pieces of legislation affecting basic rights and liberties issued since last year, particularly Mansour’s decrees.

 

“I am not alone in my perception that interim President Adly Mansour is the worst president Egypt has had since July 1952. His rule has been characterized by a squandering of justice, and a sharp increase in violations, even though he is a judge.”

On the anniversary of Morsi’s ouster earlier this month, Amnesty International claimed that Egypt is “failing on all levels” in terms of human rights, while Human Rights Watch wrote that Egypt is witnessing its “worst situation in decades”  in terms of the condition of rights and liberties in the country.

In 2014, Egypt ranked second after China for the highest number of death sentences issued worldwide. Sinking even further, this year Egypt was also ranked the third deadliest country for journalists, just behind Syria and Iraq.

Estimates suggest that somewhere from several hundred to potentially more than 1,400 opposition elements have been killed on the streets by security forces, while according to the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, an unprecedented number of civilians have also been arrested or prosecuted this year, amounting to well over 41,163.

Moreover, 80 civilians are reported to have died in the custody of security forces this year.

“I am not alone in my perception that interim President Adly Mansour is the worst president Egypt has had since July 1952,” says human rights lawyer Gamal Eid. “His rule has been characterized by a squandering of justice, and a sharp increase in violations, even though he is a judge.”

“Many decrees issued by Adly Mansour and the Ministry of Justice have further granted the military institution wide ranging rights, additional lands, increased clout and sovereign powers,” says Eid, and “due process rights guaranteed in the Constitution are almost entirely ignored” by prosecutors and judges.

The lawyer explains that ruling authorities and their security forces are immune from trial and their budgets remain concealed, while there is practically no oversight or accountability for the systematic violations of rights.

Of the few trials of police personnel for abuses, nearly all were eventually acquitted.
 
PROTEST LAW

On November 24, 2013, Mansour issued Presidential Decree 107/2013: Law Regulating Right of Assembly, Processions and Peaceful Protest. Commonly known as the Protest Law, this is likely the most controversial piece of legislation passed since July 3 last year. 

This law has been used to stifle any unauthorized protest or assembly involving more than 10 people, thus highly restricting the mobility of protest marches.

Moreover, it grants police sweeping powers to forcefully disperse protesters at will using teargas, water cannons, batons or rubber pellets, even if authorization was granted for the protest action. Authorization is also granted to arrest anyone involved.

Furthermore, this law imposes a time restriction of 24 hours on any such assembly, thus prohibiting all forms of occupations, sit-ins or sleep-ins. In addition, the law bans any form of protest which would obstruct production, and thus can be used to crush labor strikes as well.

Those found to violate this law may be issued fines of up to LE300,000 and/or prison sentences ranging from two years to more than seven years.

Amnesty International claims that the law represents “a serious setback that poses a grave threat to freedom of assembly and gives security forces a free rein to use excessive force, including lethal force, against demonstrators.”

In televised interviews conducted in May, Sisi announced that he would uphold the Protest Law as is when he became president.

This law has been used to arrest and prosecute not only Islamist protesters, but also secular opposition activists, striking workers and participants in popular protests.

On June 11, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced 25 secular protesters to 15 years in prison for violating this law.

According to Eid, the Protest Law goes hand-in-hand with new judicial norms that disregard defendants’ rights to due process.

On December 25, the Muslim Brotherhood was dealt an unprecedented blow.  Under the leadership of then-Prime Minister Hazem al-Beblawi, the Cabinet classified the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. This decree is not registered in the Official Gazette, however.

In doing so, Beblawi’s government brought into effect a wide array of measures to further crackdown on Egypt’s largest political opposition force — the Muslim Brotherhood, its political arm the Freedom and Justice Party and its associated businesses and interests.

On September 25, Mansour issued Presidential Decree 83/2013 allowing for the indefinite detention of prisoners if they have been sentenced to death or life imprisonment. In accordance with this decree, provisional detentions of such defendants can now be renewed by appeals courts every 45 days at will, with the previous time limit of two years detention being scrapped from the law.
 
LAWS TAILORED FOR SISI?

On January 27, Mansour issued Presidential Decree 38/2014, which promoted Sisi from the rank of general to that of field marshal — the highest military rank in Egypt, reserved for generals who have commanded troops in battle — even though Sisi has no real combat experience. 

Sisi was promoted to the rank of field marshal in the beginning of February, and announced his presidential bid the following month. On March 26, Sisi — who was serving as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, minister of defense, minister of military production, chief of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and deputy prime minister — officially declared that he was stepping down from these posts and would be running for the highest office in the country.

On the same day, the Cabinet issued Decree 513/2014 accepting Sisi’s resignation from these posts and opening the way to his presidential nomination.

On March 29, the Presidential Election Commission issued Decree 9/2014, Regulating Electoral Campaign Finances. This state-appointed commission raised the ceiling on campaign expenditures from LE12 million — the limit during the 2012 presidential election — to LE20 million.

Furthermore, with less than one month in office, the interim president moved to raise the basic presidential salary from LE2,000 to LE21,000, in addition to another LE21,000 in the form of bonuses, thus amending a 1987 law which had fixed the presidential salary at LE2,000 per month.

After taking office, Sisi pledged to give up half of his income as a donation to Egypt, but this would still render him the highest paid president in the country’s history.

Sisi has pushed government officials to donate their salaries in a similar fashion, and to keep the maximum wage for state administrators and public servants capped at LE42,000, or 35 times the minimum wage.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

For nearly seven years now, Egypt’s working class has been demanding a minimum wage of LE1,200 per month, while others have raised their demand for a monthly wage of LE1,500.

Moreover, since 2011, labor activists, labor NGOs, professional syndicates and independent trade unions have been calling for a maximum wage of no more than 15 times the minimum, or between LE18,000 and LE22,500.

But according to Eid, “Neither the minimum nor maximum wages will properly be implemented or enforced.”

Indeed, while on January 15 Beblawi issued Cabinet Decree 22/2014, Augmenting Wages of Civil Servants, this minimum wage of LE1,200 was made available to just under 4.9 million employees from an aggregate of some 7 million workers in the public sector, out of a total national workforce of some 27 million.

This failure to provide the minimum wage even among public sector workers led to a renewed wave of labor strikes and industrial actions from February to April, 2014.

Since the 2011 uprising, the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions has issued numerous statements denouncing the “authorities’ failures” for hastily issuing laws that seek to outlaw protests and strikes, while simultaneously dragging their feet in terms of issuing new trade union legislation to replace the restrictive Law 35/1976, or a new labor law to replace Law 12/2003, so as to protect the rights and organizational freedoms of workers and their labor organizations.

Another one of Mansour’s last decrees issued on May 21, Presidential Decree 39/2014, was to extend the term of the state-controlled Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) by another year. ETUF elections have been postponed several times since October-November 2011, when they were due to be held. This has further facilitated the government’s appointment of the ETUF’s leaders without any form of elections. The ETUF is the country’s oldest and largest trade union federation, claiming a membership of over 4 million nationwide.

CONSTITUTION: RIGHTS & VIOLATIONS

Drafted by interim authorities after July 3, 2013, the Constitution passed in January 2014 includes a host of new provisions protecting personal freedoms and basic rights.

However, it also upholds several of the worrisome articles carried over from the Muslim Brotherhood-drafted Constitution of 2012, with allowances for military tribunals of civilians (Article 204), secrecy of the Armed Forces’ budget (Article 203), forced labor (Article 12) and child labor (Article 80).

“This Constitution includes many progressive articles, which are typically ignored by authorities,” claims Eid, while its repressive articles are swiftly upheld.

For example, Article 52 of this new Constitution strictly prohibits torture — yet reports of torture, police abuse, sexual assault, rape and even deaths in police custody abound.

In Cairo’s Matareya police station, three detainees are reported to have died in custody during the month of May alone. Nobody has been brought to trial for these deaths.

In June, judges acquitted four policemen who tear gassed 37 detainees in a prisoner truck, resulting in their deaths.

Eid explained that while Article 40 of the Constitution protects individuals from unwarranted searches and seizures, this has not keep security forces from violating it.

“Despite the law and the Constitution, police still confiscated 1,000 copies of our human rights publication,” he points out.
 
ENVIRONMENTAL DECREES

Following much debate and controversy, on April 2 Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb’s government agreed to import coal for use in Egyptian industries, and specifically to fuel the cement industry, in light of the country’s natural gas shortages.

However, as environmental activist Ahmed al-Droubi, coordinator of the Egyptians Against Coal group, points out, this decision has the weight of a Cabinet decree but was never actually registered in the Official Gazette.

“Therefore, we have no details regarding the government’s plans for the importation, use or regulation of coal in industries. We don’t know if the government will approve the use of coal in industries other than cement,” says Droubi.

Beyond a news release from Mehleb’s Cabinet posted on Facebook, little is known about the government’s plans to use this highly polluting fossil fuel in the cement industry, which is already one of top polluting industries nationwide.

According to Droubi, the use of coal in cement or other industries will have a negative, and likely an irreversible impact not only on the environment, but also on public health, residential rights, labor rights, tourism and the economy as a whole.

“Coal has been imported and used in the cement industry prior to the Cabinet’s vote,” Droubi explains. Indeed, coal imports first began arriving in the Alexandrian Port of Dehkeila in October 2013.

“Coal will be continue to be imported and used regardless of the whether there is a Cabinet decree regulating it or not,” the activist argues.

“Over the past year, the Ministry of Environmental Affairs has embarked on some worthwhile projects, such as solid waste management,” he concedes. But as for worthwhile environmental decrees, he claims he has not encountered any since July 3, 2013.
 
PROGRESS

One of the most eagerly anticipated and welcomed decrees issued by Mansour on June 5, just three days before the end of his interim presidency, addressed the nationwide problem of sexual harassment and assaults against women.

Presidential Decree 50/2014, Amending Provisions of the Penal Code, imposes fines ranging between LE3,000 to LE5,000 for those caught in the act of sexual harassment or assault, whether by gestures, words or actions. Furthermore, such assailants are to be sentenced to not less than six months in prison.

Additional penalties of imprisonment for one year, and fines ranging from LE5,000 to LE10,000 will be imposed on repeat offenders, or for those found guilty of stalking.

However, this decree did not prevent mob sexual assaults on women in Tahrir Square during Sisi’s inauguration on June 8, when several women were reportedly assaulted or raped in or near the square.
In response, the Ministry of Interior claims that it arrested seven men involved in these attacks, and submitted them to prosecution. Other sexual assailants have since been arrested in other incidents, and also handed over for prosecution.

Eid welcomes Mansour’s decree and efforts to counter sexual assaults against women.

However, he explains, “There have been some worthy amendments made to some laws. Yet in terms of new legislation we’ve been watching the government and waiting for any progressive laws to be issued, we haven’t come across such laws this year.”

On June 16, Sisi established via Presidential Decree 187/2014 the Supreme Legislative Reform Committee composed of ministers, lawyers, professors of law and religious scholars. This legislative committee is presided over by Mehleb, and is to serve as the centralized body by which laws and decrees are issued until a new parliament is voted in.


*Photo of Mansour courtesy of Cairo Scene Website

Israel's assaults on Gaza aim to control Palestinian offshore gas reserves

The Guardian

IDF's Gaza assault is to control Palestinian gas, avert Israeli energy crisis 

 

Israel's defence minister has confirmed that military plans to 'uproot Hamas' are about dominating Gaza's gas reserves

 

Wednesday July 9, 2014

 

Nafeez Ahmed

 

Yesterday, Israeli defence minister and former Israeli Defence Force (IDF) chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon announced that Operation Protective Edge marks the beginning of a protracted assault on Hamas. The operation "won't end in just a few days," he said, adding that "we are preparing to expand the operation by all means standing at our disposal so as to continue striking Hamas."
This morning, he said:

"We continue with strikes that draw a very heavy price from Hamas. We are destroying weapons, terror infrastructures, command and control systems, Hamas institutions, regime buildings, the houses of terrorists, and killing terrorists of various ranks of command… The campaign against Hamas will expand in the coming days, and the price the organization will pay will be very heavy."

But in 2007, a year before Operation Cast Lead, Ya'alon's concerns focused on the 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas discovered in 2000 off the Gaza coast, valued at $4 billion. Ya'alon dismissed the notion that "Gaza gas can be a key driver of an economically more viable Palestinian state" as "misguided." The problem, he said, is that:

"Proceeds of a Palestinian gas sale to Israel would likely not trickle down to help an impoverished Palestinian public. Rather, based on Israel's past experience, the proceeds will likely serve to fund further terror attacks against Israel…

A gas transaction with the Palestinian Authority [PA] will, by definition, involve Hamas. Hamas will either benefit from the royalties or it will sabotage the project and launch attacks against Fatah, the gas installations, Israel – or all three… It is clear that without an overall military operation to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no drilling work can take place without the consent of the radical Islamic movement."

Operation Cast Lead did not succeed in uprooting Hamas, but the conflict did take the lives of 1,387 Palestinians (773 of whom were civilians) and 9 Israelis (3 of whom were civilians).
Since the discovery of oil and gas in the Occupied Territories, resource competition has increasingly been at the heart of the conflict, motivated largely by Israel's increasing domestic energy woes.

Mark Turner, founder of the Research Journalism Initiative, reported that the siege of Gaza and ensuing military pressure was designed to "eliminate" Hamas as "a viable political entity in Gaza" to generate a "political climate" conducive to a gas deal. This involved rehabilitating the defeated Fatah as the dominant political player in the West Bank, and "leveraging political tensions between the two parties, arming forces loyal to Abbas and the selective resumption of financial aid."

Ya'alon's comments in 2007 illustrate that the Israeli cabinet is not just concerned about Hamas – but concerned that if Palestinians develop their own gas resources, the resulting economic transformation could in turn fundamentally increase Palestinian clout.

Meanwhile, Israel has made successive major discoveries in recent years - such as the Leviathan field estimated to hold 18 trillion cubic feet of natural gas – which could transform the country from energy importer into aspiring energy exporter with ambitions to supply Europe, Jordan and Egypt.

A potential obstacle is that much of the 122 trillion cubic feet of gas and 1.6 billion barrels of oil in the Levant Basin Province lies in territorial waters where borders are hotly disputed between Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Cyprus.

Amidst this regional jockeying for gas, though, Israel faces its own little-understood energy challenges. It could, for instance, take until 2020 for much of these domestic resources to be properly mobilised.

But this is the tip of the iceberg. A 2012 letter by two Israeli government chief scientists – which the Israeli government chose not to disclose – warned the government that Israel still had insufficient gas resources to sustain exports despite all the stupendous discoveries. The letter, according to Ha'aretz, stated that Israel's domestic resources were 50% less than needed to support meaningful exports, and could be depleted in decades:

"We believe Israel should increase its [domestic] use of natural gas by 2020 and should not export gas. The Natural Gas Authority's estimates are lacking. There's a gap of 100 to 150 billion cubic meters between the demand projections that were presented to the committee and the most recent projections. The gas reserves are likely to last even less than 40 years!"

As Dr Gary Luft - an advisor to the US Energy Security Council - wrote in the Journal of Energy Security, "with the depletion of Israel's domestic gas supplies accelerating, and without an imminent rise in Egyptian gas imports, Israel could face a power crisis in the next few years… If Israel is to continue to pursue its natural gas plans it must diversify its supply sources."

Israel's new domestic discoveries do not, as yet, offer an immediate solution as electricity prices reach record levels, heightening the imperative to diversify supply. This appears to be behind Prime Minister Netanyahu's announcement in February 2011 that it was now time to seal the Gaza gas deal.

But even after a new round of negotiations was kick-started between the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and Israel in September 2012, Hamas was excluded from these talks, and thus rejected the legitimacy of any deal.

Earlier this year, Hamas condemned a PA deal to purchase $1.2 billion worth of gas from Israel Leviathan field over a 20 year period once the field starts producing. Simultaneously, the PA has held several meetings with the British Gas Group to develop the Gaza gas field, albeit with a view to exclude Hamas – and thus Gazans – from access to the proceeds. That plan had been the brainchild of Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair.

But the PA was also courting Russia's Gazprom to develop the Gaza marine gas field, and talks have been going on between Russia, Israel and Cyprus, though so far it is unclear what the outcome of these have been. Also missing was any clarification on how the PA would exert control over Gaza, which is governed by Hamas.

According to Anais Antreasyan in the University of California's Journal of Palestine Studies, the most respected English language journal devoted to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israel's stranglehold over Gaza has been designed to make "Palestinian access to the Marine-1 and Marine-2 gas wells impossible."

Israel's long-term goal "besides preventing the Palestinians from exploiting their own resources, is to integrate the gas fields off Gaza into the adjacent Israeli offshore installations." This is part of a wider strategy of:

"…. separating the Palestinians from their land and natural resources in order to exploit them, and, as a consequence, blocking Palestinian economic development. Despite all formal agreements to the contrary, Israel continues to manage all the natural resources nominally under the jurisdiction of the PA, from land and water to maritime and hydrocarbon resources."

For the Israeli government, Hamas continues to be the main obstacle to the finalisation of the gas deal. In the incumbent defence minister's words: "Israel's experience during the Oslo years indicates Palestinian gas profits would likely end up funding terrorism against Israel. The threat is not limited to Hamas… It is impossible to prevent at least some of the gas proceeds from reaching Palestinian terror groups."

The only option, therefore, is yet another "military operation to uproot Hamas."
Unfortunately, for the IDF uprooting Hamas means destroying the group's perceived civilian support base – which is why Palestinian civilian casualties massively outweigh that of Israelis. Both are obviously reprehensible, but Israel's capacity to inflict destruction is simply far greater.

In the wake of Operation Cast Lead, the Jerusalem-based Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (Pcati) found that the IDF had adopted a more aggressive combat doctrine based on two principles – "zero casualties" for IDF soldiers at the cost of deploying increasingly indiscriminate firepower in densely populated areas, and the "dahiya doctrine" promoting targeting of civilian infrastructure to create widespread suffering amongst the population with a view to foment opposition to Israel's opponents.

This was confirmed in practice by the UN fact-finding mission in Gaza which concluded that the IDF had pursued a "deliberate policy of disproportionate force," aimed at the "supporting infrastructure" of the enemy - "this appears to have meant the civilian population," said the UN report.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is clearly not all about resources. But in an age of expensive energy, competition to dominate regional fossil fuels are increasingly influencing the critical decisions that can inflame war.

Egypt denounces Israeli raids on Gaza, but keeps border closed

Mada Masr
Egypt denounces raids on Gaza, but keeps Rafah closed

Tuesday July 8, 2014

 

Egyptian authorities kept the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip closed for the sixth consecutive day, whilst the Foreign Ministry’s Spokesperson Badr Abdel Aty said on Tuesday, “Egypt denounces the chain of raids launched on Gaza.”

Tuesday marked the bloodiest day of Israel’s most recent attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip. The death toll in Gaza reached at least 17 after the latest air strike killed six.

Meanwhile, sirens could be heard across Jerusalem after the Israeli Iron Dome missile-defense system intercepted a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip over Tel Aviv, the Anadolu Agency reported.

A statement released by the Jerusalem Municipality urged residents to “remain in protected areas for 10 minutes [after the sirens go off]. Sit on the floor under the window line against the most interior wall available, opposite any windows.”

Hamas had announced that rockets were launched targeting Israeli cities in response to the air strikes on Gaza. However, Israeli authorities reported that no casualties occurred as a result of the attacks on Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the northern city of Haifa.

The only passageway in or out of Gaza remains closed, at Cairo’s behest, despite the ongoing aerial assaults ­— which are reported to have targeted more than 50 sites across this coastal enclave.

Nonetheless, the spokesman for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry decried Israel’s “collective punishment policy” and called on the Zionist state to exercise “self-restraint.”

The Rafah border crossing has predominantly been closed since July 3, 2013 — when Morsi was deposed by the Egyptian military — with rare exceptions made for Palestinian pilgrims, students, and medical/humanitarian cases.

Despite the ongoing violence, security forces have not allowed Palestinians to seek shelter or medical assistance in Egypt. Alternative routes are also limited, since Egypt’s authorities demolished nearly all the smuggling tunnels between Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip in recent months.

On Tuesday, a host of Palestinian news websites and media outlets, along with some Egyptian solidarity groups, called on the authorities in Cairo to allow for the re-opening of the Rafah border crossing in light of the present crisis.

According to Abdel Aty’s statement, posted on the State Information Service website, “Egypt totally rejects and condemns all violence that results in the killing of civilians from both sides.”

For nearly three weeks, Palestinian armed groups — particularly the Islamic resistance group Hamas — have been engaged in rocket and mortar attacks targeting southern Israel. These primitive rocket attacks have not resulted in any Israeli fatalities, although property damage has been reported.

In response, Israeli armed forces launched “Operation Protective Edge” against Palestinian targets in Gaza. A host of civilian casualties are being reported.

A new wave of violence erupted between the Zionist state and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since three Jewish teenage settlers disappeared on June 12.

Their dead bodies were discovered in the West Bank on June 30. Israeli authorities have blamed Hamas for the kidnapping and deaths of the three teens.

In their rescue attempts, Israeli forces searched and raided hundreds of Palestinian properties across the West Bank. Over 300 Palestinians are reported to have been arrested in the course of these operations.

In a revenge attack a Palestinian teenager was kidnapped from the West Bank and reportedly burnt alive. His remains were found on July 2.