"I came to buy milk for my children and to get medicine for diabetes."
19 Comments Published by Tom Gara on Wednesday, January 23 at Wednesday, January 23, 2008.
Gazans have the nerve to bust out of the cage that Egypt and Israel keep them locked up in. They'll need to be severely punished for such rudeness...
Hey! i oppose that! It's called a boarder. we are not keeping them locked up in anything.
Your statement is not accurate tom.
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Yeah! I agree! Scum! How dare they fight to stay alive to buy food and medicine and fuel! They should respect "borders"! Those are far more important! Better to die in your own stench of starvation and various diseases than cross one of thooooose!
Stupid Gazans... learn some freakin' geopolitics.
(apologies for the sarcasm superluli, I dont blame you, I blame the Zionists)
Did you know that according to the human development index, palestinians are better off than Egyptians, in nearly every category?
Do you know that Palestinians receive millions of dollars of UN aid every year that they *choose* not to spend on hospitals, schools and building their own industries but instead to get more weapons.
Checked out Suha Arafat's millions yet?
When are own people are in a worse off situation, our priority should be to seal our borders and help our own people. Snide ignorant remarks from koffeya sporting lefties like you who know crap all about Egypt are not welcome.
hahaha 'koffeya sporting lefties' eh? im fairly sure some gazans crossing your borders to buy groceries isnt going to put you any lower on the 'human development index', if anything the extra demand for goods on the Egypt side of Rafah has put more money into their local economy, and im also fairly sure that UN Aid cant get through a closed border regardless of how much they 'get'.
I never claimed to know anything about Egypt but if you're concerned about Egyptian poverty, maybe you should talk to your pharaonic 'president' rather than posting snide "witty" generalisations about people who've made one small comment on a person's blog.
perhaps some people should bother finding out the facts about the gaza 'crisis' before they start flinging accusations.
"if anything the extra demand for goods on the Egypt side of Rafah has put more money into their local economy"
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&langpair=ar%7Cen&u=http://www.palpress.ps/arabic/index.php%3Fmaa%3DReadStory%26ChannelID%3D21515&tbb=1
http://www.palpress.ps/arabic/index.php?maa=ReadStory&ChannelID=21515
the link again, google translate it if need be
errr... well... yes... it is pretty obvious that if you're going to have a totally unrestricted border then there are going to be undesirable elements crossing it, whether it be counterfeit money or terrorism.
Now it's also fairly obvious that that is the reason why we have border checkpoints with people checking passports and using national intelligence to decide on whether a person should be let through or not. If Egypt had not sealed off the border completely and simply allowed Gazans to cross it in an orderly fashion like in the past, then these problems would not have occurred.
And as long as we are posting links. Is this guy also a koffeya sporting leftie? Or perhaps he also 'doesnt know anything about Egypt'.
http://www.newvision.co.ug/NP/1201461470z.jpg
eva, if palestinians are better off than Egyptians, and opening the Gaza border put more money into the Rafah economy, then isn't it a good thing for Egypt to have a more open border?
As you said, Egypt's priority should be helping its own people...
lx, do love your logic. Are we the new Israel? If in doubt blame Egypt, because Gazans can do no wrong. No it wasn't obvious that Hamas would sink so low and use hundreds of thousands of counterfeit money in Egypt, because we opened our borders to them. What was the term again? Arab brotherhood?
Considering they are poor and impoverished, I find it quite odd that some came to Egypt armed with explosives and guns...hmm not your run off the mill impoverished occupied person. Tourist resorts are on red alert.
The border is shut because again the palestinians *chose* to elect Hamas shoot 'em up party. No, we'd rather not have terrorists in Egypt- strange that. But since you feel so strongly about the gazans, why don't you take care of them. Funny, all the arabs always talking about how much gazans need help, yet they never lift a finger to help them.
Perhaps aboutreika should give them the 100K he just got paid for the ACN win. Actions lx, actions.
Tom, I don't know if you meant Egyptian economy but the article posted above is about how Hamas have been printing counterfeit money to use in Egypt. Tom, the needs of the people native to the country should come first, especially when they're more destitute than their neighbours!
i do not support Hamas or militancy but I dont see shutting the border completely as a necessity. I refuse to believe that Egypt couldnt find a way to close the border in a way which would still allow food and supplies in. Seriously. Is it so difficult to get food, medicine and fuel into a country?
I mean Egypt has a sizeable military, there are enough random police and muhabarrat protecting Mubarak, if I'm not mistaken. Would it be that hard to ensure a border is open enough to allow a people to survive?
Yes sure it's their own fault for voting in Hamas and whatnot but I dont think punishing them with death by starvation is very compassionate or humanitarian. And yes perhaps the other Arab states should do something too but if everybody plays the blame game and nobody does anything then ultimately people are going to die which is not a good thing.
And again I think you use the 'destitution' of the Egyptians as a major excuse at this point. If we're talking about Govt actions... the closing of the border was certainly a Govt action... I can think of a million things your Govt could have done for your people that would've been far far far more useful in terms of allevaiting their poverty.
okay, well I'm not gonna touch the security issue with a barge pole, largely due to the fact that I do not wish to spend the best years of my life in a dingy cell.
Closing our border is not 'punishment' it's self preservation. I have nothing against palestinians because they are palestinians, but I do have something against the absolute *chaos* they have brought about in Egypt. Since Hamas is now in power, open border equals Hamas bringing crap to the country whether it be via counterfeit money or some other brotherly action. If Hamas could act like civilised people, then sure we should have an open border, but their actions of bringing in explosives into Egypt has again showed their priority...there's more to life than killing.
The very interesting thing here is you have never once mentioned that the palestinian government should take responsibility for the welfare of their own people, and why they haven't done so?
Because the Palestinian government is a piece of shit and everybody knows that. However that does not excuse other people for not showing the people some compassion. We belong to a human race, not just nation-states, and compassion should be exercised where it can be done so.
I again reiterate my point that effort could have been put into regular border security including an at least partially open border with heavy security screening for people entering Egypt (which would help stop explosives and other undesirable things getting in) and the allowance for supplies to enter Palestine. These things are done with varying degrees of success all over the world on troublesome borders all over the world, I am confident that the Egyptian government is not so incompetent that they could not manage this. After all, there have been Islamic militants in Gaza for decades, this hasnt just come about since Hamas came to power, true the situation is worse now but it was effectively managed then, why do they have to resort to sealing the border completely?
And I once again reiterate that I do not support Hamas and totally agree that there's more to life than killing. However I suggest that sitting on your hands while innocent people die because of starvation and lack of fuel and medicine while the above steps could've been taken to alleviate it without any harm coming Egypt's way, more or less equates to killing anyway. It might be killing indirectly, through acquiescence rather than bombs, but the blood is still on Egyptian hands.
yes, I'm glad you've reluctantly acknowledged that the palestinian government does nothing for their people. *That* is the problem and the palestinian people *chose* them.
As recent events have shown, the pals have money. They have enough money to buy from other countries lx, the fact that the pal. government does not organise itself and do so is really not our problem. They weren't exactly starving either, they came to Egypt to buy cigs, tvs mobile phones and cement. Life is all about making decisions, the pals just always make crap ones and expect everyone else to help them out.
Why didn't the surrounding Arab brothers not help or are we all talk?
eva, i have never been reluctant to admit the considerable shortcomings of the Palestinian 'Government', nor am I going to launch into a digression on how and why this situation has come about.
However I am not going to stray from my main point that a full sealing of the border was totally unnecessary and regardless of whether "its their own fault for selecting a crap Govt" (might I add the choices available to them dont exactly inspire confidence), starving the people of food, medicine and power is also totally unnecessary.
Egypt's security and wellbeing can still be maintained with a partially opened border. Other states have as much of a responsibility too, Arab or not, however whether they fulfil it should not be used as a reason for why Egypt is acting this way which, I again stress, is totally unnecessary.
get a room guys!
oh come on Tom you know you love us using your blog as a theatre of carnage :D
lx, we'll have to agree to disagree since the host has taken unkindly to making comments in a comments section about a relevant article.
We've just made your blog look popular, least you could do is thank us. I could make a retaliatory generalisation about how white people are quite antisocial but I will refrain from doing so :P
get a blog eva! and thanks for dropping by...