Egypt, The Palestinian Authority, Hamas And The Hajj Pilgrims

Mohammad Salah

Egypt might be asked to solve the crisis of the stranded Palestinian Hajj pilgrims not just because it's the biggest Arab state, or the most effective party in the peace formula with Israel, or because it has diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, or because the pilgrims originally left Egyptian territory when they headed for the holy sites of the Hijaz. However, the party that is originally responsible for what has happened, what is happening and what will happen is the Palestinian Authority itself, and President Mahmoud Abbas. If it's true that the rivalry between the PA and Fatah, on the one hand, and Hamas on the other has harmed the Palestinian cause and taken it years backward, robbing us of the hope of a happy ending for the tragedy of the age, it's also the case that the PA cannot constitute a political authority as long as it doesn't protect the people that it is supposed to protect, whether they are supporters from Fatah or opponents from Hamas.

It's no secret that Israel is pressuring in the direction of embarrassing the Egyptians and placing the entire responsibility on the permission issued by the Egyptian authorities to let the pilgrims out through the Rafah crossing, which on the Palestinian side is under Hamas' control. This is why we saw harsh comments last week by the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, who accused Egypt of being responsible for the tunnels between the Egyptian border and the Gaza Strip and the flow of weapons to the Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Egyptian officials revealed that there were Israeli pressures on the US Congress and White House to use US economic assistance to Egypt as a negotiating card in order to achieve Tel Aviv's demands made of Egypt. However, the Egyptian government found itself and allowed the pilgrims to perform their religious rites through its territory, acting on religious, moral and humanitarian grounds; it couldn't return the pilgrims to their homeland without coordinating with the Israelis. Cairo might find that Abbas will use the issue of the pilgrims in Cairo today to obtain even more pressure on Hamas, or to set Hamas against Egypt. It's no secret that Cairo believes that its continuing support of the PA cannot continue without the PA first living up to its responsibilities to its people, followed by not involving Egypt in problems with Israel, Hamas or any other party. This is not the first tragedy for the Palestinians on the crossing point, and won't be the last. Even before June of last year, when Hamas took control of Gaza, the crises at the border crossing continued to erupt, according to the level of Egyptian-Israeli relations, or according to the activity of the Palestinians and their reactions to Israeli acts. However, at the time the situation was much better; the Egyptians and Palestinians appeared to be in the same boat, and not distributed over three separate ones, as is the case today with the crisis of the stranded pilgrims. Egypt might feel that the peace agreement with Israel has restrained Cairo, setting down conditions that prevent it from being true to its wider, Arab commitments. It might believe that there is a small number of soldiers on the border, or that the tunnels have two sides - one within Egyptian territory and one in Gaza. However, Egyptian anger at Livni's statements and Israeli behavior might extend in the coming period to cover the PA, which has seen no official raise his voice to criticize the Israelis' insistence that the pilgrims return via the Karam Abu Salam crossing.

The contradictions between the PA and Hamas might have reached their peak, but the danger in forcing the pilgrims to enter from this crossing, giving the Israelis the chance to arrest some of them, could direct the compass of the dispute in the direction of Ramallah and Cairo.


*Published in London-based Al-Hayat on January 2, 2008.