Palestinians Being Evicted in Gaza

eviction-noticeOnce more, Gaza’s border is in flames.

Civilians  are being evicted from their homes, a curfew has been imposed, and a crossing that enables Gazans to leave has been closed. Yet the world is silent. Isn’t that strange?

Hundreds of residents along one of Gaza’s borders have suddenly been ordered to evacuate, on just two days’ notice. Their homes are to be demolished. There is no talk of compensation. Why isn’t the United Nations Security Council denouncing this outrage?

Because it is Egypt, and not Israel, that is doing the evicting. (See the New York Times, October 28 edition.)

The Egyptians have decided they need a buffer zone along their border with Gaza. They don’t trust the Hamas regime, which they say has been assisting terrorists who have been attacking Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai. Apparently Cairo does not accept the Obama Administration scripted fiction that the new Hamas-PA government is run by “technocrats.” Egypt understands that a Hamas-appointed “technocrat” is, first and foremost, a functionary of Hamas.

So the bulldozers are rumbling in Rafah. As a result of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty of 1979, the city of Rafah was split in half. Part of it is on the Gaza side of the border. Residents in the “Egyptian” part of town are now being evicted willy-nilly, in order to make room for a buffer zone that will be nine miles long, and with water-filled trenches that will be more than 500 yards wide — that’s half a kilometer, or five football fields.

Yet nary a word of protest from the White House, nor any suggestion of delaying any U.S. arms deliveries to Egypt.

That’s not all. In response to the recent attacks in Sinai, the Egyptians have imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew all along the Egypt-Gaza border. In other words, no resident of Rafah can leave his or her home after dark, for any reason.

Yet Thomas Friedman has not written any columns in the New York Times with heart-rending stories about Rafah  women being forced to give birth in unsanitary conditions because they can’t travel to the local hospital after sundown.

Egypt has also shut down the only crossing along the Egyptian side of the Gaza border. With the passageway closed, no Gazan can get out.

So where are the snarky political cartoonists depicting Gaza as a Holocaust-era ghetto? Nor is Secretary of State John Kerry warning of Egypt becoming ostracized and isolated in the world. Western academics are not threatening to boycott their Egyptian counterparts. J Street is not lobbying for U.S. intervention against this new assault on Arab civilians.

Could the hypocrisy of the international community be any more blatant?

Evidently, if they genuinely cared about the well-being of the residents of Rafah, the White House would be holding up arms to Egypt — exactly as it held up Hellfire missiles to Israel. If he were sincerely concerned about Arab lives, Thomas Friedman would be blasting the Egyptians on the op-ed page of the New York Times. If they truly wanted to help the evacuees, J Street’s lobbyists would be working overtime to get the Obama Administration to intervene against Cairo.

But the truth is that they don’t really care about the welfare of Arab civilians at all, unless there is an opportunity to bash Israel. When Arabs are mistreated by their fellow-Arabs, the State Department and the pundits and the “peace camp” fall silent.

So let’s all learn an important lesson from this experience. Israel and its supporters should stop worrying about the latest Thomas Friedman diatribe or the latest J Street conference or the latest unfriendly remarks by the Obama White House and the State Department. They will go on blaming Israel — and excusing Egypt and other Arab countries — no matter what. Nothing Israel does will ever satisfy them — so there’s no point in trying.

This article has been updated. 

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  • Bamaguje

    “The Palestinian cause interests them only if it presents an opportunity to bash Israel” – Phillips/Korn.

    Indeed the Palestinian cause is just a politically correct outlet for antisemitism.
    Unfortunately, most lefty Jews don’t get it, as they cluelessly collaborate with Jew haters to undermine Israel.

    • swemson

      They’re just clueless, like all the other leftists…

      It’s a mental disease that no group is genetic immune from…

      fs

    • Atikva

      The “Palestinian cause” has been invented precisely for the purpose of justifying the destruction of Israel in the eyes of the West.

  • Elizabeth capecod

    Arabs can bully Arabs much like blacks can bully blacks.: Apparently, not much is expected from either group.

  • mezcukor

    Israel should do the same and not worry about what the world thinks.

  • Pete

    Good Article.

  • kicca sinai

    bye bye Hamas, no more tunnels under Sinai’s soil!

    • Pete

      Having moats just increases the risk and further impedes the timely progress of people illegally crossing the border. It will definitely cut down on the # of illegal crossings on the surface.

      A moat will force tunnels deeper. I don’t know if it will cut down on the number of tunnels dug or the number of illegal crossing underground.
      Still Hamas will have a longer way to dig and it will stretch their resources. It raises the opportunity cost.

      There is a big squeeze going on Hamas. Abbas is not sharing money. Therefore Fatah people in Gaza were harassed or killed. The Egyptian crackdown will further increase pressure on Hamas.

      Hamas will have to choose between playing nice or being crushed by the combine weight of the Palestinian authority, Israel and Egypt. I think they will risk being crushed and start another war as soon as they have enough rockets.

      They think the can star conflict whenever they want and they will survive it. But bit by bit the squeeze is being put on them ans the sands are shifting. They will not notice that they have no firm footing until they fall.

      I hope Gazans get sick of Hamas and get rid of them. But I think Hamas is too ruthless and they have eliminated to many opponents for that to succeed.

      You can run things poorly for a long time(even generations) if you are willing to be ruthless.

      • mdemetrius

        Just one little leak in an under-most tunnel is disastrous for the tunnelers. Unless they are SCUBA equipped, that is.

  • jjr153

    It’s “dusk to dawn” not “dawn to dusk.”

    • Pete

      The authors propagated the NYT’s mistake.

  • carpe diem 36

    So where is Amnesty International? are they cooperating with Egypt? Why are they silent, other than because Israel is not the one doing the evicting? What a POS of an organization!! now everybody can see what their purpose is and how “sincere” they are in protecting the good citizens of Gaza. They know no shame!!!

    • mdemetrius

      The blind still not see, sir.

      • carpe diem 36

        i am not a “sir”, I am a madam.

        • mdemetrius

          So sorry, Ma’am.No offense intended. Please forgive the error.

          • carpe diem 36

            no big deal, of course you had no way of knowing. thanks anyway.

          • carpe diem 36

            Actually, I take it as a compliment. thanks.

  • carpe diem 36

    Stupidity as well as good old anti semitism as well.

  • Pete

    Reading the AP article that is the source at ABC, the moat and leveled houses are on the Egyptian side.

    The gist of the article still stands. Gaza is being quarantined (& for good reason) by the Egyptians. It will make life harder for them.

  • Geppetto

    The blatant hypocrisy described here should enrage every supporter of the state of Israel, the unquestionable nature of the injustice routinely faced by the only socially, technologically and militarily advanced, western style democracy in that region of the world. But it cannot be denied that Sunni Egypt, for whatever its root motivations, is doing what needs to be done to protect its border and itself against a murderous, Iranian backed, Shia Hamas. Unfortunately while this will likely put a giant monkey wrench in Hamas’ ability to replenish its military supplies it will likely force Hamas to attempt to increase the internationally ignored violence it routinely commits against Israel. That Israel has no friends in the upper echelons of Obama’s White House, a circumstance that will not change before January, 2017, if then, leaves it little choice but to rely on its own abilities and resources to protect itself and ignore the global condemnation that inevitably ensues.

    Insignificant consolation perhaps but there are many Americans and others around the world that support Israel’s right to exist and protect its citizenry and territory from the venomous snakes that wish to annihilate it as their 1st order of business before coming after the rest of the “kuffars.”

  • marlene

    They’re using the same subterfuge the american government uses. Call them refugees and send them throughout Jewish Israel, where they will become “home grown” which is not a distinction that means less violence, but more violence. They are shills out to destroy Israel from inside every city and town.

  • Hard Little Machine

    Don’t worry, HRW and the New York Times will blame it on the Jews.

  • herb benty

    The Egyptians sure realize that the PLO-Hamass are terrorists.

  • Mark Goldberg

    And Egypt needs to be told it’s doing the correct and right actions, and they need to be publically scolded for not allowing the same for Israel, as should the UN, and Amnesty Int’l, and the US gov and it’s state dept and the EU. But all this just passes on and gets no airplay. The author says just don’t bother trying to tell this to J street or T Fiedman or the NYT’s, but the point is to bury them in this and bury them endlessly.

  • DontMessWithAmerica

    Two of the reasons the world is not coming down on Egypt for this when they would be critical of Israel for the same are: 1. The Israelis have great concern about their image and so the anti-Semites take advantage of this by jumping on them for any excuse. 2. The Egyptians don’t give a damn about the Europeans or liberals in America. Criticism won’t bother them so the critics don’t bother. The Israelis have much to learn from Egypt. When there is something that needs to be done, do it, and don’t first fret about what others will think of you. The Egyptians in a sense told Obama to take his money (borrowed from the Chinese) and stick it in his ear. The Israelis don’t speak about it but fret about losing aid dollars. When Israel got close to wiping out Hamas but then stopped, many of us lost respect for them. You can’t help folks who won’t help themselves. If they want to win back our respect they’ll need to go back into Gaza and finish the job. Then they need to bomb Iran and put an end to their nuclear bomb plans.

  • johnnywood

    The U.S. like the U.N. is being governed by fools and idiots.

  • birddog

    “But the truth is that they don’t really care about the welfare of Arab civilians at all, unless there is an opportunity to bash Israel”

    Turn that around a little and you describe liberals in America.” But the truth is that they don’t really care about the welfare of Black civilians at all, unless there is an opportunity to bash conservatives.”

    What was it Alinsky said? it’s never about the cause it’s always about the revolution.