Blame Egypt: All the cool kids are doing it

The rationale being that somehow, Egypt is not doing enough to support the palestinian cause, and is to blame for the Ghaza blockade. The rationale completely skips that 1) Egypt tends to honor it's international agreements, even if we don't like it, 2) The coordination for opening the border happens between us and the Palestinian authority, which was overthrown by a nice bloody coup exacted by Hamas, and 3) Hamas is the kind of islamist terrorist organization that we don't really wish to legitimize or support, let alone give access to a part of our country that witnessed 3 seperate terrorist attacks in the last 4 years, 2 of which targeting Israeli tourists. Also, in a great twist of irony, all of those people blaming us have a sordid history of letting down (and sometimes killing, in thousands I might add) the palestinians themselves: Jordanians with Black september, Lebanese with Sabra and Shatila, the syrians by stoking the fires and never actually doing anything to support them except getting beaten at wars, and the gulfies by being totally passive and never actually doing anything, ever. But yes, blame Egypt. We are clearly at fault here.

Sandmonkey also states here why Egypt should not be in charge of Gaza as a reaction to Drima's post:

1) It's not anybody's to give anyway!

2) Sure, it used to be our protectorate, until the Israelis took it over in 1967, a nice place where lefty seculars live. Now, they want to return it to us, with islamist militants running the show? Oh, thank you. Do you wanna give us blankets with chickenpox in them as well?

3) If we did end up taking over Ghaza, we will have to clean it from Hamas's presence and disarm the population, which means that we will kill and or arrest at least about 30,000 people , just in the initial sweep, and we really don;t want palestinian blood on our hands, or like anywhere near us to begin with. So, again, pass.

4) Do you really want the palestinians to enjoy the same “rights and freedoms” that Egyptians have under the blessed Mubarak regime? Really?

Egypt has always been everybody's surrogate Homeland, the place everyone can go to and make their temporary home, as the 4 million sudanese refugees (Hey drima, you wanna take them back?), the 2 million somalian refugees and the half million iraqi refugees we took in the past 5 years will tell you. But that's it. We are a stop on the way at best. We are to a homecountry for others what Tofu is to chicken. We don't give passports and we don't give rights, and honestly, the Ghazan's probably deserve better than this.

Sandmonkey lists here , here and here a few more reasons why people blame Egypt and one more time why he thinks Egypt should not get involved.

Perwin Ali also has a few more questions:

If the Hamas powers-that-be don't like Egypt so much, and have been screaming foul play since the beginning, why are they coming over for their Gaza Resolution meeting? Why of all the places in the world have they picked Egypt to meet their arch rival Fat-h (yes, the crazy irony of the Hamas- Fat-h situation isn't lost on me either)?

I really need someone to explain this… logically… to me.

As a footnote I have a couple more questions bugging me

1) If to this day Fat-h, Hamas, and the ever-forgotten Palestinian Authority (yeah, the one that supposedly rules/leads/whatever… their big tomato there (not cheese, tomato -squishy and messy), can't unite and get over their grudges and personal agendas, how do they plan on winning their war against Israel?
2) Where's Iran gone to, now that the fight has been taken to the ground and they have to either put up or shut up? What happened to all the slurs and supposed weapons that allegedly started this whole fiasco?

And as a bonus combined question (last one, I promise)… Where are all the other wagging tongues and mud slingers? Which holes did they crawl into now that it doesn't pay to talk, since the situation reeeeeeally needs actions? Who is left in the picture now? Who's picking up the proverbial pieces?… say it with me…. EGYPT!

I sooooooooo rest my case, people.

As I was saying before… “Yes I'm Egyptian, proud of it, and I will GLADLY gouge out the eyes of anyone who so much as thinks of looking funny at Egypt…أيوة فخورة اني مصرية واللي عنده مشكلة يوريني نفسه كده

I believe [that Fisk's piece] is the latest example of how formulaic and commercialized one can get… even a highly respected source. It shows you that one can't blindly follow and/or agree with someone or something all the time. We should always question things, and definitely think for ourselves

Now, While I have nothing but respect for Robert Fisk, I can't help but feel that what he's saying here, while true, is out of context… or at the very least needs the added layer of what happens to Egypt and Egyptians outside of “Egypt's economic foundations [crumbling]” as a result of crossing its so-called allies. Why isn't he talking about the fact that Egypt will stand alone in fighting the Israelis, Americans, Brits, and the other covert cohorts, if it does indeed open the Rafah gate? And fight them on her own land, the much-coveted Sinai? Why isn't he talking about how opening the gate will give Israel a much stronger footing in Gaza when Palestinians start leaving in droves?

She also highlights another instance where Fisk goes off point saying:

It also feels more like a formulaic piece than a true evaluation of the Gaza crisis and its implications on Egypt, since everybody seems hell bent on making Egypt a star in this catastrophe, albeit a notorious one. I mean, he does a good job of stating the key negatives of the government which we all know by heart now, but why is he talking about prison rapes and negligent doctors? Where is the context of how this fits in with what's going on right now? Is this what he needs to be talking about now?

After finding out what I think of this piece, a friend asked me in great surprise if I don't believe that Egypt is corrupt and corrupt to the core. The kind of corruption that would push many youth to embrace possible death at sea just to get out of here. So I explained to her that I'm not saying it's untrue, I'm saying the opposite. It's true… very true. But it's also very out of context here.

Fisk's tally of Egypt's degrees of corruption isn't what he should be talking about here if he really wants to talk about what he clearly believes to be Egypt's lack-luster role in all of this. I think he's just using his trusted technique, pulling out his old notes filed under ‘examples of corruption in Egypt' as a space filler for something he clearly doesn't want to look at objectively.

Concluding her post she advised Fisk:

If he had really wanted to use a constructive example he could've used something like the undeterred gas deal with Israel. Now that's much closer to home in this case, not the classic sensational stuff he used. But then again, it's not as scandalous as “…a religious facade in which the meaning of Islam has become effaced by its physical representation.” which is a sentence I'm not sure fits how exactly with the supposed abominable performance given by Egypt so far. Maybe when you read his article you can explain it to me.

Surely Fisk can do a better job at being unbiased, objective and analytical.