Egypt Tightens Gaza Blockade, World Yawns

By Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest

In a move that would have the world awash in rage and grief had Israel done it, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has tightened the screws on his country’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Predictably, since it’s the Muslim Brotherhood government of Egypt and not Israel treating the Palestinians so pitilessly, nobody seems to care. Reuters reports:

    Egypt has intensified a crackdown on smuggling tunnels between its volatile Sinai desert and the Gaza Strip, causing a steep hike in petrol and cement prices in the Palestinian territory. […]


The moves against the tunnels have dashed the hopes of many Palestinians that Mursi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood from which Hamas was born, would significantly ease Egyptian border restrictions on Gaza, which is also subjected to blockade by Israel.

“Business is clinically dead,” said Abu Bassam, who employs 40 workers in a Palestinian tunnel network in Rafah, a town on the border. “Tunnels are almost shut down completely.”

This isn’t insignificant. Gaza’s problems stem much more from harsh treatment of Palestinians by Egyptians than by anything Israel does or does not do. Without an Egyptian blockade of Gaza, the Israeli blockade would be derisory. This has been true for many years, though one could scan the world’s press in vain for any recognition of this elementary geographical fact.

A suspicious person might be led to believe that this is yet another sign that Jew-hatred, rather than compassion for Palestinian suffering, motivates a lot of the Israel Outrage Industry.

Thankfully, not that many people are suspicious. We live in a thoughtful, beautiful world, where the motives of those who hate Israel are always clean and pure.

June 26, 2013 | 2 Comments »

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  1. The world demands a Palestinian Arab state because it wants to screw the Jews out of theirs!

    If the Palestinian Arabs enemy was Egypt there would never have been an UNRWA. Support for the Palestinian Arabs is inversely correlated to anti-Semitism.

  2. You mean the palys are not the darlings of the whole world? From their corrupt kleptocracy government to their death worshiping populace and hate instilling culture, they draw the obsessive focus of the entire world community like no people in history.

    Does anyone think for one moment this would be the case if their conflict was with anyone other than Israel?

    Can this be anything but antisemitism?