Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Mubarak opens Rafah?


This is a surprising and very welcome development as far as it goes. I expect the border to be reclosed shortly. I can only guess that Egypt makes this announcement to decrease the contrast between its cooperation with Israel's blockade and Turkey's - a full NATO member - confrontation against the blockade. While Mubarak is not accountable to the Egyptian people, he still has to look in the mirror. This can be an important effect.
CAIRO - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Tuesday ordered the opening of the Rafah crossing with Ghaza, only crossing point uncontrolled by Israel, for the delivery of humanitarian aid and the passage of patients, said the Egypttian agency MENA.
Hopefully we will soon be hearing accounts of people crossing the border and bringing at least food, if not construction materials.

2 comments:

lidia said...

Arnold, you give too much credit to Mubarak - he only values his own hide, but if he is afraid, it is a good sign!

Now, what do you think - does George Friedman in his piece about Israel piracy want to cheat his readers, or he simply CANNOT tell the truth? Or, I suppose, he just lets down hasbara points for his readers?

Lysander said...

Yes, Lidia. Too much credit.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/02/95241/egypt-opens-gaza-border-for-those.html

So he did the absolute minimum to distract the public. What a disgrace that pig is.