Nigel Parry
6 January 2010
Egypt’s treatment of the two December convoys has brought a little-known fact to the forefront of the debate—that the government of Egypt is very obviously 100% complicit in the Israeli siege. Why else would 1,400 international visitors, whose visit to Gaza would educate people around the world as to the plight of Gaza’s people, be refused entry to Rafah? Why would aid be prevented from reaching some of the neediest people on earth? There is no justification for such cruelty.
When Egypt conceded that 100 of the 1,400 members of the Gaza Freedom March could cross the border—attempting to spin a positive story out of your policy of denying food and medicine to the desperate—your police actually tried to force people onto the buses heading to Rafah against their will, the same police that beat and arrested protesters earlier. It is hard to imagine how Egypt could possibly be more clumsy, heavy handed, or self-defeating at public relations.