AT the same time as Mahmud Abbas is declaring that he will stop the eruption of a Third Intifada, the Egyptian government has actively joined Israel, the US and the UK in strengthening the siege of Gaza.
A year after Israel’s illegal war left Gaza in ruins, with 1,400 Gazans dead, hundreds of them children, and with tens of thousands wounded, and the rest hungry, Egypt is turning away international aid convoys from entering Gaza!
It is actively preventing aid to its 1.5 million people, and is also building an ‘iron wall’, reaching over 30 feet below the Gaza-Egypt border to destroy the tunnel system, that has been the only real source of food and medical relief for Gazans.
It is erecting an ‘iron wall’ under the guise of preserving its national security and sovereignty – from the Palestinian masses of the Gaza Strip.
The ‘iron wall’ is being built with US money and expertise in order to seal off Gaza completely by destroying the tunnels.
The building of the ‘iron wall’ is more confirmation that the US and Israel are not going to allow the emergence of a viable independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, with the settlements evacuated and with Palestinian refugees having the right to return.
The attitude of the Israeli leaders is that Fatah leader Abbas has got himself into a corner by being stupid enough to believe that Obama was serious about his pledge to see through the job of establishing a Palestinian state.
The Palestinian masses, as a result of this betrayal, are moving inexorably to revolution and the Third Intifada. Abbas is moving the other way, to making declarations that he will prevent a new Intifada.
This has led leading Fatah members to declare that that Third Intifada will not only be targeting the Israeli occupation but also the Palestinian Authority, which has subordinated the interests if the Palestinians to the requirements of the US and Israel.
With the building of the ‘iron wall’ President Mubarak has opted to seal off Gaza, aid the US and Israel, and hope that this ‘iron wall’ can keep the contagion of revolution away from Egypt.
Under Mubarak, Egypt is the recipient of many billions of dollars of US aid. The only bigger recipient of US aid in the region is Israel.
Now the allies have come together against the Palestinian revolution and the masses of Gaza.
On Monday in Cairo, this alliance was demonstrated once again when, surrounded by police, an international group of human rights advocates staged a demonstration at a UN installation after the Egyptian government denied their request to enter Gaza.
Another member of the Gaza Freedom March group, Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstien, 85, declared a hunger strike in protest at Egypt’s decision.
The Gaza Freedom March delegates, a group of 1,400 activists from 42 countries, intended to enter Gaza with humanitarian aid to commemorate Israel’s December 2008 invasion.
It is now just a matter of time before the Palestinian masses rise up against the Israeli occupation and Abbas is driven from office.
The real successor to the leadership of Yasser Arafat is Marwan al Barghouthi, the leader of the Second Intifada.
Hamas is seeking to secure his release as part of the deal to return a captured Israeli solder, Shalit, to his family.
The Israeli authorities are opposed to freeing Barghouthi. They say that his release would be enough to start the Third Intifada.
However, the stepping up of the struggle does not depend on Barghouthi. It is a product of Obama’s decision to give Israel a blank cheque.
Trade unions in the UK must carry out the policy that was carried at the TUC Congress. This is to impose a worldwide boycott of all goods produced in Israel or in Israeli settlements.
This boycott must begin and remain clamped on until the Palestinian state is achieved.
