Egypt is prioritising an immediate ceasefire in Gaza while struggling, still, with the issue of the Rafah crossing, Dina Ezzat reports Egypt is ramping up a diplomatic offensive aimed to prompt an immediate end to Israeli aggression on Gaza and simultaneously the suspension of rocket attacks -- deemed by Cairo as absurd -- launched by the resistance on southern Israel. Egyptian officials are in constant contact with all concerned parties: Hamas, Israel, the Europeans and all others who influence developments in the region. As of Tuesday evening, signs of a ceasefire by the coming weekend were showing. Dedicated efforts are promised until a ceasefire, even if only for a few days, is effected. Once a temporary truce is secured, Cairo will be hard at work to promote a longer- term cessation of hostilities that should be monitored, once in place, by regional and European players. It would in parallel work to secure the stable operation of the Rafah crossing point -- Gaza's only connection to the world outside Israel -- that links Egypt and the Gaza Strip. This it would do by trying to convince Hamas to allow for border officials and guards of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to be present on the Palestinian side of the crossing -- even before reconciliation is achieved between Hamas, in control of Gaza since the summer of 2007, and the Fatah-dominated PA, exiled in the West Bank. Egyptian officials suggest that they have already secured the agreement of the Europeans to re-station their monitors at the Rafah crossing. They also say that the French proposal of a 48-hour ceasefire is strongly promoted by Egypt. Tuesday evening Egypt was still aggressively chasing a ceasefire, even as Israeli artillery was bombarding the border between Gaza and Egypt, thus forcing a suspension of the transport of relief material into the devastated Strip as well as the transport out of Gaza of gravely wounded Palestinians to Egyptian hospitals. "We keep trying," commented one official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Tuesday afternoon, President Hosni Mubarak, who has hitherto reserved comment, indicated Egyptian willingness to operate the Rafah crossing on condition that representatives of the PA and European border monitors be stationed on the Palestinian side, in line with a border and movement agreement concluded in November 2005 under the auspices of Washington between the PA, Israel and the European Union, the latter "subcontracted" by the Israelis. If Egypt were to overlook this agreement, Mubarak said, it would simply play into the hands of Israeli schemes that aim to effect a permanent division between the Palestinian territories, Gaza and the West Bank. In press statements made Tuesday, Javier Solana, EU foreign policy chief, called for an immediate ceasefire that should allow for the smooth operation of all border crossings linking to Gaza. Solana expressed the willingness of the EU to post monitors to serve this purpose, and maybe other ceasefire-related objectives. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Tuesday made the second appeal in less than 24 hours for a ceasefire. "All this must stop -- a ceasefire must be declared immediately," he said. On Monday afternoon, the Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal reiterated the readiness of the Islamist liberation movement to sign to a ceasefire that would secure a full end to hostilities, allow for an end to the suffocating siege on Gaza, and the re-operation of borders to the Strip, including Rafah. For their part, Israeli officials have expressed no such interest in a ceasefire, insisting that Israel was only in the first phase of its operation against Gaza and that Operation Cast Lead would only end when Hamas is overthrown in Gaza. "The Gaza offensive has begun and will not end... until our goals are reached," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday evening. As Egypt was running against time to secure a ceasefire, Israel was deploying forces that could launch a ground offensive against Gaza. For Egypt, a ground offensive is a worst-case scenario that "has to be prevented". Nobody in Cairo is oblivious to the uproar that has been expressed against the Egyptian government during this latest round of Israeli aggression on the Palestinians. Across the Arab world, demonstrators have demanded the immediate unilateral operation of the Rafah crossing point. Demonstrators have bombarded Egyptian embassies with angry chants and at times assaults over alleged Egyptian complicity with -- if not collusion with -- Israeli aggression on Palestinians while it denies rescue to the Palestinians by keeping Rafah closed. Attempts by Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit and his aides to defend the Egyptian position and to put blame for the Israeli assault on Hamas's miscalculations have not exactly fallen well on ears in the Arab street. Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic leader of Hizbullah, was among the prime critics of Egypt's management of the disaster in Gaza. On Tuesday, however, President Mubarak told the nation in a recorded speech marking the beginning of a new year that Egypt would not be dragged into an irrelevant war of words and would continue to do what it believes is in the best interest of the Palestinian cause. "Our position was clear right from the very first day, even if we did not resort to [fiery] speeches and slogans. And we continue to be working hard to secure an unconditional ceasefire in a way that would not spare Israel from its legal and political obligations [as an occupying power]," Mubarak said. Egyptian officials insist that the legal qualification of Gaza as occupied is their prime concern. "The long-sighted vision demands that Egypt does not take action that would spare Israel its responsibility towards Gaza. Israel remains an occupying force, even if it redeployed its troops. Gaza was not liberated and to unilaterally operate the Rafah crossing away from the borders agreement would mean that Egypt is de facto taking legal responsibility for the Strip," argued an Egyptian official who asked for his name to be withheld. Were Egypt to do so, the same official argued, Israel could easily claim, "and it did so before", that the opening of the crossing allowed for the smuggling of rockets and other armaments and thus close the border linking Israel to the Strip. "And it is practically impossible for Egypt to take full economic responsibility of Gaza. Even if we wanted to, we could not. It is not just us, in the Egyptian government, who argue this. The World Bank issued a report to this effect." In 2005 the World Bank issued a report that refuted the economic feasibility of Egypt taking responsibility for Gaza, primarily due to the economic gap between Egypt and Israel, to the advantage of the latter. The problems also include tasking Egypt with the security of Gaza. This does not only entail providing security for Gazans, but also making sure that Israel is not attacked from Gaza. Egyptian authorities are not interested in being tasked with curbing Palestinian resistance. The worst part of this scenario, Egyptian officials argue, would be the de facto permanent, or at least long-term, separation of Gaza from the West Bank, which would mean that Israel could exclude Gaza from any final status negotiations. "And of course given that it is impossible to have a Palestinian state just on the West Bank, then the whole effort to have a Palestinian state would be torpedoed," commented an Egyptian diplomat. "And at the end of the day, the Rafah crossing point could be operated if Hamas would cooperate and allow for representatives of the PA to be at the crossing," the diplomat added. Hamas sources have indicated that such an arrangement would require cooperation on the part of the PA in naming possible representatives that could be deployed. "If the PA insists on sending representatives known for using their position as observers to harass citizens and make financial gains, then we could not accept this arrangement," a Hamas leader told Al-Ahram Weekly. At any rate, Hamas argues (and in this it is far from being alone), Egypt needs to open the crossing immediately and strike a formal deal "later". Egypt continues to talk to Hamas leaders to get them to change their minds. It is also using Arab mediators to put pressure on Hamas. "Hamas has to be realistic. This is the biggest operation that Israel has launched since its disengagement from Gaza and there is no telling how it would develop. Wisdom requires compromise," the Egyptian diplomat commented.
