Out of the Rafah-Gaza quandary there emerges a disturbing reality, yet the same predicament lingers on The borders between Egypt and Gaza are gradually but surely being resealed by Egyptian authorities and with the consent, even if reluctant, of Hamas, the de facto ruler of Gaza. After close to nine days of unchecked inundation of close to 700,000 of the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza into the border city of Rafah and its immediate neighbour Arish, quiet is again in place. And within the next 48 to 72 hours, Egyptian officials predict, the whole border would have been cordoned off again. However, what is unlikely to be in place again is the full siege that Israel has aimed -- against little if any world protest -- to squeeze Gaza through. While American and Israeli officials have been demanding that Egypt simply seals its borders and leaves Gaza to its fate, Egyptian officials say they know for fact that it has become practically impossible to retain the closed- crossing policy that Egypt adopted, in line with international rules of operation for the Rafah crossing point that demand the presence of observers and borders guards from the European Union and the Palestinian Authority -- who had left Gaza since the Hamas takeover last June. "The Israelis and Americans can say all they want. But they know that Egypt has to act upon its interests," commented an Egyptian official who asked for anonymity. And, he explained, it is certainly not in the interest of Egypt to ignore the fact that if the Rafah crossing point was to be completely sealed off again under continued Israeli siege on Gaza another breach will occur. "It will be a matter of time before the Palestinians break into Rafah again. This is a scenario we dread so much. We would rather work to secure a prompt and internationally accepted mechanism for the operation of the Rafah crossing point," the official added. For Egypt to secure a prompt and legal operation of the borders it would need to either secure the consent of Hamas for the re-instatement of the borders agreement suspended by the Hamas control of Gaza or alternatively to introduce a new agreement acceptable to both sides and passable by Israel and the international community. Either scenarios, however, would require a Hamas-Fatah agreement, if not full reconciliation. "I call upon all the Palestinian people, with all their factions, to prioritise the need to end the suffering of the Palestinian people," President Hosni Mubarak said earlier this week before calling for a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation to be hosted by Cairo. Mubarak's call for Palestinian reconciliation is not exactly new. Egypt has tried, on and off, during the past few months to mend the many cracks in the Palestinian rank -- but with no success at all. Mubarak's call for Palestinian reconciliation this time, however, carries a new firmness. "Before, Egypt wanted to mend the Palestinian differences to secure Palestinian unity at time of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Now, it is much more than that. Egypt wants to make sure that Palestinian affairs and differences will be contained within the Palestinian territories and will not spill over to neighbouring Egyptian territories as we have seen during the past week," the Egyptian official commented. Mubarak's call for Palestinian unity was met with overt and covert criticism from American and Israeli officials who make no secrete of their wish to isolate and eventually ostracise Hamas. It was, however, supported firmly by the Arab League and mildly by the Europeans. For their part, Hamas officials were quick to make a vocal and repeated welcome of Mubarak's call for Palestinian dialogue. It was Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who declined the Egyptian initiative, almost in a rough way. Speaking to reporters in Cairo on Wednesday following a 60- minute meeting with President Mubarak, Abbas announced no break through on Palestinian national reconciliation. He rather seemed inexplicably arrogant and firm in his rejection of Egyptian efforts to by-pass his demand of Hamas to "give Gaza back" before the beginning of any reconciliation dialogue. Indeed, Abbas was not short on harsh loaded criticism on Hamas and was not covert in his incitement of Egypt against the Islamist militant Palestinian faction whose leaders in Gaza were expected to arrive in Cairo late Wednesday for talks with Egyptian officials on possible scenarios of handling the Israeli siege, the Palestinian dialogue and on finding "new" ways to operate the Rafah crossing point and the intractable relationship between Gaza and Egypt. Egyptian officials were alerted by Abbas that he has "no intention" of meeting up with the visiting leaders of Hamas coming from Gaza or for that matter for Hamas Damascus-based leader Khaled Meshaal who is arriving today from the Syrian capital. These officials say that they are not unaware, nor unappreciative, of Abbas's resentment of Hamas. However, they hasten to add, that in view of his inability to weaken Hamas, Abbas needs to learn how to live with Hamas. The least Abbas could do, they say, is to talk directly or indirectly with his Islamist political rivals on ways to manage daily concerns -- the Rafah crossing point on top. Cairo is greatly concerned that in the case of continued lack of Hamas-Palestinian Authority coordination, Gaza will be left for Egypt to worry about -- in a direct or indirect way. The government of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh says it proposed arrangements for the Rafah border terminal involving economic benefits for Egypt as a stopgap measure to prevent further collapse of the Gazan economy under pressure of the Israeli-instigated siege. "We are looking to end Gaza's economic ties to Israel, and for Egypt to step in to take over," Haniyeh told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We have no fear of breaking our economic ties with Israel, for it is these ties that have caused the economic collapse in Gaza over the course of the siege." Such a proposal is not without historical context. Egypt was in administrative control of Gaza in both 1948-1956 and 1957- 1967. It also signals a willingness on the part of Hamas to accept Egyptian patronage as a means of staying afloat amidst Israeli, US and Abbas-backed pressure. "It is clear that the Israeli occupier wants Egypt to bear the burden of Gaza," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told the Weekly, adding credence to arguments that a permanent separation between Gaza and the West Bank is part of Israel's strategic agenda to render a viable Palestinian state impossible. "It must be understood that the Palestinian requirement for a permanent arrangement with Egypt would by no means bring about the end of Israel's responsibilities towards Gaza -- principally to end the occupation. "We will not fall in this trap," commented an Egyptian source. He added that Egypt cannot put up with the security, economic or administrative hazardous that Gaza brings along -- not to mention the national and international legal complications of releasing Israel from its occupying power responsibilities and burdening Egypt with the control of foreign territories and population. "Palestinians have to find a way to coordinate amongst themselves," added the official. Coordination, however, may be more akin to the imposition of a fait accompli. In the words of PA Foreign Minister Riyadh Maliki, "Hamas will be told about this agreement and they will have to accept the presence of the Palestinian Presidential Guard at the border. This is the Egyptian position as delivered to us by Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit and General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman." To be sure, Hamas is not wholly against the deployment of PA security personnel at the crossings. The movement would like to see such a step, however, taken as part of an overall package that would somehow allow for Hamas participation of an elementary control of the crossing point. Hamas would also like the re-institution of the PA guards at the borders to be part of a wider process of Palestinian reconciliation. For his part, Abbas doesn't seem sufficiently independent to reach a concordance with Hamas, since such reconciliation, even if kept tacit, would upset and perhaps alienate his bankrollers and political backers, especially in the West. It would, Abbas's aides argue, also give Israel its sought-after pretext to disengage from peace talks with the Palestinians, despite the disingenuousness of these talks as evident from the dismal outcome of numerous high-level meetings between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The latest Abbas-Olmert meeting earlier this week failed to grant the Palestinian leader any Israeli flexibility on reducing the harsh siege imposed on Gaza. Abbas knows very well that the persistence of the blockade is the best chance he still has to weaken Hamas. Abbas's want and inability to conquer Hamas out of Gaza has all but become an obsession above all else, some Arab diplomats criticise. They say that the Palestinian leader who has shown much tolerance towards the Israeli leader who kills innocent Palestinian civilians, needs to exercise some tolerance as well with his political rival. In the eyes of these diplomats what Abbas does now is only akin to put the Palestinian-Israeli struggle/negotiations on the backburner and to get too involved into an internal Palestinian fight. In Damascus last week, most political Palestinian factions, including Hamas and even members of the Abbas-chaired Fatah, warned against replacing the cause of Palestinian independence with the call of power that Abbas has been making. According to Talal Naji, one of the conference's main organisers, the event was aimed at "confronting" the dangers that threaten the Palestinian cause, which he listed as: transferring Palestinians from the occupied territories; expansion of Israeli settlements; US-Israeli settlement agreements; "and the imperial project". Current secret negotiations between the PA and Israel are believed to be focussed on finessing significant concessions on the Palestinian side, including giving up the refugees' right to return. "We, here, are not the Palestinian opposition," said Meshaal, Hamas's political leader. "We are part and parcel of Palestinian legitimacy and the national movement." He added that Hamas is committed to "unconditional" dialogue with Abbas under Arab patronage. According to Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy chief of Hamas's political bureau, "this conference is a message to all the Palestinian people, including Abbas, that our cause is very clear, and our constants related to liberating our land haven't changed." This liberation will happen through direct resistance and via the political umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), he told the Weekly. According to Meshaal, "no one can monopolise the Palestinian cause, whether it's Hamas in Gaza or Abbas in the West Bank." Neither Hamas nor Fatah should be the issue. This was the statement that many Palestinians were making in Rafah and Arish this week as they were rush-shopping for basic commodities before the re-seal of borders. "They should worry about us. We suffer. We suffer the humiliation of occupation and the fights of brothers," said Randa, a Palestinian woman who was crossing her way from Rafah to Gaza. Dina Ezzat in Cairo and Rafah, Amira Howeidy in Damascus, Khaled Amayreh in Jerusalem, and Serene Assir in Gaza
