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Israel Must Control the Philadelphi Corridor: Egypt Won’t
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi attends a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Presidential Palace in Cairo, Egypt, June 10, 2024. Photo: Amr Nabil/Pool via REUTERS
The city of Rafah in Gaza is only half of the city of Rafah. Therein lies the story of Egypt and terror tunnels — why Israel needs to retain a presence on the Egypt/Gaza border and the Philadelphi corridor, and why the US should support Israel and Egypt in securing the border together.
A skinny, L-shaped strip of land along the Mediterranean was supposed to be part of an Arab country created alongside Israel in 1948. But that state never came to fruition, because the Palestinian Arabs and five Arab countries decided to launch a war of extermination against Israel. They lost, and only the State of Israel was born.
By the 1949 Armistice, that L-shape had become a rectangle along the Mediterranean, occupied by Egypt, and used as a duty-free port for the Egyptian military. It was a wreck.
In 1967, when the Arab countries again tried to destroy Israel and lost, the Jewish State took control of the Gaza Strip along with the entire Sinai Desert.
Between 1968 and 1985, infant mortality was reduced from 90 per 1,000 live births to 35. Life expectancy went from 53.4 years to 66.4 years. Gaza went from fewer than 800 teachers (thanks, UNRWA) to more than 20,000. Similar increases took place in water availability, farm production, industry, telecommunications, and school construction and attendance. The population increased accordingly, from about 475,000 in 1968 to more than 525,000 in 1985.
The trends were precisely the same in Judea and Samaria, only with a larger size sample. The trajectory was up; straight up.
Until it wasn’t.
In the negotiations for the Camp David Accords, Egypt insisted that Israel keep the Gaza Strip, and in 1982, when Israel left Sinai, a Gaza-Sinai border was reestablished. The city of Rafah had grown to straddle the line, so Israel suggested moving the border to either side of the city — Egypt refused, and Rafah was divided. But it wasn’t really. Smuggling tunnels already connected the two sides.
With the Oslo Accords, a Palestinian Authority (PA) force was put on the border alongside Israel. When Israel pulled out of Gaza entirely in 2005, a new Egypt-Israel agreement, the Philadelphi Accord, was based on the principles of the 1979 peace treaty. Border control was turned over to Egypt, while the supply of arms to the PA was subject to Israeli consent.
The agreement specified that 750 Egyptian guards would be deployed along the length of the border, and Egypt and Israel pledged to work together to stem terrorism, arms smuggling, and other illegal cross-border activities. A separate agreement between Israel and the PA was signed. The European Union Border Assistance Mission at the Rafah Crossing Point (EU BAM Rafah) was created, and the European Union Police Mission (EUPOL COPPS) signed on in 2005 as well.
In 2007, all of those agreements took a dive, making reliance on the written word tenuous, at best.
Hamas took control of Gaza in a brief and bloody civil war. The late-and-mostly-unlamented Ismail Haniyeh proposed a joint Hamas, Egypt, European border group, but the Europeans left and Egypt closed the border — except for the smuggling part, which was part civilian smuggling and part Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood-financed-by-Iran smuggling.
A fascinating report entitled Look for another homeland: Forced evictions in Egypt’s Rafah, and housed at the Library of Congress, tells the story. Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in 2013, partly as a result of US pressure, leaving a security vacuum. Either that year or in 2014, Egypt began demolishing homes and evicting the Rafah population on the Egyptian side.
According to the book:
Egypt justified the evictions as a way to defeat the insurgents by shutting down smuggling tunnels from Gaza, through which, they alleged, the insurgents received weapons and fighters.
The Egyptian military forcibly evicted about 3,200 families, destroying as many buildings in the process, as well as hundreds of hectares of farmland. Families told Human Rights Watch the army warned them of the eviction only 48 hours or less in advance. The government’s compensation has been inadequate, and the authorities gave evicted families no effective way to challenge their eviction or their compensation. The government provided no temporary housing. Since then, the government has provided little proof that the tunnels support the insurgency and has not explained why it could not have destroyed the tunnels using less destructive means. Human Rights Watch found that Egypt’s actions violated international human rights law (IHRL) that protect civilians against forced evictions. [emphasis added]
In the latter part of that decade, Israel worked with Egypt to defeat a combination of Bedouin tribes and ISIS in northern Sinai, with some intelligence assistance by the US, but a very low profile by the US-led Multinational Force in the Sinai. In January 2023, Egypt declared an end to the insurgency — although that isn’t really clear.
Now, Israel is back in Gaza and if the IDF finishes its mission and controls the Philadelphi Corridor, Hamas will not be able to regroup, re-arm, or reconstitute itself.
Egypt clearly sees the threat to its stability and future. It seems to have trouble accepting that Israel is part of the solution. There is a role here for the United States — if it would stop “negotiating” with Hamas, the enemy of its friends, and bring Israel and Egypt together to do the job both need to have done.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly.
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World Zionist Organization Chair: Immigration to Israel Has Not Slowed Since Oct. 7, 100,000 New Olim Expected
Pro-Israel rally in Times Square, New York City, US, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
Jewish immigration to Israel has not slowed over the past year despite the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza, according to the chairman of the World Zionist Organization.
Yaakov Hagoel told The Algemeiner in an interview that since Oct. 7, when Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists invaded southern Israel and launched the war, more than 29,000 people have made aliyah, the process of Jews immigrating to Israel.
Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack — in which the Palestinian terror group killed 1,200 people, took another 251 hostage, and committed rampant sexual violence — began a war “not only against the State of Israel, but also against the entire Jewish people,” Hagoel said. He added that the onslaught, the largest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, “caused the Jewish community in Israel and around the world to feel less safe and secure.”
Since Oct. 7, antisemitism around the world has spiked to alarming levels. The Anti-Defamation League released a report in April showing antisemitic incidents in the US rose 140 percent last year, reaching a record high. Most of the outrages occurred after Oct. 7, during the ensuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Meanwhile, such outrages have also skyrocketed to record highs in several other countries around the world, especially in Europe, since the Hamas atrocities. In France,for example, Jewish leaders have expressed concern about the safety of their community if French Jews don’t leave the country.
Consequently, Hagoel continued, “Jews around the world are looking for something more secure that they can rely on to raise their children and to link them to the Jewish traditions. And there’s no doubt that the interest in aliyah since Oct. 7 is related to it and hasn’t happened in many, many years.”
According to data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of annual immigrants to Israel since 2010 has ranged from almost 75,000 people to just 13,000 — with most years between 15,000 and 30,000. This would make the year after Oct. 7 relatively consistent with the past decade and a half.
However, Hagoel said he expects 100,000 new olim — the Hebrew term for immigrants who move to Israel — to come after the Israel-Hamas war is over.
Because of the war, Hagoel explained, “the expectation is that they would fall dramatically and they haven’t done that.”
But the reason people are coming is not just because of the war, he said. It is also because “anyone that makes aliyah is fulfilling a dream of returning home. So, the security situation around the world is a trigger to expedite that will to come home.”
In fact, Hagoel added, “there has been a dramatic increase in numbers in the opening of files to express an interest in aliyah and to begin the process — that’s increased by around 300 percent since the same period last year.”
After a recent plane of new olim came from France, Hagoel said it “demonstrates that the Jewish people are determined to continue building their future in our homeland, the land of Israel. This unprecedented aliyah is a testament to the recognition of the global Jewish community that Israel is not just a refuge, but a beacon of hope and faith.”
Asked about a message he had for the Jewish world, Hagoel emphasized the responsibility he felt to Jews across the world, regardless if they will make aliyah, and how important it is to help them.
He said he and his organization feel a “responsibility for all the Jews who live in Israel, those who will live in Israel, and those who will never live here.”
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Israel Police Search for Bombs After Stopping Vehicle on Highway
Illustrative: Israeli soldiers search a Palestinian’s car at a checkpoint in Hebron in the West Bank, August 22, 2023. REUTERS/Mussa Qawasma
JNS.org — Israel Police officers on Monday arrested 13 suspects and were checking a suspicious vehicle they stopped on the busy Route 6 highway near the Horeshim interchange.
The Horeshim interchange is in the southern Sharon Plain, close to Samaria.
“All the occupants of the vehicle were detained for questioning,” said the statement, adding that sappers were searching for explosives.
שוהה בלתי חוקי פלסטיני נעצר בכביש 6 בחשד שתכנן לבצע פיגוע, השב”כ מעורב בחקירה. כביש 6 נחסם ממחלף חורשים צפונה@Doron_Kadosh pic.twitter.com/RHKjCv1frD
— גלצ (@GLZRadio) September 9, 2024
On Sept. 2, Israeli security forces neutralized a car bomb outside the entrance to the Jewish community of Ateret in the Binyamin region of Samaria.
Police and military sappers used a robot to inspect the vehicle, which was carrying two large gas tanks connected to an operating mechanism.
There were no casualties in the incident, which Israel Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, called a “great miracle.”
Days earlier, the Hamas terrorist group hailed a “double heroic operation” after car bombers wounded three Israelis in the Gush Etzion region of the West Bank.
Last month, Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashaal called for a return to suicide terrorist attacks against Israelis in the West Bank.
During a video address to a conference in Istanbul, Mashaal said, “Resistance operations in the West Bank are escalating despite the harsh conditions,” CNN Arabic reported.
“We want to return to martyrdom operations. This is a situation that can only be addressed by open conflict. They are fighting us with open conflict, and we are confronting them with open conflict,” he continued.
On Aug. 19, the “military””wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad both claimed responsibility for a failed suicide bombing in south Tel Aviv.
In a statement, Hamas vowed to continue to carry out suicide attacks “as long as Israel continues its massacre and policy of assassinations in Gaza.”
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PA Wants UN to Order Removal of 500,000 Jews From West Bank
PA President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting in Ramallah, in the West Bank August 18, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman/Pool
JNS.org — The Palestinian Authority (PA) is circulating a draft resolution asking the United Nations General Assembly to urge Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and remove some 500,000 Israeli citizens living in the territory within six months.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday, the resolution, which cites a July 19 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, is expected to be brought to a vote next week.
The 79th Session of the UN General Assembly is scheduled to open on Sept. 10.
In addition to demanding an end to Israel’s civilian and military presence, the draft text urges UN member states to impose sanctions on officials in Jerusalem, banning trade with Jewish businesses in the West Bank and blocking weapons sales to Israel if they might be used in the area.
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon attacked the PA’s move and called on the 193 members of the General Assembly to “outright reject this shameful resolution and instead adopt a resolution condemning Hamas, calling on it to release all the hostages immediately.”
“Let it be clear: Nothing will stop nor deter Israel in its mission to bring back all the hostages and defeat Hamas,” the Israeli diplomat stated.
“If this resolution passes in the General Assembly, exactly one year after the Oct. 7 massacre, the most brutal massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, it would be a reward for terrorism and a message to the world that the barbaric massacre of children, the rape of women, and the kidnapping of innocent civilians is a profitable move,” added Danon.
While the Palestinians have a near-automatic majority in the General Assembly — including the overwhelming portion of nearly 60 Arab and Muslim governments — resolutions passed by the body are not binding.
On July 19, the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial arm of the UN, issued a non-binding, 83-page opinion declaring Israel’s 57-year “occupation” of the West Bank to be “unlawful.”
The non-binding ruling claimed that “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law.”
Jerusalem is “obliged to bring an end to its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible,” the UN court added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the ruling, saying that no “absurd” ICJ opinion can “deny this historical truth or the legal right of Israelis to live in their own communities in our ancestral home.”
Despite the PA’s continued efforts to undermine Israel through lawfare, the US administration insists that Ramallah be given control of the Gaza Strip following the cessation of hostilities there.
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