STIRLING: Israel Rafah raids expose secret ways that Egypt aids Hamas

Given the Trudeau Liberal government's barely lukewarm support for Israel, it is no surprise that International Development Minister Ahmed Hussein says Canada has 'constantly advised against' a military operation in Rafah.But, was this to prevent exposing a truth Canada's Global Affairs people already knew? That Egypt is complicit with Hamas? And that exposing this truth might upset geopolitics in the region? That by demanding Israel not go in to Rafah, it means the Trudeau Liberals don't mind pouring taxpayers’ money into Gaza, knowing our aid money will be funding Hamas and creating a weapons depot in Rafah? The war in Gaza has not been easy on Egypt. Yes, cash and corruption will trickle in to Egypt, as they always have. But Egypt is caught up in global conflicts in real ways that no one talks about. It is a country where the people face food insecurity, power blackouts and internal strife. A country with a cold peace with Israel and a jealous eye on the generous Western funds, food and media attention showered upon Gaza.Rafah... It is a border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, and the only possible place where the Hamas terror supply chain can operate. It is the last remaining area in Gaza where the surviving Israeli hostages may be sought — dead or alive — or even to find out if they have been spirited out of Gaza, along with key Hamas leaders.So to me it seems strange that Canadian politicians were so certain that a Rafah military operation was ‘completely unacceptable,’ when within 10 days of entering Rafah, the IDF has reportedly found 700 tunnel shafts which go down to about 50 actual tunnels that cross into Egypt.Rocket launchers and tunnels have been destroyed there. And four hostages found. Dead. Perhaps the most recognizable person whose remains were found is that of German-Israeli free-spirited Nova Festival dancer Shani Louk. From dancer, to desecrated and deceased. The world media repeatedly showed the video footage of Hamas terrorists who had loaded Shani’s bloodied body on the back of a truck and paraded it around Gaza so that people could beat it and spit on her. What was her crime against Gazans? Being Israeli? Being joyful? Choosing to dance to the tune of life? That is a crime to Hamas — a culture that worships death and longs for martyrdom.Several of the tunnels that the Israeli Defence Forces found are massive. You can literally drive a truck through them.However, tunnels at Rafah are nothing new to Israelis. In a May 19, 2024 podcast, former IDF spox, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus (ret.) told Vivian Bercovici, former Canadian ambassador to Israel, that he remembers standing in a Rafah tunnel in 2004 as a young infantry commander. A small truck could have driven through that tunnel. For the 20 years since, he says Hamas has done nothing but build bigger and better tunnels.But now Conricus says, the Israeli exposure of this Egyptian complicity with Hamas over the tunnels at Rafah has Egypt threatening to tear up the 45-year-old peace treaty between the countries.How much of a secret were these tunnels?None at all. In 2009, the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies had issued a perspectives paper, arguing that Egypt was not going to be stopping the smuggling into Gaza. Bassam Tawil later wrote for the Gatestone Institute on May 14, 2024 of Egypt’s support for South Africa’s case in the International Criminal Justice (ICJ) against Israel’s war on Hamas: “If the South Africans had any decency, they would not only call out the Egyptians for being hypocrites and liars, they would also file a case with the ICJ against Egypt for its role in transforming the Gaza Strip into a weapons depot and continuing to deprive the Palestinians there of humanitarian aid.”So, it’s not like the tunnels were a secret. Presumably the folks at Canada’s foreign affairs knew about them.Egypt is a key player in the region (and must be due to its supervision of the economically vital Suez Canal.) It has maintained a ‘cold peace’ with Israel since1979, which resulted in Israel eventually returning the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. (Israel had held it since the Six Day War in 1967.) Curiously however, Egypt rejected the return of Gaza, a tiny finger of land along the coast pointing up from the Sinai, which had formerly been under its control. Israel thus inherited control of Gaza, in exchange for peace with Egypt, finally withdrawing from the area in 2005. Hamas quickly took control.Which brings us today.Imagine the simmering resentment of Egypt with its 111 million people, barely able to feed its people, watching the world throw money and food at 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. Egypt is highly reliant on wheat and fertilizer imports from Russia and Ukraine — the supply of both are basically cut off to them now. Egypt’s one high-demand export is natural gas, and much of that revenue goes to pay for wheat imports.Of course high-profile climate activists like Naomi Klein condemned Egypt’s natural gas industry prior to Egypt’s hosting of the COP72 climate conference as ‘greenwashing.’ She condemned Egypt’s crack-down on protestors and jailing of political prisoners. Seems no one remembers that President Anwar Sadat, who actually made peace with Israel, was assassinated by an Egyptian military officer who was a member of Islamic Jihad.Egypt’s natural gas provided a boost in revenues in 2022, but growing internal demand for natural gas reduced export capacity (and revenues) since. Egypt experienced blackouts in the summer of 2023. President El-Sisi’s efforts to prevent blackouts is something ‘climate colonialist’ Naomi Klein mocked.The reality of the Middle East is that the “Arab Spring” which Westerners saw as a bid for democracy, was actually in response to the price of food spiralling out of control, largely due to the US climate policy of food-to-fuel ethanol as shown by the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI).Meanwhile, Canada and the west have thrown billions of dollars at the Ukraine-Russia conflict, a conflict which has forced Egypt into food insecurity. Egypt’s currency has been devalued; it has been forced to take out loans from the IMF to cover off food supply for its 111 million people, 55 times the population of Gaza. Flour is also rare and high priced in Gaza. The Globe and Mail quotes Karim Morcos of Global Affairs Canada as saying the UN plans to fill a soccer stadium with aid and operate it as a ‘self-serve’ location, since there is no local civil order to protect deliveries. No IMF loans required!Will they fill such stadiums in Egypt for free? Or provide equivalent financial aid to Egypt to the money thrown at Ukraine? Or…demand a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine?As the Begin-Sadat Centre authors wrote in 2009, it was not realistic to expect Egypt to end the traffic in the tunnels under the Egyptian-Gaza border (Rafah) — “for strategic, political and domestic reasons.”But for Israel, continued trafiic through these tunnels is not realistic either and their continued existence is completely unacceptable.Israel is beset by enemies all around, but its priority is to stop Hamas rocket attacks and prevent it regrouping. There must never be another brutal cross-border raid like that of October 7, 2023.To end this nightmare possibility, the Israeli hostages must be tracked down and the source of Hamas weapons and terror supply chain must be rooted out. Yet, the Government of Canada seemed to think that Israeli objective was ‘completely unacceptable,’ as Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly stated earlier this month.For shame!

STIRLING: Israel Rafah raids expose secret ways that Egypt aids Hamas

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