Israel and Egypt clashed Friday in a war of words over the fate of Palestinians in Gaza, with Egypt accusing Israel of “genocide” and Israel accusing Egypt of “imprisoning” Palestinian civilians in a war zone.
Egypt maintains a wall along its border with Gaza, and restricts the ability of Palestinians to leave. Though some Palestinians with foreign citizenship have been able to leave during the ongoing war, and others have been able to bribe officials to allow them to cross the border, very few have been able to leave Gaza for the relative safety of Egypt or the world beyond.
Egypt’s practice of denying an escape for Palestinians continues a long-standing practice in the Arab world of refusing to accept Palestinians, or refusing to allow them to become citizens, lest doing so might help Israel subsequently secure its claims to territory or legitimacy.
The Israeli government has said that while it will not forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza, it believes that any Palestinian who wishes to leave the territory (for destinations other than Israel) should be able to do so.
The current spat with Israel began when Egypt’s foreign minister told reporters that despite Israel’s looming offensive in Gaza City against the last strongholds of Hamas, Egypt would not accept Palestinian refugees.
The Times of Israel reported:
“Displacement is not an option and it is a red line for Egypt and we will not allow it to happen,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty tells reporters in Nicosia.
“Displacement means liquidation and the end of the Palestinian cause and there is no legal or moral or ethical ground to evict people from their homeland,” he says.
He continues, “What is happening on the ground is far beyond the imagination. There is a genocide in motion there, mass killing of civilians, artificial starvation created by the Israelis.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded (translated from Hebrew by the Government Press Office):
In complete contravention of the claim by the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke about the free choice of every person to choose his place of domicile – this is a basic human right at all times, especially in wartime.
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry prefers to imprison in Gaza, against their will, residents who want to leave the war zone.
Egypt and Israel have had a peace treaty for almost 50 years. However, relations are described as a “cold peace,” since Egyptian officials are still hostile in their attitudes and rhetoric toward the Jewish state. Israeli tourists visit Egypt, but the opposite is rarely the case; Egyptian media also indulge antisemitic propaganda.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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