ElBaradei on Gaza

In Foreign Policy,  Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, speaks up about the Bush administration, Iran,  his rumored bid to become the next president of Egypt, and his impending return to Egypt (third week of February, FP says.)  In the part  of the interview which deals with Egypt’s policy towards Gaza,  ElBaradei makes some  policy proposals:

FP: President Mubarak has been criticized harshly in Egypt and from outside, from some quarters, for his policy toward Gaza. Do you have any opinions on his policy toward Hamas?

ElBaradei: I don’t really know the details about his relationship with Hamas. All I know about Gaza is that you have to distinguish between national security and humanitarian assistance. I would quote Chris Patten, the chancellor of Oxford University, who wrote that we are failing Gaza and that 1.5 million innocent civilians have been penalized because of the behavior of some of the Hamas members. To me this is not much different from what happened to Iraq before and after the war. You end up penalizing the innocent and the vulnerable — the citizens. According to Patten, Gaza is only getting 31 of the « essential items » from the Israeli side, while they need thousands of items. They’re not getting any construction materials. They received 41 truckloads of materials; the whole place is rubble.

The need to separate your politics from humanitarian needs and from protection of civilians is a principle that was established a hundred years ago with the Hague Convention and the Geneva Conventions. I feel that we are moving away from that in many ways. We talked about « crippling sanctions, » for example. When you talk about « crippling sanctions, » you have to understand that those who are being crippled are not the people in power — it is the innocent civilians, the elderly, and the young. That is to me absolutely the wrong approach.

FP: Does that mean you would stop the construction of this underground wall that is currently being constructed between Egypt and Gaza?

ElBaradei: As I said, I don’t really know the details, but if this [border area] has been used for smuggling, drugs, weapons, or extremists, then Egypt has the right to make sure it protects its security. But what Egypt can also do is use the border crossing between Gaza and Egypt to allow Gaza to have humanitarian assistance. For example, one idea I have is to create a free zone in the Egyptian part of Rafah [the border town]. I don’t see why we can’t have a free zone there where people from Gaza go and buy their own basic needs. So there is a difference between protecting national security, which no one questions, and providing humanitarian assistance.