?Should the Rafah Borders Be Opened to the Palestinians
Alaa El Damaty
The death toll in the Gaza Massacre is rapidly increasing. This is because the people of Gaza are trapped in a very small region with no place to escape. On the North and East, Gaza borders Israel, and on the South, it borders Rafah in Egypt. The ongoing problem that has caused a lot of commotion and strikes in the Arab world is that Egypt has refused to open its borders to the Palestinians. Egypt claims that the reason that it does not want the Palestinians to enter through Rafah is because it fears that the Palestinians in Sinai will overstretch the area's fragile infrastructure, thereby destroying the Sinai area. While this might be true, this is the most lucid solution to save the Palestinians from Israel’s attacks.
Two opposing responses to the entrapment of the Palestinians are triggered by similar ideologies. One response is that Egypt should keep its borders closed. This response comes from the liberal, nationalistic ideology. Instead of thinking about the safety of the Middle East, they worry about the welfare of their own nation. These people see that the Palestinians will overpopulate the Sinai area, thereby overburdening the economy by disrupting the job market, decreasing the rate of tourist entry, abusing the country's health system
, and using up the already diminishing water supplies. The nationalists also worry that militants from Hamas will enter through the Rafah border and threaten Egypt's national security.
The death toll in the Gaza Massacre is rapidly increasing. This is because the people of Gaza are trapped in a very small region with no place to escape. On the North and East, Gaza borders Israel, and on the South, it borders Rafah in Egypt. The ongoing problem that has caused a lot of commotion and strikes in the Arab world is that Egypt has refused to open its borders to the Palestinians. Egypt claims that the reason that it does not want the Palestinians to enter through Rafah is because it fears that the Palestinians in Sinai will overstretch the area's fragile infrastructure, thereby destroying the Sinai area. While this might be true, this is the most lucid solution to save the Palestinians from Israel’s attacks.
Two opposing responses to the entrapment of the Palestinians are triggered by similar ideologies. One response is that Egypt should keep its borders closed. This response comes from the liberal, nationalistic ideology. Instead of thinking about the safety of the Middle East, they worry about the welfare of their own nation. These people see that the Palestinians will overpopulate the Sinai area, thereby overburdening the economy by disrupting the job market, decreasing the rate of tourist entry, abusing the country's health system
, and using up the already diminishing water supplies. The nationalists also worry that militants from Hamas will enter through the Rafah border and threaten Egypt's national security.In a survey taken by Schutz students, 75% of the students stated that they do not want the Palestinians to enter Egypt through Rafah. The reasons that the students stated are similar to those of the liberal nationalists. Since they care most about the welfare of their mother nation, they fear that the Palestinians will cause too much destruction to Egypt’s infrastructure, greatly worsening Egypt’s political and economic condition.
The other response is that Egypt should open its borders to save the Gazans trapped in there home city. This response is triggered by a united Arab and Islamic ideology. The Arabs and Muslims see the Palestinian people as their brothers and sisters. They cannot bear to see their fellow siblings "trapped in a cage with a lion. This cage has one door that they have the key to; they cannot keep the door locked for the lion to devour their siblings."
The same response also comes from a legal point of view. Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.” Under this law, the Palestinians are being denied a human right.
In reality, if the Palestinians do enter Egypt through Rafah they will incapacitate an already weak infrastructure. But reality also says that the Palestinians are being denied a basic human right, and that the fellow Arabs and Muslims cannot watch their brothers and sisters die and not react.
There is a humanitarian crisis that calls for quick action, so Egypt has no choice but to open its borders to save its sister nation, no matter what the consequences will be. Egypt has never been the traitor nation that people claim it is; it cannot watch those Gazans die and not act about it.
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