The reactionary nature of the Military Junta in Egypt has already been amply demonstrated by its savage treatment of those who protest against its arbitrary rule. Arrests, detentions and brutal treatment of oppositionists and news reporters has been attested and well documented by activists and various human-rights organisations. Crimes against humanity are being committed daily upon internationals and the citizens of Egypt. But there are also another set of victims as a result of this summers seizure of power by the elite members of the Egyptian military. These are the citizens of Gaza.

It is internationally recognised that the Zionist state of Israel has committed various large-scale atrocities against the ‘locked-in’ inhabitants of Gaza. Over the past few years there have been numerous Israeli military incursions into Gaza using weapons which have caused mass destruction of infrastructure and human life. The object of such indiscriminate brutality is to terrorise the people of Gaza into officially recognising the state of Israel and accepting any future fate the Zionist elite and its supporters wish to dish out to them.

But even without such intermittent savagery and destruction, there has been a virtual uninterrupted siege by Israel upon Gaza for many years. The Zionist and pro-Zionist political and military elite of Israel have for decades locked in the citizens of Gaza and subjected them to a calculated restriction in human rights for food, water, homes, health care and education. Gaza has for many years been the world’s largest prison in which the Israeli guards, periodically enter fully armed and savagely beat up on the inhabitants.

The one feeble corridor of relief in this unremitting and inhuman siege has been through the underground tunnels to Egypt along with restricted access to the Rafah border crossing. However, since the seizure of power by the US backed military elite in Egypt, that meagre corridor has been further restricted – this time on the orders of the Egyptian Military Junta. In the past, over 300 tunnels and the Rafah crossing allowed a tiny fraction of the much needed commodities and materials to be transported into Gaza. In addition the Rafah crossing – when opened – allowed a few students and some medical services such as doctors to come and go.

However, since June 2013 even this feeble flow has practically ceased. Tunnels have been recently destroyed and the Rafah crossing has been closed for an extended period – by none other than the Egyptian military forces. This has had the effect of further tightening the economic and social noose around the necks of the people of Gaza. It amounts to a collusion with Israel in the virtual garrotting of the citizens Gaza. The class-nature of the military and political elite currently in power in Egypt is in this way demonstrated to be essentially the same as the military and political elite in Israel and elsewhere.

The capitalist inspired military-industrial complex in the US and Europe along with its elite controllers and beneficiaries stretches its tentacles across national boundaries and by the use of lucrative inducements, bribes and rewards it smoothes over any religious differences. So Muslim elites, Jewish elites and Christian elites can unite – not only to distribute the spoils of their continual exploitation – but also to prevent any opposition to their parasitic existence. This collusion is clearly revealed by the formal and informal liaisons between these respective elites at the diplomatic and military levels.

Unsurprisingly, therefore, the reason proffered by the Egyptian military elite for all their ruthlessness is very much the same as the rationale of Israel, the US and Europe – it is part of the ‘war against terror’. Yet it should be obvious by now that the biggest and most prolific sources of terror are those orchestrated by the state officials and their armed bodies of men. This is despite the fact that military orchestrated terror is the principle begetter of revengeful terror among increasing numbers of those effected by their repeated bombings, assassinations and invasions.

When the Egyptian army officers recently ordered the bulldozing and blowing up of houses on the Egyptian side of the border and when the Egyptian navy officers recently authorised firing on Gaza fishermen another tightening of the screw took place. Not only will hardship be increased for the people of Gaza, but so too will anger and frustration. These actions will undoubtedly cause more individuals in Gaza and Egypt to become desperate enough to try to hit back. For the capitalistic political and military elites this self-fulfilling cycle is useful, because the more terrorists they provoke in this way – the more need it appears there is for their services. In actual fact, the capitalist and pro-capitalist military and political elites are part of the problem not part of any solution.

Only an anti-capitalist revolution with a core of humanist values can break humanity out of the present capitalist inspired cycle of economic collapse, war, poverty, injustice, climate change and ecological destruction currently being visited upon many communities throughout the world. Until that holistic recognition gains universal acceptance and creates its own wide-spread international activism there is still the need to protest against the most horrific examples of brutality inflicted upon our human community. In that context the plight of the Palestinians in the West Bank and particularly in Gaza need our support.

See also International Campaign to #OpenRafahBorder

Roy Ratcliffe (September 2013.) ;