The Egyptian government is providing an object lesson in how to secure a porous (and perilous) border.
What is the Israeli Defense Force supposed to do with a million or so Palestinian refugees as their operations to kill every last Hamas wipes the Gaza Strip from north to south like a giant, well-armed squeegee?
The President of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who is sometimes mistaken for the President of Mexico, has an answer to that vexing question — and it's something of a completely routine miracle how the mainstream media and the Global Professional Outrage Machine have both ignored it.
The essence of el-Sisi's answer is: "Do what you will to the Palestinians, Israel, but they aren't coming here to Egypt (or maybe Mexico)."
That's what Egypt's border wall looks like from the Gaza side near the city of Rafah. There are concrete barriers in front of what appears to be a steel wall — 30 feet tall is my guesstimate — featuring three layers of concertina wire. It looks a little like somebody took a World War I obstacle and turned it up on one end.
As Aviva Klompas ... noted, "Egypt REALLLLLY doesn't want any Palestinian refugees."
There's more at the link.
The new border wall was started immediately after the October 7th terrorist attacks in Israel, and it's already been completed - very fast work. Egypt clearly had a pretty good idea what was coming, and wanted to shut down its border with Gaza ahead of the streams of refugees who would doubtless have attempted to cross. It looks like it succeeded.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on Oct. 7, Egypt constructed a concrete border wall that reaches six metres [about 20 feet] into the ground and is topped with barbed wire. It has also built berms and enhanced surveillance at border posts, the security sources said.
Last month Egypt's state information service detailed some of the measures it had taken on its border in response to Israeli suggestions that Hamas had obtained weapons smuggled from Egypt. Three lines of barriers made any overground or underground smuggling impossible, it said.
Images shared with Reuters by the Sinai Foundation for Human Rights, an independent group, appear to show the installation of the wall in December, with several berms running behind it.
Later pictures, which the group said were taken in early February, appear to show three vertical layers of coiled barbed wire being installed on top of the wall. Reuters was not able to independently verify the images.
Satellite images from January and December also show some new constructions along the 13 km (8 mile) border close to Rafah and the extension of a wall to the sea's edge at its northern end.
Again, more at the link.
Let's see, now . . . If President Biden wants to improve US relations with both Egypt and Israel, why doesn't he hire the Egyptian firms who built that wall so well and so quickly to protect the USA's border with Mexico in the same way? I'm sure their prices would be a lot lower than local companies, and they've got the experience to work fast and well. They could even please the migrants by hiring them as itinerant laborers to build the wall - provided they ended up on the Mexican side of the wall when it was complete.
The only thing missing are lethal defenses to back up the passive ones. Egypt's taken care of that by sending tanks and armored personnel carriers to patrol the wall. We could do likewise. Employment for the National Guard, perhaps?
Peter
A sealed border here is not the goal, heck those in charge are helping the people from all over the world GET TO THE BORDER!
ReplyDeleteThere is a (successful looking) campaign to change what America looks like going on right now.
Part of the "big reset" is my guess.
I would be interested to know who actually built the wall. I have doubts it was local, and wouldn't be surprised if it's an American or European construction firm.
ReplyDeleteIt became obvious within about 15 minutes of working it, that the US-Mexico border is open because TPTB WANT IT OPEN.
ReplyDeleteAny other conclusion is fueled by sheer deliberate ignorance and hopeium, or a sub-80 IQ.
Palestinians have worn out their welcome throughout the Middle East.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the new and improved Egyptian wall goes, it looks good but does nothing for the smugglers tunnels that that encompass the whole region.
Worth noting is that the Egypt-Gaza border is eight miles long. The US-Mexico border is almost 2,000 miles long, about 250 times longer than the Egyptian border with Gaza. Building an equivalent wall would be, ah, considerably pricier.
ReplyDeleteAnd before someone says, "but they're poorer than we are" Egypt's GDP is about $400 billion, while ours is around $23 trillion, approximately 57 times larger than the Egyptian economy.
IOTW, us building an equivalent wall would cost us, as a percentage of our economic output, four times what it cost Egypt to build this one.
That doesn't mean the option should be taken off the table, but it does go a long way to explaining why we haven't done it.
What many people don't realize is that none of the mideast countries want palestinian refugees. They obviously know something that the western countries don't seem to grasp.
ReplyDeleteAs we have been shown via drone footage from eastern europe, modern antipersonnel landmines laid in depth are extremely effective indeed and an economic method to deny access to an area. Hopefully they will never be needed but it is a stopgap until something more humane can be constructed to gently get the message across.
ReplyDeleteSecuring a border is not difficult. It merely requires the political will to do so. The criminals in power here don't want our borders secure, thus they are not secure.
ReplyDelete