Dahab and Northern Sinai - News and comments.

First, I am going to refer you to a fellow blogger's website, Tomanbay, for a better update of events on Wednesday the 26th in Sinai, Egypt.

Moving on, the main purpose of this post was to comment on posts made on another Blogger's Blog, namely Sandmonkey. Sandmonkey's post was a coverage of the Dahab bombings and that Blogger's opinion on different remarks made by Hamas and the the Israeli ambassador to Egypt.

After reading the article (linked to above), there were points of disagreements that I had with sandmonkey.

First, he quotes (source unknown to me) what Hamas's leadership had to say about the Dahab Bombing:

Ghazi Hamad, spokesman for the Hamas-run Palestinian Cabinet, called
the bombings a "criminal attack which is against all human values. We
denounce the attack, which harmed the Egyptian national security." By
contrast, Hamas had refused to condemn last week's bombing that killed
nine people in an Israeli fast-food restaurant.

Then, he comments on their comment:

Didn't they call that suicidebombing a justified act of self defense? I guess it depends who the attacks kill: Jews ok, egyptians not so much.

I think the difference in what Hamas has to say is obvious, and the reasons as well. It would make sense that Hamas would say such a thing, since the world usually holds its breath after such events; waiting to see who will claim responsibility. Hamas's response, as an entity accused of being a terrorist organization by the west, was definitely much awaited.

Furthermore, and devoid of the question of International Politics and Relations, unless the bombings in Dahab were carried out by Egyptian seperatists, or persons claiming to want independence from Egypt, the situation is quite different. Palestinians say, and I will not say are because then many will scream that I am biased, that they are fighting to liberate lands that are theirs. Lands that, according to them, are occupied.

We still do not know anything about the perpetrators of the Dahab bombings. I agree with Sandmonkey when he mentions that it depends on who the attacks kill. Of course it does! If I was at war with another country for 50+ years (not counting pre-Israeli state days) and that happened to them, I would happier than if it happened to an acquaintance, or a friend. That would be a human thing.

But even more, and I agree with this point whole-heartedly, Hamas sees that attacks (whether carried out by them or with their support and/or agreement) on Israel (whether these attacks target infrastructure, civilians or military personnel) is a natural thing in a war where thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Palestinians (civilians and otherwise) have been killed. I have not experienced what the Palestinians have been through, but I have talked to them extensively. I have also lived in Sudan.

The Southern Sudanese there expressed the same sentiment about the Northern government and people as the Palestinians.

My own view is that Hamas's use of religion as the force from which they gain their guidance, principles or whatever is the main reason why so many people stand steadfastly against them. Westerners hear the words bomb and Middle East in one sentence and Islam gets blamed. The general idea on Muslims is that they are all terrorists. On the other hand, the PLO was never attacked as much as Hamas was. They carried out operations as well and are much older than Hamas as an entity.

But, they are a secular organization, and they recognize Israel. Two ingredients that transformed the way they were treated. Let's not forget their almost instantaneous recognition by the Israeli and Western governments.


Sandmonkey then moves on to say:

You then read in Al Arabiy[a] a that the egyptian secuirty forces has shut down the border with Israel in order to prevent any "possible suspects escape", which would only mean in the eyes of the regular egyptian that the people who were behind this act were…yes…wait for it… THE JOOOOOOOOOZZZZZZZ.

I disagree. It doesn't mean that "the Jews" are the ones behind this issue. What Egypt did was close a possible avenue of escape... perhaps they had information that pointed to the fact that this has been used before as an escape route, who knows? If anyone comes to the conclusion that it is the Israelis, and not "the Jews", who carried out the bombings... that's their own thing.

And then

Who else would we blame anyway?

I realize that this was a rhetorical, sarcastic question as posted by Sandmonkey but still... it seems that Sandmonkey had no compunctions about blaming "the Jihadis";

I am really mad because this brings back memories of Taba, and it shows that we haven't elarned shit from the previous attacks at all. It also shows that the security forces can not protect us at all, with or wiothout the emergency laws. And now, I found out that a friend of mine got injured in this attack, and lost an arm. He is 23 years old. and he lost his arm. And all I can think of is the blind hatred that is cursing through my body right now towards every single Jihady fuckhead in existance, and how I will not rest until every single one of them is fuckin whiped out, have their bodies doused in whiskey and pig piss and wraped in the cumsoaked sheets of a diseased jewish whore.

I HATE THEM SOOOO MUCH! Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I hate all militant (and non-militant for that matter) Islamist groups or individuals as well, quite vehemently as a matter-of-fact, but the leap in logic that occurred in that large paragraph was strange. The fact that his friend lost an arm is an extremely sad and upsetting issue. I had friends in Dahab as well (Read an account), and they thankfully made it without injury, but how does this particular bombing and Sandmonkey's injured friend point to "the Jihadis"?!

It seems to me that the seem leap in logic he claimed that Egyptians would make was made by him. Technically speaking, this isn't much of a problem; as I understand it, he is Egyptian himself.

Moving on, there are certain parts of his post that I do agree with. For example,

I am so sick of this. So sick of all of this bullshit. So sick of the people dying, the jooz blaming, the ineptitude of the government who even though they have Sinai on lockdown for the past 3 years can't prevent a single attack, the inability of my people to see the nature of the ruthless enemy that is the Jihadis and how they are not our friends, and just the fuckin instability that Egypt has been in for the past 3 years.

The thing is, there are, in my opinion a plethora of factors that affect how well the security forces can do their job. I do agree with Sandmonkey that it seems that with or without the Emergency Law, Egyptian security forces are disgustingly useless at carrying out their job. Furthermore, if people who are loyal to the regime show up on television and say that these attacks and ones before them smack of foreign intervention, then, as Sandmonkey mentions, where on earth are our intelligence agencies?!

If "they" are using their agencies to do this to Egypt, it's about time that ours does something. That is, if they aren't already trying and failing... which puts us in dire straits.

Also, to be fair, Israel did in fact offer to send ambulances to Egypt. The ambulances were even filmed by the Israeli border. They also activated an IDF crisis rescue (we were not told the Unit name nor designation) unit and put them on alert. I am guessing the Egyptian government did not need, or did not want, assistance. Also, watching the live coverage that Al-Jazeera (English here) had going of the bombings, I have to say that the dead and wounded were transferred relatively quickly to hospitals in Dahab and then Sharm El Sheikh.

Finally, to summarize a relatively long post, the whole point behind this post is thus: coming to conclusions quickly is simple, everyone does it. Offering quick-cut, easy answers is also simple. I'm not saying that simple answers are always wrong, Okum would be quite upset indeed, just that reverting to them all the time just because others do isn't the best thing to do.

And that's the way I see it.

Tags: Dahab, Jihadis, Islamists, Hamas, Egypt, Israel, Bombings, Opinion