EGYPTIANS, GAZANS SEEK ALTERNATIVE TO BORDER CHAOS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 000168 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/30/2018 TAGS: KPAL PREL ETRD PTER KWBG EG SUBJECT: EGYPTIANS, GAZANS SEEK ALTERNATIVE TO BORDER CHAOS REF: A. CAIRO 162 ¶B. CAIRO 155 ¶C. CAIRO 148 ¶D. CAIRO 137 Classified by Charge d'Affaires Stuart Jones for reason 1.4 (d). ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY: From business leaders to currency traders to hungry guys with empty gas cans, Egyptian residents of North Sinai and their self-invited guests from Gaza stressed during our visit January 28-30 that economic and humanitarian pressure will continue to cause eruptions across the border until permanent arrangements are in place. The Egyptians offered a variety of perspectives on their neighbors -- the Gazans are welcome, or they are a threat; they will all be expelled, or some will stay. The Gazans, on the other hand, seemed uniformly happy. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) We spent two days in the North Sinai capital of el-Arish, with side trips east to the crossroads village of Sheikh Zuwayed and on to the border town of Rafah a few miles away (refs A-C). During that time we met with longtime contacts, stopped on the street to talk with wandering Gazans, and sat in el-Arish cafes to absorb the atmosphere of a laid-back, shisha-smoke version of a commodities trading floor. -------------- "Not one" will stay -------------- ¶3. (C) Fayez Abu Harb, a Bedouin parliamentarian from the ruling National Democratic Party, took the hardest line among our contacts regarding the visiting Palestinians. Abu Harb, who represents Sheikh Zuwayed and Rafah, said that the people in his district are complaining about a lack of goods, high prices, and general turmoil resulting from the border breach the week before. He only grudgingly conceded that merchants in the area were making money from the Gazans. Likewise merchants we spoke to were hesitant to talk about the bonanza of a visit by hundreds of thousands of needy and flush customers, perhaps because the uncertainty about future sales leaves them unable to invest and expand their businesses. ¶4. (C) Abu Harb described a robust GOE security response to the breach. Egyptian security forces are systematically moving all Palestinians back toward the border and will require all to leave, he said, adding that any Egyptians who harbor Palestinians illegally will be prosecuted. He acted startled by our suggestion that some Palestinians will find a way to stay. "Wala wahid!" he asserted. ("Not one!") ¶5. (C) However, Osama Kassas, chairman of the North Sinai Businessmen's Association, said that of course some Gazans will try to make a home in Sinai or elsewhere in Egypt. The border with Gaza and Israel splits not only towns like Rafah but also tribes and extended families of thousands of people, and some Egyptians will open their homes to their relatives, he said. ¶6. (C) Another Embassy contact, microbiology professor Mohammed Nasr, stressed that el-Arish residents were happy to house and assist visiting Gazans. Nasr's wife is from the Brahimi clan that spans the border with Gaza, and his sister-in-law is Palestinian. But he said the source of their generosity wasn't family ties, rather a human response to others in need. ¶7. (C) After driving to the border to see what was happening, Nasr gave a ride west to a Gazan woman and her 20-year-old son who had crossed over to shop. Nasr ultimately gave them a place to stay for one night, and many of his neighbors did the same, he said. Other throngs of Palestinians sheltered in mosques or slept in the street. Nasr noted that his house guest had been a Hamas supporter, but told him she now blamed the organization for the suffering of Gazans. -------------- Short-term satisfaction -------------- ¶8. (U) The Gazans we met in North Sinai may have been suffering -- some said they were seeking medical treatment in Egypt -- but were nevertheless in good spirits. One was cheerfully waiting in the rain outside a gas station with no gas, hoping a fuel truck would arrive so he and his sons could fill empty cans to finance the treatment he hoped to receive for old bullet wounds. Others roared down the highway in new motorcycles or herded sheep through the swampy muck of downtown Rafah. None appeared anything but pleased. CAIRO 00000168 002 OF 002 ¶9. (C) However, their North Sinai neighbors warned that once the party's over, the economic and humanitarian pressures in Gaza will build once again, threatening the stability of Sinai. Kassas spoke ominously of Hamas supporters recruiting among the unemployed Egyptian youth of the peninsula and crossing the border to track down their enemies, while Nasr wondered how the Gazans would survive when the border closed again. Abu Harb didn't much seem to care, and he had much more confidence in the ability of the GOE to keep the peace. But regardless of their attitudes toward the Palestinians, all agreed -- consistent with the GOE position, ref D -- that the border should reopen to normal traffic. ¶10. (C) COMMENT: Unlike many such meetings that revolve around vacuous complaints about US policy, our interlocutors in North Sinai were uniformly calm and reflective, if at times a bit desperate, in the days following the border rupture. They argued that permanent, predictable, secure measures to open the border are the only way to avoid periodic eruptions and continual smuggling, although they offered no solution to the problem that a terrorist organization controls the other side. JONES