The road to Palestinian liberation runs through Cairo... Israel was receiving 40% of its gas from Egypt under the Mubarak regime and at discount prices, until the second bombing of the export pipeline shut down the trade. Egyptian courts called for the exports to be halted but the Mubarak regime ignored the judgment and the new military rulers have not yet formally ripped up the contract. Demonstrators praise bombing of gas pipeline in Sinai, demand Egyptian government end all cooperation with Israel, open Gaza crossing. Protesters descended on the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Friday, calling for a complete halt in Egyptian cooperation with Israel. One protester said the demonstration was a response to President Shimon Peres's call for Egyptian youth to normalize relations with Israel, AFP reported. more Similar protests took place outside the Israeli consulate in Alexandria. ALEXANDRIA: Over 300 protesters organized Friday a march from Al-Qae'd Ibrahim Mosque to the Israeli e...

By their friends you shall know them... JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak is in a luxury hotel in the Israeli city of Eilat, the Israel-based news site Al-Arab reported Tuesday. more

True to form, the egyptian dictatorship is refusing to give visas to Iranian lawmakers who wish to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing. Egypt's long and sordid history of collaboration with Israel is winning it no friends in the region, so It can nly be the US underwriting the Egyptian economy that keeps Mubarak onside, and his own fear of the Islamic Brotherhood, at home and abroad. The last Viva Palestina land convoy was attacked by Egyptian security forces when it tried to enter Gaza using the Sinai route. Also, while we're on collaboration with Israel, Egypts has also closed down 10 tunnels into the strip: TEHRAN — Egypt has denied visas to four Iranian lawmakers who planned to travel to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, Iran's Press TV reported on Wednesday. "The Egyptian government has stonewalled the visa process... no visa has been issued for the MPs as of yet," Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash, one of the four lawmakers, was quoted as saying by the English-lang...

Nyahahahah.. the cowards… So, during the evening Palestine protest in Ramses, whenever the Socialists chanted “down with Mubarak,” followed by young MBs, you can see in the video MB organizers waving “No” trying to suppress the chants and change them… Some of their members might have chanted in the morning “Down with Mubarak,” but the group’s main leadership remains timid, coward, and compromising till the end vis a vis the regime… From 3Arabawy

From the English language Daily Star in Beirut. A new organisation to protest the building of the wall and the participation of Arab-owned building contractors, called the Campaign to Stop the Wall of Shame, was formed in Lebanon last Thursday. BEIRUT: A protest outside the Egyptian Embassy in Beirut on Sunday descended into violent clashes with riot police, causing at least three injuries. Some 200 people, mobilized by the Union of Lebanese Democratic Youth (UDLY), gathered for the third time in as many weeks to protest Egypt’s decision to construct an underground steel wall along its border with the besieged Gaza Strip. Palestinians often use tunnels to smuggle food, medicine and construction materials into the Strip, which has been under Israeli blockade for four years. Protesters with Palestinian keffiyeh scarves wrapped around their heads unfurled a giant Palestinian flag. One poster read: “ The high one built the high dam, the low one built the low dam ,” with the former referen...

Words of wisdom from dictator of Egypt, Mubarak. His attempts to justify his collaboration with Israel in the starving of Palestinians will convince no-one, except maybe the policemen he was talking to. "The works and reinforcements on our eastern border are a matter of Egyptian sovereignty. We do not accept a debate on the issue with anyone," Mubarak said in a speech to mark Police Day. "It is the right of the Egyptian state, and even its duty, its responsibility. It is the right of every state to control and protect its borders," he added. Khaled Meshaal, exiled leader of the Palestinian Hamas movement which has controlled Gaza since June 2007, recently called on Egypt to halt construction of the barrier. "What we do not accept, and will not accept, is that we take our borders lightly, or that our territory is violated or that our soliders or installations are targetted," Mubarak said. "We continue with the construction and reinforcements on our bor...

Tinpot tyrant ain't seen nothing yet By George Galloway I have been in a few dangerous places in my life. In the mid 80s along with an ITN news crew I was bombed by the Ethiopian air force. My face pressing into the dirt, with no cover around, I saw the shrapnel tear and kill small children and watched others die on a wooden table in a grass hut after they bombers had gone. I have been bombed by Israel in Beirut and held with an Israeli machine gun at my chest in Nablus during the first Iraq war. Involuntarily, I put my hands up and the blue-eyed blonde "Israeli" said that if I didn't put my hands down he would kill me. I've never, however, been in a more dangerous situation than last week in the tiny Sinai port of Al Arish to which the Egyptian dictatorship had insisted we bring our convoy. Five hundred foreigners from 17 different nationalities with 200 vehicles were crammed into a compound without water, food or toilet facilities. They included 10 Turkish MPs o...

Hamas is losing patience with Mubarak and his sucking up to Israel, as this report from AP attests, following Mubarak's insistence that the Israeli prisoner of war Shalit is 'alive and well': GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip ( AP ) — Egypt's president didn't know what he was talking about when he said an Israeli soldier held by Palestinian militants was alive and well, a top Hamas official announced Wednesday, in rare public criticism of the Egyptian leader. Egypt has been mediating attempts to trade hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel for Sgt. Gilad Schalit, the soldier captured by Hamas-allied militants three years ago in a cross-border raid from Gaza. Schalit has not been seen since then, and the Red Cross has not been permitted to visit him. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Monday that Schalit was in good condition and hopefully would be released soon. Mubarak, who made the announcement during a visit to Cairo by Israeli President Shimon Peres, gave no de...

Nethanyahu is meeting with Mubarak in Egypt today. The Egyptian regime seems to have no shame. Nethanyahu is being accompanied by Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer who was responsible for killing Egyptian hostages during the Six Day War. This visit will furhter undermine the standing of the Egyptian government with its own people and elevate it in the eyes of the Zionists. Israel's Barak says Mubarak is a 'stabilising influence'. No, he's a traitor to the Arab cause pure and simple. Surely Mubarak's days are numbered? From 3arabawy : Following the police ban of the 7th Cairo Anti-War Conference (which was scheduled from 14 to 17 May), the Center for Socialists Studies will be holding an alternative one-day event, this Friday 15 May, with the participation of activists from Denmark, Britain, Iraq and Italy. The Sessions: 11am to 1pm: Presentations and exchanging experiences about the solidarity movement with the Arab resistance, and obstacles fa...

Mubarak is worried by the persistent and rising level of strikes around the country and the growing credibility of the Iranian regime in the Arab world because of its backing for Arab resistance movements Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. The two worries are of course connected: Hezbollah and Hamas represent a challenge to the collaborationist regime in Cairo on the Palestinian liberation front, undermining its legitimacy at home and feeding into the general social unrest in Egypt that pre-dates the world economic downturn and has been dramatically sharpened by it. By Abdel-Rahman Hussein President Hosni Mubarak sounded a warning to workers over “unlawful” strikes in a speech Wednesday to commemorate Labor Day, stating that it could hurt the economy during the current global crisis. While admitting that the government had also to do its part, Mubarak said that Egyptian workers had a responsibility to buckle down during this crisis , in an allusion to a recent plethora of worker...

The Daily Star - Lebanon BEIRUT: United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern about Hizbullah operations outside Lebanese territories, saying interference in another country's internal affairs constitutes a violation of sovereignty. Egypt announced earlier this month that it had uncovered a plot by 49 men with links to Hizbullah to destabilize the country by carrying out attacks on Egyptian institutions and Israeli tourists. But Nasrullah has denied Hezbollah had any such plans to unleash terror is Egypt. It is difficult see how such terrorism could possibly benefit Hezbollah. In fact the Lebanese resistance organisation has only ever launched attacks on Israel. Hezbollah leader Nasrallah does not deny that Hezbollah members have been or are in Egypt. Nasrallah, while refuting Egypt's terror claims, defended his group's efforts to aid the embattled Palestinian resistance. "If helping our Palestinian brothers - whose land is occupied and who are being...

The Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt claims there was a plot by Hezbollah to bomb sites in Egypt. It is a fantastical claim whose real purpose is to provide an excuse for the regime to help the US and Israel to curtail Iranian influence in the region and to prevent the infectious example of Hezbollah, as the only Arab force to have defeated Israel, from further undermining its already battered credibility at home. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Thursday warned the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, and its suspected allies Iran, that he would not tolerate "the intervention of regional powers that are hostile to peace and that aim to drag the region into the abyss." Speaking out for the first time since Egyptian authorities announced two weeks ago the arrest of 49 Hezbollah agents on suspicion of carrying out hostile operations. From Haaretz

There has been something of a strike wave in Egypt over the past few months as working people fight economic depression and a pro-Israeli/US dictatorship. Hossam el-Hamalawy on his Arabawy blog has extensive coverage and links. Hossam has been critical of people and organisations with no real social weight calling 'general strikes' as if such things can just be conjured up out of thin air. The April 6 Youth Movement would probably be seen as one such organisation. The April 6 Youth movement called for a general strike on 6 April but without really pulling the workers and unions that had been leading the strikes behind it, as I understand it. Despite the ongoing arguments over strategy and tactics in Egypt, we republish the article below which I think is a balance sheet of what their 'general strike' call achieved. April 6 Youth movement Kerri Percay (Egypt) wrote http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=8641&post=40277&uid=38588398289#post40277 There is ...

The convoy received a rapturous welcome in Libya [UPDATE 12noon GMT 4 March - Farid Arada reports that the convoy is now at the Egyptian border and will likely cross tomorrow - more at Viva Palestina site] The Guardian this morning has caught up with the story on George Galloway's misguided dealings with the dictator-regime in Egypt. In fact the story was broken by Egyptian socialist blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy on his 3arabawy site, with Gaza Solidarity the first to break it in the UK. You can see the story here: Why is George Galloway loving up to dictator Mubarak? Unfortunately the position of the convoy in Egypt has now been damaged but it's not too late for George to make amends. The reaction to the arrests in the UK of convoy volunteers was initially equally disturbing when a spokesman denied they had any 'personal knowledge' of the individuals detained only to later call for an inquiry after they were all released. The Guardian quotes Sabah el-Mokhtar, a Briti...

The balancing act referred to previously in this blog by the Viva Palestina leaders, namely George Galloway, seems to have tipped to the side of the Egyptian dictatorship. Now I've got a lot of time for Galloway. His convoy initiative is to be applauded and I appreciate the problem of trying to secure safe passage through the territories of the undemocratic regimes that are the Arab Maghreb. But by meeting Mubarak's party, and cancelling meetings with the opposition ones, the convoy leaders are in fact interfering in local politics - something Viva Palestina said they did not want to do after a number of volunteers were arrested and detained in Tunisia. George, and everyone else on the convoy, please re-think this ill-conceived bit of political grovelling which will have the effect of conferring unwarranted credibility on a regime that is in bed with the zionists who are strangling Gaza - and is imprisoning and torturing pro-Palestinian activists, socialist and Muslim leaders...

We reported on the case of Magdi Hussein , secretary-general of the Socilaist Labour Party, on 11 February after he was arrested for the 'crime' of going to Gaza 'without a passport'. The anti-Palestinian Mubarak regime that runs Egypt in the interests of Israel and the US has imprisoned him for two years. The authorities have refused to let either his wife or lawyer visit him and campaigners fear he is being tortured. This comes at a time of rising labour unrest in Egypt Protest to the Egyptian Embassy: 26 South Street London, W1K 1DW. Tel: 020 7499 3304/2401 Fax: 020 7491 1542 info@egyptianconsulate.co.uk From the Inter Press Service Magdi Hussein, secretary-general of Egypt's suspended Socialist Labour Party, has been sentenced to two years in prison by a military tribunal. Hussein, along with two others, was charged with "infiltrating" into the Gaza Strip following Israel's recent campaign against the coastal enclave. more

We speculated yesterday that the Egyptian government may be moving to assume full control of the border. It's actions are already having a severe impact on the import of essential goods into Gaza through the tunnels. If this is not a prelude to opening the Rafah crossing then it is going to lead to the starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza. How much money are the Americans and Europeans giving the regime to do their dirty work for them? Mubarak deserves to go the way of his predecessor Sadat. From the LA Times A new enemy for Gaza smugglers ...the Palestinians' fury is directed at the Egyptian government, which in the wake of this winter's Israeli offensive has cracked down on the Gaza tunnel trade, choking the flow of goods... ..."No matter what the Israelis do, we're steadfast," one owner, who identifies himself as Abu Ahmed, says as he sits in an outdoor courtyard within sight of the border. "But this? This could slaughter our country and our e...

Lorry drivers and now pharmacists are going on a national strike in Egypt. Video below is from the Mahalla uprising by textile workers at the largest such industrial complex in the region employing 27,000 workers. It began on 6 December 2006 on the lead of the women workers. The workers ended up occupying their factory and after three days won their demands, sparking a wave of similar action that led to virtually all the textile mills in the Nile delta going on strike.