On Friday 1 November, the Egyptian government allowed an Israeli German-made ‘Saar’ warship to pass through Egypt’s Suez Canal:
In response, the Suez Canal Authority, an agency of the Egyptian government, released a statement citing the ‘Constantinople Convention’ of 1888, which allows vessels of any nation to pass freely during peace and war:
The Suez Canal is committed to implementing the Constantinople Convention, which guarantees the freedom of navigation through the canal without discrimination based on the nationality of the ships passing through.
However, Egypt had a fully-established legal right – and indeed an obligation – under international treaties to prevent the passage of any Israeli vessel, especially a military one. Article X of the Convention recognises Egypt’s sovereign rights over the Suez Canal territory and the free passage of ships is conditional: if there is a threat to Egypt’s national security – which Israel certainly is after its takeover, during the Gaza genocide, of the so-called ‘Philadelphi corridor’ along the Gaza-Egypt border – Egypt is fully entitled to prevent its passage.
There are also other grounds Egypt could correctly invoke, for example the ‘Treaty of Joint Defence’ of the League of Arab States, which came into force in June 1950, which calls for joint and mutual defence:
Article 2: “The Contracting States consider any armed aggression made against any one or more of them or their armed forces, to be directed against them all.
Article 3: “In the event of the threat of war or the existence of an international emergency, the Contracting States shall immediately proceed to unify their plans and defensive measures, as the situation may demand.
Signatories to the treaty include Egypt. Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Yemen. Lebanon is currently fighting against an Israeli invasion; Yemen has been directly attacked this year by Israel and its US and UK allies; Syria was bombed by Israel when Israel attacked Iran’s consulate in Damascus. Any and all of these obliges Egypt to act against Israel and certainly not to allow Israel’s warships passage.
Egypt has invoked this right before. For example:
- in 1954, Egypt asserted its right to search and seize vessels in the canal before the UN Security Council, citing Article X
- in the 1967 Six-Day War, Egypt blockaded the canal against Israel, again invoking security concerns under Article X
- from 1967-1975, the canal remained closed throughout the War of Attrition and the 1973 October War, with Egypt maintaining its position on Article X
Yet now, with Israel’s genocide in Gaza more than a year old, hundreds of thousands murdered and its horrors live-streamed around the world, whether from US pressure or of its own volition, Egypt has decided to ignore its right to prevent Israeli shipping – and indeed, Israeli vessels of war – through the canal, with unknown cargo and to unknown purpose and threat.
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Further to Project 2025 this from Branko Marcetic at Jacobin re pro-Palestinians:
Just this month, on the anniversary of October 7, the same Heritage Foundation that brought us Trump’s Project 2025 released “Project Esther,” their “blueprint to counter antisemitism in the United States.” On the basis that the American pro-Palestinian movement is “part of a global Hamas Support Network” that is “supported by activists and funders dedicated to destroying capitalism and democracy” and gets the “the support and training of America’s overseas enemies,” Project Esther lays out a strategy to “dismantle” this movement within one to two years and “level a decisive blow against both antisemitism and anti-Americanism.”
That strategy envisions a whole-of-government campaign of intimidation, slander, and “lawfare,” at both the federal and state levels and working with private organizations, to crush pro-Palestinian activists’ First Amendment rights and carry out a wave of repression. The stated end goal is to make it impossible for activists to organize while turning the public against the movement.
The document suggests using the anti-racketeering RICO Act — originally created to take on the mafia, and more recently used to bring trumped-up charges against “Stop Cop City” protesters in Georgia — along with “counterterrorism, hate speech, and immigration laws,” as well as audits, propaganda campaigns, investigations, and public shaming. It self-consciously takes as its model the 1930s anti-fascist “Brown Scare,” whose tactics and tools weren’t just the prototype for, but directly evolved into, the very same ones used against the Left during Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare of the 1950s — including by the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
https://jacobin.com/2024/11/trump-red-scare-palestine-blm
Just to add. A fairly long piece which also goes into some detail about the suppression of the left in general under a Trump 2nd term.
Within the underlying premise here is a complacently dangerous assumption.
Which is that what Trump has publicly committed to can only, and will only, occur should Trump win the Presidency. That the Heritage Foundation and the web of organisations, think tanks, NGO’s, etc etc associated with this project and others like it will pack up, go home and forget all about it in the event that the Kamala Marrionnette wins the election this coming week.
This seems to be on a par with the assumption that whoever wins this week will make a hap’orth of difference to whether or not there will be a continuation of neo-liberal economic policy by whoever occupies the White House; or the vainglorious attempt to maintain global hegemony and a thousand and one other policies of the Blob.
A Harris win will make no difference to any of these policies, and it will make no difference to this Heritage Foundation Project. Regardless of who occupies the nominal Presidency, this Project or something not that dissimilar will most certainly be implemented in one form or another.
Also from Branko Marcetic:
The US Isn’t Moving Right — the Democrats Are
As the Kamala Harris campaign lurches rightward, pundits want us to believe she’s just following the will of the voters. The facts don’t bear that out…
There are a host of progressive policies that poll well across the board that Harris either refuses to take up, like adding dental coverage to Medicare and lowering the program’s eligibility age, or doesn’t ever talk about, like a national rent cap. In a political system where both parties beg for money from corporations and the ultrarich, treating what policies those parties do and don’t support as a reflection of the will of the voters doesn’t make much sense.
Harris’s rightward lurch on foreign policy isn’t justified by meeting the electorate where it is either: polling consistently shows that voters, especially in swing states, are worried about the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East escalating, see preventing that escalation as a higher priority than total military victory, oppose Israel’s war and favor an arms embargo on it, and prefer the United States generally shrink its global footprint to focus on domestic problems.
https://jacobin.com/2024/10/harris-trump-election-conservative-voters
Off topic — from Phil Burton-Cartledge at All That Is Solid:
This month saw 110,656 votes cast in 61 local authority contests…What a terrible month for Labour. October 2024 is the worst month the party has experienced since May 2021, when all the by-elections postponed during the Covid lockdowns were held. That was at the height of Boris Johnson’s powers. This month Labour dropped 15 seats, its worst result outside of that crushing occasion. It’s not difficult to see why when the two policies that have had that all-important “cut through” was the winter fuel farce and raising the bus fare cap. Both punitive and mean-spirited, and so local by-election voters have responded as they might. Especially when the elderly disproportionately vote in them. To see the leaderless Tories bounce back in seats gained and winning the popular vote is unconscionable. Naturally, Labour’s leadership doesn’t care but it should. With its Westminster dominance perched on precarious majaorities, the signs are already there that its precarious foundations are getting eaten away thanks to its arrogance and stupidity. A small gift for Kemi Badenoch then.
https://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2024/11/local-council-by-elections-october-2024.html
More off topic from Richard J Murphy:
In light of the recent idea to use obesity drugs to get people back into work this video looks at the likely economic consequences of such treatment.
Is Ozempic a wonder drug?
Other than here on SKWAWKBOX Israel’s warship in the suez canal on Friday is hardly mentioned on non-social media sites or at all on MSM. WTF is going on?
Oooh found this. It’s just business-as-usual required by lawfare and rules, rules, rules. My bad! https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/135803/SCA-Suez-Canal-open-for-all-commercial-vessels-warships-under
“More than 100 BBC employees are accusing the corporation of providing favourable coverage toward Israel and are calling on the broadcaster to “recommit to fairness, accuracy, and impartiality” over its reporting on Gaza…..”
Independent Exclusive: More than 230 media industry professionals sign letter sent to BBC director general Tim Davie
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bbc-israel-gaza-letter-tim-davie-bias-palestine-b2636737.html
No report of Israeli warship in Suez Canal, though.
We need to remember that El-Sisi owns his position as Egypt President to the US. Without the active support of the US, the coup the etat that removed Morsi form Egypt Presidency in 2011, it wouldn’t have taken place.
Gone are the days when Egypt was under the leadership of Abdel Nasser. But, El-Sisi will do well to remember the fate of Anwar Sadat.