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Egypt at the Rafah Border and the Prospects for Gaza

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Egypt at the Rafah Border and the Prospects for Gaza Independent • International • Interdisciplinary PRIO PAPER Visiting Address: Hausmanns gate 7 gate Hausmanns Address: Visiting NO Grønland, 9229 PO Box (PRIO) Oslo Institute Research Peace Egypt at the Rafah Border and the Pro- Egypt at the Rafah Border and the spects for Gaza Prospects for Gaza - 0134 Oslo, Norway Oslo, 0134 Visiting Address: Hausmanns gate 7 gate Hausmanns Address: Visiting NO Grønland, 9229 PO Box (PRIO) Oslo Institute Research Peace War (CSCW) Civil of Study the for Centre This project is motivated by the underground steel barrier border management at Rafah the need to critically under- along the Egypt-Gaza border, according to international stand the prospective role of and identify key factors that standards. Egypt in providing Gaza with impact on Egypt’s operation of a functioning border. As the the Rafah border crossing. - only sovereign country border- The report presents findings Norway Oslo, 0134 ing Gaza aside from Israel, it from a succession of 55 inter- is vital to understand the per- views conducted between Jan- spectives of key Egyptian uary and April 2011. The in- stakeholders and how their terviews were carried out in different concerns and inter- the framework of understand- ests inform Egypt’s manage- ing stakeholder agendas, in- 978 ISBN: ment of the Rafah border. The terests, and concerns regard- - 82 - report analyzes the views of ing the Rafah border and 7288 - Egyptian policy makers, politi- crossing, secondly, to deter- 4061 (online) cal parties, and NGOs on the mine the factors that impact management of the Rafah on the regular operation of the border, investigates the multi- Rafah Crossing Point (RCP), layered interests in the tunnel and thirdly, to anticipate strat- economy, the construction of egies for securing effective Photo: Photo: Mareah Peoples Mareah F. Mareah Peoples F. Mareah Peoples Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) i Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Egypt at the Rafah Border and the Prospects for Gaza F. Mareah Peoples 1/2/2012 ii Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Hausmanns gate 7 PO Box 9229 Oslo NO-0134 Oslo, Norway Tel. +47 22 54 77 00 www.prio.no PRIO encourages its researchers and research affiliates to publish their work in peer-reviewed journals and book series, as well as in PRIO’s own Report, Paper and Policy Brief series. In editing these series, we undertake a basic quality control, but PRIO does not as such have any view on political issues. We encourage our researchers actively to take part in public debates and give them full freedom of opinion. The responsibility and honour for the hypotheses, theories, findings and views expressed in our publications thus rests with the authors themselves. © Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). ISBN: 978-82-7288-406-1 Cover Photo: Mareah Peoples iii Table of Content Abbreviations ..................................................................................................................................... v Glossary ............................................................................................................................................ vi Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................ 1 The Context and the Main Issues .............................................................................................................. 1 Stakeholder Agendas ................................................................................................................................. 2 Stakeholder Interests and Concerns ......................................................................................................... 2 Assessment of the Main Parties’ Interests ................................................................................................ 3 1. Egypt at the Rafah Border and the Prospects for Gaza ..................................................................... 4 1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 4 1.2 The Research Questions ...................................................................................................................... 5 1.3 The Actors ............................................................................................................................................ 6 1.4 Table of Stakeholders Included in the Study ....................................................................................... 7 1.5 Categorization of the Interview Subjects ............................................................................................ 7 1.6 Total interviewed by Category ............................................................................................................ 7 2. The Context and the Main Issues ..................................................................................................... 8 2.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 8 2.2 The Main Issues: Egypt’s Official Policy and International Commitments .......................................... 9 2.3 The Overarching Egyptian Position ................................................................................................... 13 2.4 Guiding Principles .............................................................................................................................. 15 2.5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 15 3. Stakeholder Agendas .................................................................................................................... 17 3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 17 3.2 The Authorities .................................................................................................................................. 17 3.3 The Political/Economic Elite .............................................................................................................. 20 3.4 The Micro-Level Actors ...................................................................................................................... 21 iv 3.5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 22 4. Stakeholder Interest and Concerns ................................................................................................ 24 4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 24 4.2 Implementation of an International Mechanism at the RCP ............................................................ 26 4.3 The Tunnel Industry and Counter Efforts .......................................................................................... 31 4.4 Opening the RCP and Normalizing Cross-Border Relations .............................................................. 36 4.5 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 40 5. Assessment of the Main Parties’ Positions ..................................................................................... 42 5.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 42 5.2 Instituting Egyptian-Palestinian Bilateral Agreement ....................................................................... 43 5.3 Formal Cooperation between Egypt and the EU ............................................................................... 45 5.4 Borderland Security ........................................................................................................................... 48 5.6 Concluding Remarks .......................................................................................................................... 50 Appendix ......................................................................................................................................... 52 A. Fieldwork Methods.......................................................................................................................... 52 B. Identifying the Stakeholders ........................................................................................................... 53 C. Verification Method ........................................................................................................................ 53 D. Interview Questions ........................................................................................................................ 53 E. Locating the Interviewees ............................................................................................................... 53 F. Description of the Interviewees and Informants ...........................................................................
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