Egypt flooded Hamas tunnels (and more) - and the world shrugged

From Reuters:

Israel has assembled a large system of pumps that may be used to flood tunnels used by militant group Hamas under the Gaza strip in a bid to drive out fighters, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing U.S. officials.

Around the middle of November, Israel's army completed the set-up of at least five pumps about a mile north of the Al-Shati refugee camp that could move thousands of cubic meters of water per hour, flooding the tunnels within weeks, the report said.

It was not clear whether Israel would consider using the pumps before all hostages were released, according to the story. Hamas has previously said it has hidden captives in "safe places and tunnels."

It is instructive to look at 2015, when Egypt did the same thing to destroy the smuggling tunnels under Rafah to Gaza.

At the time, mainstream media criticism was quite muted. Egypt's government obviously hated Hamas, linked to the despised Muslim Brotherhood, The flooding was meant to hurt Hamas economically as a large part of its revenue stream at the time came from taxing goods illegally smuggled through those tunnels.

Al Jazeera and other pro-Hamas news sites were more critical, saying that the flooding would damage groundwater supplies, houses could be destroyed by landslides caused by the collapsing tunnels, and the people whose livelihoods depended on smuggling would be hurt. 

And it wasn't only seawater. Some reports say that Egypt pumped poison gas or deadly chemicals into the tunnels. And "human rights groups" were silent.

The funny thing about the coverage is that while Gazans were upset, they emphasized that they still loved their brothers in Egypt - who were trying to destroy their economy. 

For Bakeer, 61, the fact that Egypt, once a gateway to the world for Gaza's 1.8 million Palestinians, was behind his family's suffering, was particularly painful.

"We respect our neighbors, we love Egypt, but our neighbors are making our life harder," he said in his one-storey unfinished cinder block house, around which water seeps and cracks in the ground are growing wider.

If Israel decides to do it, though, we will see the "undrinkable water" and "landslide" narratives to be far more prevalent than in 2015. There will also be one word dominating the coverage that no one heard in 2015: "genocide."  Because when Jews do something, even with far more care not to damage things than Egypt ever would, they are always  much more guilty.

I don't recall any investigations by human rights groups into these accusations, which would be clear war crimes. 

It is fascinating to see how Egypt, which refuses to allow Gazans safe haven, is  still regarded by Gazans as their friends. 

Because they aren't Jewish.

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