Four years ago, Ahmed Aboul Gheit replaced Ahmed Maher as the foreign minister of Egypt, after the latter left his post after being assaulted by Palestinians in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Mosque [Jerusalem]. Ironically, the former foreign minister who used to describe himself as more enthusiastic than the Palestinians themselves, left his office beaten and saddened, while Hamas’s skirmishes with the Egyptians continue with the Palestinian movement blaming the Egyptians for everything without placing any blame on its allies, the Syrians and Hezbollah, and not even on its Israeli enemy.

Ahmed Aboul Gheit entered the foreign ministry two years prior to the 1967 war, and has served under late presidents Gamal Abdul Nasser and Anwar Sadat, and the current Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He knows the realities of politics well, which is not mentioned in the media.

The difference between Aboul Gheit and Maher is that the former courageously stood against Hamas’s criticism of Egypt. He recently revealed to the world that Hamas is preventing the wounded from crossing into Egypt. Many considered this deliberate propaganda from Egypt aiming to tarnish Hamas’s reputation until a Hamas official came out and admitted that Hamas really did prevent the wounded from crossing into Egypt, bragging that it was waiting for Egypt to open the crossing permanently. This is shameful and it is a scandal that was revealed by the Egyptian foreign minister that caused Hamas to admit this publicly. Hamas then retracted its comments, saying that it did not stop the wounded after all.

With all the bombing, the blood of the wounded and the pictures of the dead, it is difficult for one to consider what is happening to the people of Gaza as anything other than a real humanitarian tragedy, as a result of a war between two sides of disproportionate strength, a war between an elephant and an ant.

Aboul Gheit, who has had enough, single-handedly fought the campaign of lies that has been propagated by Hamas and its affiliates over the past few days. Hamas, which continuously issued threats against the Israeli enemy should it attack the Gaza Strip, is yet to act in the face of this aggression. It only had one failed excuse; that Egypt tricked Hamas by saying that Israel would not attack. This is unbelievable, and even if it were true it cannot be relied upon. For whoever read or watched Israeli official statements over the past two weeks, it was clear it intended to attack.

Aboul Gheit was enraged by Hamas’s claim that Egypt was reassuring it when everybody knew that Israel was sharpening its knives. He said that we [Egypt] had warned them and we sent them messages but they rejected them.

The truth is that Hamas does not want to take responsibility for the crisis, as it has found that attacking Egypt is the best defence policy in the context of the ongoing battle that has lasted for months at the hands of the Syrian and Iranian allies against Egypt.

Therefore, we must blame Hamas because its goals are clear. It seeks a battle with Israel, and doesn’t care about the results even if it means Israel annihilates Gaza, and this is what its prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh said. Hamas wants a fight to put pressure on Arab countries to take action in its favour. It wants to appoint itself as a political power in spite of the Palestinian Authority based on the pretext of confronting the enemy and it doesn’t care how many Palestinians are killed in the process.

With the exception of the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, everybody is standing behind Hamas that has starved 1.5 million Palestinians for months and has led them to destruction today. Stupidly, Hamas is launching rockets towards Israel and Israel is responding with bloody attacks so everybody is forced to remain silent about what Hamas has done so as not to be accused of siding with Israel.

Minister Aboul Gheit is facing the mob of Arabs alone and the political organisation wants to settle its accounts with the blood of Palestinians.