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Following are excerpts from an interview with retired Egyptian general Hussam Sweilem, which aired on Al-Al-Mihwar TV on February 6, 2008.
General Hussam Sweilem: The most important issue today is the organized crime that came from across the border. This is a violation of Egypt's sanctity, a transgression of its borders, which [Hamas] has called "the great raid." They called the transgression of our borders "a raid"...
Interviewer: Who did?
General Hussam Sweilem: Those Hamas members from Hamastan.
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Interviewer: Why is it a crime, if these people came to buy medical supplies, and to look for food?
General Hussam Sweilem: How would you explain that the people who got into Egypt... We allowed them in, but they violated Egypt's sanctity, and entered our country with bulldozers, and then with men wearing masks from the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades... Those are Hamas members, not the Palestinian people... But it was completely organized. It was organized four months ago, not now.
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How can I sympathize with people who smuggled into Egypt cars with explosives belts, weapons, ammunitions, and explosive devices? How can I sympathize with a man with an explosives belt at Bani Sweif? What's he planning to do with his explosives belt there? Two [Palestinians] were arrested with explosives at Bani Sweif. What, they were going to fight the Jews at Bani Sweif? Is this proper Islamic behavior, with which I can sympathize, when they break into homes of women at Al-'Arish and Rafah, and attack Egyptian women for not allowing them to sleep in their homes? Who would allow a stranger to break into his home, when there are women there? How can I sympathize with someone who detonated an explosives device in Rafah? How can I sympathize with them, when after taking all the goods from the shops of the Egyptians, they paid with counterfeit dollars?
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I sympathize with the people, but not with Hamas, because this was a criminal act. They should get it into their heads that the road to Jerusalem does not pass through Al-'Arish.
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[Khaled Mash'al said] that the Palestinian refugees who entered Al-'Arish would only leave Egypt to the liberated and independent Palestine. They are talking about a Palestine from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, not to a Palestine with the 1967 borders. They would only leave to a liberated and independent Palestine, and they would only return [to Palestine] along with all the refugees living in Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq. So they got in, and they will not leave before the Palestinian issue is resolved, Palestine is liberated and Israel is driven into the sea.
Interviewer: How many years will it take?
General Hussam Sweilem: It depends on their ability to launch Qassam rockets... Mash'al also said that the attempt to get the Palestinians out of the Nahr Al-Bared refugee camp failed. Nahr Al-Bared in Lebanon is where Fath Al-Islam attacked the Lebanese army. He is implying that our attempts to get the Palestinians back to Gaza will also fail. This is nonsense, uttered by a man who is hallucinating. He also said that if a Palestinian sets up a tent anywhere, nobody on the face of the earth would be able to force him to take it out. That's just great! Nobody would be able to take it out... Do you know what the size of Palestine was in the Partition Resolution of 1949? The Palestinians got 55% of the land, and Israel got 45%. Today, Israel controls 70% of the land of Palestine. They didn't just uproot tents – they uprooted the entire Palestinian people.
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If you recall, before Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, Fatah was present in South Lebanon. Do you know what they used to call it? "Fatahland." Now they want to establish a "Hamasland" in Al-'Arish.
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The only thing that interests Hamas is to establish what it calls the "Islamic Emirate" in Gaza, even if only on the 360 square kilometers of Gaza. 'Issam Al-'Arian [of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood] said that sooner or later, Hamas would take over the West Bank, which is now controlled by the Palestinian Authority from Ramallah, and thus, Hamas would control the area that the PA and Fatah control now. 'Issam Al-'Arian, the political advisor of the Muslim brotherhood, said this recently. You must understand that the main issue is the establishment of an Islamic mini-state, or an emirate, east of Egypt, and I don't want to talk about what the Muslim Brotherhood does on the West.
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Interviewer: I have doubts about [Mash'al's] mental stability if he says they should stay in Egypt for 50 years, and return with the refugees...
General Hussam Sweilem: That is nonsense, uttered by somebody who has lost his mind. Unfortunately, some Egyptians sympathize with all this, and say: Why not let them in? Why not let them stay in Sinai? Why not give them food and drink? According to this logic, he has the right to do so.
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Egypt must build a defensive fence with depth – not a simple fence like there is now, but several fences, one after the other, in order to prevent the recurrence of what happened on January 23. We must completely prevent this. We must be able to protect ourselves if these things recur in the future. We must be suspicious toward Hamas and all the extremist religious organizations around Egypt. Do not forget that in 1995, we didn't take seriously Hassan Al-Turabi's extremist religious regime south of Egypt [in Sudan]. What was the outcome? They threatened to cut off the water of the Nile, they sent trucks full of weapons from Sudan to Egypt, and they demanded to annex Halaeb and Shalatin. Do you remember this? We sent our forces to deal with that. Then there was the assassination attempt on President Mubarak in Addis Ababa. All this happened because we didn't take seriously the extremist religious regimes bordering with us. What happened in Sudan is happening again, with an extremist religious regime [in Gaza], which wants to establish an Islamic emirate. We know that Hassan Al-Turabi had an Islamic party in Sudan. That is exactly what Hamas is doing. They want to establish an Islamic emirate. This must not be allowed!
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