The “disappeared” Gaza story

*** Important Update Below ***

The Daily Alert Blog recently linked to an article Under the Gun: How the People of Gaza Feel About Hamas.

Tried the link to the original article in the National, a paper published in the United Arab Emirates?

Guess what? You can’t get to the article through any link. Or any Google search. Not even the cache. It’s been scrubbed from the National’s website.

A copy of the article exists here. And, no it’s not exactly complimentary towards Hamas, with nuggets like:

I ask him if that means the human rights situation was better under Israeli occupation that it is today for residents of both the West Bank and Gaza.

“Why do you think I ask you not use my name? Yes, 100 percent yes,” he said. “At least the occupation had a positive effect of drawing the Palestinian people together instead of dividing them. I now fear that we’re seeing a systematic effort by Hamas and its religious backers to enter every component of society.”

And

Islamic Jihad, once the closest ally of the Hamas military wing, now refuses to call their former brothers-in-arms resistance fighters. According to Abu Musab, a top Islamic Jihad commander in the Rafah refugee camp, Hamas has failed at governance and resistance alike. “There’s no government in Gaza,” he said flatly. “We’re under Israeli and Hamas occupation.”

“They are as big harami as Dahlan,” he said, using the Arabic slang for “thieves”. “They used to be mujaheddin, but today they are fat millionaires with nice cars,” he added, pointing to his flat stomach. “Look, you can either be a millionaire or you can lead a resistance. But you if you take the medical aid sent by Europe to help the poor people of Gaza and sell it in your own pharmacies to make money for yourself and the government, you can’t have both.”

At this point he pulled a packet of antibiotics from his pocket; it is stamped: “A gift of the people of Norway. Not for resale.”

“I just bought this from a Hamas-run pharmacy here in Rafah for my son,” he said. “I had to go to a Hamas pharmacy to make sure the pills weren’t fake or made from poor materials in Egypt. If you want real medicine, you have to buy the aid Europe sends us.”

(Elder of Ziyon blogged about it at the time it was originally published.)

So why did “Under the Gun” disappear? Was it pressure from Hamas?

I did a little investigating and learned for example that the UAE supports sanctions against Iran. In a letter to the International Herald Tribune the ambassador of the UAE wrote.

The United Arab Emirates has taken more vigorous actions to enforce multilateral sanctions and tighten export control laws than the editorial suggests.

The United Arab Emirates fully supports and enforces all United Nations sanctions against Iran. In addition to freezing bank accounts and financial assets of persons or entities that support proliferation and weapons development activities, the United Arab Emirates has closed down dozens of international and local companies involved in money laundering and the transshipment of dual-use materials.

This is from September 19, about the same time as Under the Gun first appeared.

This was followed by (according to an “Iranian reformist” website) with a threat:

The commander of Iran’s navy admiral Habibollah Sayari threatened neighboring UAE in the Persian Gulf with “defense” and “retaliation”. His remarks two days ago were a response to comments made by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ambassador in Washington regarding the inspection of Iranian ships. “The UAE is not significant enough to make such remarks,” Sayari told a reporter.

Sayari’s remarks are a direct response to the comment made by Yousef Al-Otaiba, the UAE ambassador to the US a few days ago when he spoke of the inspection of hundreds of ships carrying suspicious cargo to Iran by the UAE.

Did the National spike the story due to general or specific threats from Iran, perhaps out to whitewash its proxy?

UPDATE: I tried Google cache and an internal search on “Prothero” to find the article. I was unable to find it. However Barry Rubin was informed that the article’s URL changed to here. While it seems odd, the article wasn’t scrubbed, it was simply moved.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.