Not without my daughter a la Egyptienne

Yehudith Silberstein
Ma'ariv, June 19, 2007

The whole world is condemning Israel for racism, war crimes, apartheid, oppression, the death of Jesus, all the wars in the world, the sinking of the Titanic, and I suppose we may have had something to do with with the dinosaurs' extinction as well. So I can't quite figure out why Sudanese refugees are seeking asylum in Israel, why Gaza residents are not ashamed to admit that Hamas is worse than IDF, actually even worse than the Nazis, while I thought the title was reserved solely for us, or while other Gaza residents stranded at the Erez crossing are clamoring to be allowed into the West Bank. Go to Egypt! Leave us alone! Get on with your lives! Let us get on with ours! Anyway, before I whip myself into a frenzy over Hamastan and Fatahland, there's this pretty little story in today's paper, a variant of films we've already seen, such as Not without my daughter, or Desperate rescue. What I mean is that with all the badmouthing we are attracting, people are still turning to us for help. Like this Polish woman held hostage by her Egyptian in laws. Let me give you a bit of an intro: Muslim men require that their wives (four allowed, but who's counting) convert to Islam. The happy bride only needs to say a couple of times something like la-la-la -y-la-la-la and she's ready to wed, go to bed and start procreating. Now she and her children are the husband's property. Oh, she may be allowed to sod off, but the children must remain in the father's custody to be brought up as allah-fearing Muslims without ever again seeing their heart-broken loving mama, who is usually written off . The in laws play along and so do the authorities, as women, especially gullible white girls who still think of Arabs as tall, dark and handsome petrodollar princes, have no rights in Islam. But they do in Israel, even foreign women. The following drama unravelled at the Taba border crossing between Egypt and Israel.

Ten years ago an Egyptian man and a Polish girl met in the US, fell in love and got married. Eight years later, Sara, their little girl was born. But the couple was growing apart, so the husband asked his wife to go live with his parents in Egypt. He stayed in the US and travelled to Egypt every now and then to see them. The young woman couldn't get used to life in Egypt and wanted to take her daughter and leave. The husband wouldn't hear of it. He gave her back her Polish passport (gave her back her passport, the woman was a prisoner!) and said she was free to leave whenever she wished, but Sara would have to remain in Egypt. Two years later (two years, it's a prison term) the woman called her sister in Poland and asked her to help her take Sara out of Egypt.
A few days ago the sister flew to Egypt with her eight-year-old son and the two sisters left for the Sinai with their children. Sunday morning (two days ago), the women gave the little girl a haircut and dressed her up as a little boy. The aunt took Sara pretending she was her son and went to the Taba border crossing, where she told the Egyptian border guards that she and her son wanted to pay a short visit to Israel.
Once in Eilat, they spent the night in a hostel. Yesterday morning they took a taxi and asked to be driven to Taba. When they reached the border crossing, the aunt gave the driver 270 NIS (~65 USD), entrusted him with a bag, asked him to wait and went to the border terminal. The driver waited for hours, but the woman didn't return. Not knowing what to do, the taxi driver took the little girl home with him.
At 1 p.m. the mother arrived at the Israeli terminal of the Taba crossing. During the routine security check, the Israelis became suspicious and took her to the police station. It didn't take long for the woman to confess that she is a Polish citizen who had been held against her wish in Egypt and that the previous day her sister had smuggled Sara into Israel. She also told them her sister had left the little girl in the care of a taxi driver and showed them his business card. The driver was contacted and asked to bring the little girl to the police station. All the while the sister and her son were being questioned by the Egyptian police on the other side of the border.
Sara's mother was questioned by the Israeli border police all through the night. Initially, the police wanted them to return to Egypt, but began looking for a solution when they understood how dangerous the situation was. They involved the Polish embassy, the US embassy and the Israeli Foreign Ministry. The police was reluctant to handle the case on their own, because of the possibility of being accused of assisting in kidnapping a minor from her family and allowing her to be smuggled into Israel. While the mother was waiting for the official decision, the female officers took Sara girl for a walk in the park. And the little girl, with her cropped golden hair, smiled and laughed, obviously unaware of the drama unfolding around her.