What else is missing from this description? Israel “left” Gaza in 2005. Then what happened? Did Gaza take the billions in aid it received from donor nations and build itself into a new Abu Dhabi? Or did Hamas use the abandoned Jewish settlements of Gaza as launching pads for rocket attacks on civilians inside Israel? Who can know? Certainly not people who read Reuters.

Goldberg refers to the omissions as a sign of bias. Instapundit disagrees:

The term “bias” suggests that they report things based on their prejudices. But while that’s often true, I think it’s become clear that they report things based on political calculation, and an effort to deceive.

There’s another point worth mentioning: How much of a blockade is really in effect? After observing that Israel does allow a lot of “basic goods” into Gaza, Israel Matzav notes:

Some ‘blockade.’ The only things they keep out are the things Hamas could turn into weapons.

This is consistent with a quote I found last year.

One man interviewed by Mr. Eranger claims that the Israeli military seems to know the difference between the two kinds of tunnels:

Muhammad al-Zarb said that the Israelis somehow seemed to know which tunnels were commercial and which were run by Hamas, and that they seemed to be selective in their bombing. “If someone has a tunnel for Chipsy, it seems O.K.,” he said. “When a Hamas guy has a tunnel for weapons, they bomb it.”

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The 150-meter-long tunnel was discovered by Palestinian Authority security forces on Monday and was immediately reported to the IDF, which sent an Engineering Corps force to destroy the structure.

IDF sources and defense officials said Tuesday that the tunnel had been found empty and that it was unclear what its purpose was.

Or discouraged by this?

The Post learned on Thursday, however, that several hundred kilograms of explosives and arms were found in a branch of the tunnel and that the PA security forces confiscated it before informing the IDF of the discovery.

Israel Matzav says I should be discouraged:

Let’s stop right there for a minute. WHERE did all of those weapons go? Obviously, back to the ‘Palestinians’ who put them there, which shows us all the limits of ‘Palestinian’ cooperation with the IDF and the security forces

Plus he shares some informed speculation what the purpose of the tunnel was.

This is the second recent escalation in the business of tunneling. Hmm, will the PA follow the lead of Hamas and start regulating them?

Seriously though, this suggests that Hamas is exporting its tunneling technology to PA areas.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Gaza’s smugglers are going legit: Owners of the scores of tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border have registered with the Hamas authorities, pledged to pay workers’ compensation and hooked up their operations to the electricity network.

The once clandestine business has come out into the open. In one place, dozens of large tents, each marking a tunnel work site, were pitched just yards from an Egyptian watchtower beyond the border wall.

Elder of Ziyon who follows the tunnel industry actually had this story first.

Mere Rhetoric puts things a little differently from the way I did.

First of all: there are economists in Gaza, which is just how it was in Auschwitz right? More to the point: combine this with Hamas’s new online terror course and you kind of have to admit that they’ve gone from being a ragtag bunch of genocidal lunatics to being a well-organized cadre of genocidal lunatics:

I wonder if these new safety rules will apply to the north Gaza tunnels too?

Somehow, I don’t think that Hamas is building tunnels to smuggle in supplies from Israel. It sounds more like they want another few Gilad Shalits.

This news coming on the heels of Khaled Meshaal’s comment that Israel is “unreliable.” Of course, Hamas is suffering from a decline in popularity, so perhaps Hamas is demanding more for Shalit and Israel is balking, which would be motivating Hamas to up the ante.

All speculation of course. But it would seem to fit recent events.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.