There was something odd about this article in the Washington Post, In Search for Peace, a Shrinking White House Role. It starts:
When Palestinians broke through the barrier dividing the Gaza Strip and Egypt in January and streamed across the border by the tens of thousands, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak faced a moment of crisis. His phone soon rang, but the world leader offering help on the other end was not President Bush — it was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mubarak took the call, resulting in the first such contact between leaders of the two nations since relations were severed nearly three decades ago.
It looks more and more as if Egypt and the rest of the Arab world are looking for war, not for peace.
The breach in the Gaza-Egypt border fence, appeared to be a continuation of an effort by Hamas aided by Egypt and Saudi Arabia and probably coordinated with Iran to upgrade Hamas’s offensive capabilities.
Let’s go back to the beginning of the hajj. Israeli had coordinated with the PA to allow a select group of pilgrims cross through Erez into Israel and continue on to the hajj. Egypt had other ideas as Ha’aretz reported at the time.
The news from the Rafah border crossing earlier this week astounded the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. They had arranged with Israel to allow some 2,000 Palestinians from Gaza to go to Saudi Arabia via the Kerem Shalom and Allenby Bridge border crossings for the hajj celebrations.But Cairo apparently had different plans. The Egyptians allowed 700 Palestinians on Monday and 1,300 on Tuesday to cross the border into Sinai, where buses were waiting to take them to Saudi Arabia.
at the end, the report observed:
Indeed, it seems that despite Egypt’s repeated assertions of its uncompromising war on Hamas and Gaza terror organizations, Cairo and especially Egyptian intelligence officials prefer to keep normal relations with Hamas, even at Abbas’ expense.
The first grad (a modified katyusha with longer range than a qassam) rocket was fired at Ashkelon shortly after the return of the Gazans from hajj. This confirmed Israeli fears that the hajj ploy was used to bring terrorists and materiel into Gaza.
Once that worked, Hamas successfully breached the border fence with Egypt. (The efforts to breach the border fence had been going on for a while.) This allowed a transfer of arms and terrorists into Gaza again. (I was incorrect in my speculation that the terrorists who committed the Dimona terror attack came from Egypt.)
The increased rocket attacks aimed at Ashkelon demonstrate the effectiveness of Hamas’s border breaches. Israel, for too long, tolerated the attacks on Sderot. But with a much greater number of people at risk, Israel has had no choice but to act.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
What would be wrong with simply bulldozing an acre of the Gaza Strip for each rocket launched? Either the rocket-firing would stop, or after a time, the Gaza would no longer exist.
Bob, I’ve been advocating that approach for some time – but it would require the government of Israel to show some spine, the lack of which is the real problem right now.