Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Abbas to Israel: Seal Off the Gaza Strip

According to a reliable report published in Haaretz, Palestinian Authority Chairman "Mahmoud Abbas asked Israel and Egypt to prevent the movement of people from Egypt to the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, after Hamas' mid-June takeover of the coastal strip."

Since Israel has no presence at the Rafah crossing, having pulled completely out of Gaza years ago, Israel itself can't control movement through it, but it's revealing that the PA is now asking Israel to do just what it used to lash out at Israel for allegedly doing.

Not surprisingly, "Abbas and a number of his aides asked that the request not be made public" and Saeb Erekat is now denying the request was made.

While Israel can and does try to control movement between Israel and the Gaza Strip (it is the right of every sovereign nation to control passage through its borders), the Rafah Crossing is between Egypt and Gaza and has been a virtual sieve, allowing a river of weapons and terrorists to flow into Gaza ever since Israel completely left Gaza.

That reality never stopped Abbas and other Palestinian Arabs and their knee jerk supporters from unfairly blasting Israel for allegedly sealing off Gaza. Had Egypt upheld its end of the bargain made when Israel agreed to allow additional Egyptian forces in the Sinai, the weapons and terrorists would not have flowed from Egypt to Sinai and Hamas would probably not have been able to win the recent battle in the civil war within the Palestinian Authority and taken over the Gaza Strip.

Besides terrorism, hypocrisy is something Israel's enemies have never shied away from.

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