US to press Israel on Gaza border

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By Ryan Jones
September 14, 2005

Washington wants Israel to drop its demands regarding the Rafiah crossing point in southern Gaza, this despite the fact that Jerusalem's surrender of the Gaza-Sinai border is already proving a dangerous mistake.

In an interview with the New York Times Tuesday, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush Administration intends to press Israel to allow unfettered ?Palestinian? passage through the PA-controlled border town of Rafiah.

Israel wants all traffic coming into Gaza, especially cargo, to travel through a new three-way terminal where the borders of Gaza, Sinai and Israel meet at Kerem Shalom.

But Rice says dropping that condition will immediately debunk Palestinian Authority claims that Gaza remains under occupation.

Israel, however, fears Rafiah will become an open gateway through which terrorist arms would flow into Gaza, putting the Jews of the surrounding Negev region in even greater danger than they are today.

Events this week served to cement those fears.

As the last IDF soldiers left Gaza early Monday morning, thousands of ?Palestinians? forced their way through the border, with only token Egyptian resistance. Since then, the crossing has turned into an open passage.

Unconfirmed eyewitness accounts indicate a substantial number of illegal arms have already made their way across the border into Gaza.

PA minister Mohammed Dahlan admitted as much when he stated, ?The behavior of the Arabs was expected and therefore there was smuggling.?

Yuval Steinitz, chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, decried the situation.

?The ink that signed the terrible Philadelphia agreement has yet to dry and it has already become evident that in return for damaging the demilitarization of Sinai we got an open border for arms smugglers.?

At press time Egypt and the PA had yet to take action on repeated Israeli demands that they immediately seal the border.

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