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Peace Process

Gaza border deal disintegrates, already

US bulldozed through ill-advised agreement, promising Israel security


By Ryan Jones
February 08, 2006

Israelis were told when they surrendered control of the Gaza-Sinai border that the deal they had reached with the Palestinian Authority and Egypt would prevent the entrance of any known and dangerous terrorists into the Gaza Strip, placing them within striking range of the nation's Jews.

The Israelis were lied to.

An extensive probe by the leftist Hebrew daily Ha'aretz has revealed that despite the Rafah Crossing agreement, Israel has virtually no say over who enters Gaza.

Explaining that Israeli supervision of the crossing relies on a list of entrants supplied by the PA and video footage from the Rafah terminal, Ha'aretz's Amos Harel reported:

?The lists are sent to the Israelis only a short time before the Palestinians cross into Gaza, allowing little time to check for blacklisted names... and the [video footage is] generally small and too blurry to allow for identification.?

A security official who spoke to Harel told of the difficulty in stemming the influx of terrorist manpower, know-how and weaponry:

?Our people have a few minutes to link a low-quality picture with a name that might ring a warning bell... The bottom line is that the security effectiveness of this arrangement is close to zero.?

Indeed, several known terrorists associated with Hamas and other ?Palestinian? terror groups have entered Gaza in recent months. Not one person has been stopped at the border since Israel left the area.

And with Hamas soon to take over control of the PA, the situation is poised to only get worse.

Israel was strong-armed into accepting the less than adequate security arrangements by its allies in Washington back in November as the international community grew impatient waiting for Jerusalem to complete its surrender of Gaza.

Speaking to The New York Times in September, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Washington intended to press Israel to allow unfettered passage through the Gaza border.

As the deal was being signed a month later, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman and senior Likud MK Yuval Steinitz said:

?Israel was pressured into opening up the crossings before we were ready; we gave in to pressure from the Americans.?

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