By Stan Goodenough
Oct 29, 2007
The European Union, which sits silently by as Kassam rockets are daily fired from the Gaza Strip in Arab efforts to kill, maim or just terrorize Jews, has been quick to vent its feelings about the Israeli defense establishment's implementation of a fuel boycott on Gaza.
Instead of carpet-bombing the Strip, firing missiles back in response, or simply sending its troops and citizens back in to restore Israeli control over the territory and rebuild Gush Katif and the other destroyed Jewish communities - as a truly Zionist government would have done - the Olmert administration decided last week to gradually boycott Gaza's Arabs until the rocket and mortar firing stops.
The amount of gasoline and diesel delivered to Gaza has been reduced, and electricity may be reduced too, depending on the outcome of an Israeli court hearing of a petition against a power cut.
While Israel continues to allow into the area the unimpeded flow of money to pay Palestinian Authority employees, the goods crossings into Gaza will soon be reduced to just one, which will limit the number of trucks that can take in supplies.
Jerusalem's soft approach is too harsh for the gentile powers.
Visiting EU commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner Monday let journalists know that Israel's leaders would soon be hearing her feelings on the matter.
"I think collective punishment is never a solution, she said sanctimoniously, ignoring the facts that a) Gaza's Palestinian Arabs in majority support the ongoing attacks on Jewish targets and b) the Palestinian Arabs' organizations always and only direct indiscriminate terrorism against Israel's Jews.
Ferrero-Waldner apparently did not consider it worthwhile letting the Palestinian Arab leadership - Hamas and Fatah - know that the EU expected them to put an immediate end to the Kassam firings so that the innocent among their people would not be affected.
It is feared that pressuring the PA in this way will undermine what little authority PLO/PA chief Mahmoud Abbas still has.