By Ryan Jones
Mar 22, 2006
As pointed out in an editorial by The Jerusalem Post Tuesday, this week's flip-flopping at Gaza's Karni Crossing demonstrated the difficult position in which Israel finds itself when choosing between the defense of its citizens and the welfare of even its most avowed enemies.
For the past several weeks, Karni, described as "Gaza's lifeline," has been closed due to a flood of intelligence warnings of planned "Palestinian" terror attacks there.
But amid growing international concerns of a looming humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and despite ongoing terror warnings, Israel unexpectedly opened Karni for short periods on both Monday and Tuesday.
Attempting to cut to the heart of the matter, the Post asked:
"If the threat to Karni was manageable to the extent that the crossing could be opened even intermittently, then why was it not opened, even briefly, over the past few weeks? If, however, the threat was too grave, then why has it been opened now?"
The actions of Israel's current leadership demonstrate "irresolution and muddled thinking," according to the paper.
Unsurprisingly, this internal struggle that often leads Israel to risk the lives of its own people for the welfare of its enemies is consistently ignored by the international community as it rails against the suffering of the Palestinian Arabs. That Israel's behavior is in stark contrast to that of it's Arab neighbors, or that it represents a risk the "offended" Western nations would never take with their own people is apparently irrelevant.
But, as the Post pointed out, this open, if not disregarded, display of over-generous humanitarian goodwill by Israel is also the reason crossing points such as Karni are prime targets for the terrorists.
Better to erase any evidence that the Jews really are a peace-loving and decent people than to risk the world waking up to that fact.