By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
Nov 15, 2005
Visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Tuesday strong armed Israel into prematurely surrendering control of the dangerously porous border between the Gaza Strip and the Egyptian Sinai to the PLO, 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,? said Steinitz, who also chairs the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Rice managed to extract in a matter of days an Israeli security concession the international community, through Quartet envoy James Wolfensohn, had been pushing for for months.
According to the deal, Israel will be provided a video feed from the Rafah Crossing, and any dispute that arises over the passage of an individual into Gaza will be settled by European monitors stationed at the border.
Gazan Arabs will also be permitted to travel between the coastal strip and Judea-Samaria in bus convoys.
The lack of a physical Israeli presence on the Gaza-Sinai border is an invitation for ?Palestinian? and Egyptian violation of the new agreement, and a fresh influx of terrorist arms, many in Israel fear.
The decision ?to grant the Palestinians a safe harbor in Gaza and a safe crossing from Gaza to the West Bank constitutes a danger to Israel,? former finance minister and prime ministerial candidate Binyamin Netanyahu told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
?The result will be that plenty of weapons will find their way to Gaza, Kassam and mortar rockets will be transferred to Judea and Samaria and fired at Israel from the region,? he warned.
The Yesha Council, which until August represented the Jews of Gaza, reacted by saying, ?Israel is repeating its mistakes from the Oslo Agreement and is leaving its safety in the hands of the Palestinians and Egyptians, which is like leaving the cat to watch over the milk or wolves to watch prey.?
In a statement that sounded suspiciously like an early bit of electioneering, Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz said the border deal is a direct ?consequence of my visits to Egypt and the United States.?
Reporting on the breakthrough, The Australian asserted that Rice, who delayed her departure from the Middle East by a day and reportedly worked through the night to secure the agreement ?appeared to have staked her foreign policy credentials on a deal over Gaza, which is seen by the US and the Arab world as a pivotal step in moving towards a two-state solution.?