By Stan Goodenough
Nov 30, 2005
Well that didn?t take long. Just days after Israel ? under intense US pressure ? relinquished full control of the crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt to the Arabs, the Palestinian Authority allowed a Hamas terrorist exiled by Israel to enter the area.
Fadel Zahar, a senior member of the Hamas terror gang, and brother of Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, walked across from Egypt Tuesday, 15 years after Israel banished him from all areas under Jerusalem?s control.
The PA?s prompt abuse of its newly acquired power triggered what analysts suggest will be just the first of numerous empty threats by the Israeli government, which warned it would seal the crossings from Gaza into the rest of Israel unless the ?Palestinians? rapidly cleaned up their act.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said Wednesday that the PA should quickly improve its operation of the Gaza-Egypt border or face a situation in which the Erez and Karni crossings from the Strip ?into? Israel would become ?international crossings in all senses.?
??I really hope the Palestinians [sic] understand the significance of this step,? he cautioned.
Ha?aretz explained that such a move would render Judea, Samaria and Gaza no longer part of a customs union with Israel, ?a step that could devastate the struggling Palestinian economy.?
The debacle comes after the Sharon government crumbled under pressure from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice earlier this month, after the visiting American rode herd on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, pushing him to acquiesce to Arab and international demands that the PA be granted full control of its side of the Gaza-Egypt frontier.
Under the terms of the Rice-brokered agreement, European observers were to be stationed at the crossing in order to ?ensure? that terrorists and their arms would not be allowed into Gaza.
Sharon agreed to Rice?s demands, against the advice of Israeli intelligence officials ? who warned that trained Arab killers and increasingly sophisticated weaponry whose purpose was to mass murder Jews would find a way into the Strip and, from there, to Arab population centers in Judea and Samaria.
As Rice left the Middle East, doubtless with words of praise from the White House ringing in her ears, the EU deployed its ?observers? to the crossing and Israel placed its security in their hands.