Now That Hamas Has Smuggled in Enough Arms, Egypt Closes the Border

Egypt has now allegedly sealed its border with Hamastan, after first making sure Hamas had sufficient time to transfer a large number of trained terrorists and large amounts of weaponry into Gaza.

We include excerpts from three separate articles:

•'Hamas smuggled advanced arms'
•'Border breach won't happen again'
•Egypt closes Rafah border

We include some of our own bracketed and generally sarcastic comments.

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Hamas's breach of the security fence along the Egypt-Gaza border has resulted in the smuggling of a large amount of advanced weaponry, including long-range rockets, anti-tank missiles, and anti-aircraft missiles, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) head Yuval Diskin said in his briefing to ministers during Sunday's cabinet meeting.

In a sobering assessment of the situation, Diskin said that the breach also allowed dozens of operatives from all of the different terror organizations in Syria, Iran, and Egypt to infiltrate into Gaza. He said that these operatives were likely trained in Iran, and crossed the border with the aim of upgrading terror attacks against Israel.

[This isn't much of a surprise. This was the real purpose of Hamas' operation.]

The Shin Bet chief also talked about the tenuous balance of power between Hamas and Fatah, saying that in recent months it has tipped in Hamas's favor. Referring to a survey which was conducted at Al-Najah University in Nablus, Diskin said that Hamas now enjoys 16% support amongst the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza combined, up from 13 percent in November, 2007. Conversely, Fatah's popularity fell from 44% in November, to 38 percent today.

[One of the ironies of the Palestinian Authority's combination of corruption and incompetence is that it continually acts against its own interests. Had it adhered to its commitments under Oslo and the Roadmap, Hamas would never have been able to take over. Even if if acted as it did in reneging in its commitments, if it had not stood in the way of Israel's anti-terror efforts, it would still be in power in Hamastan.

Now, even its minimal role in Ramallah is in jeopardy, yet it continues to strengthen Hamas.]

…

Speaking about the noticeable drop in Kassam rocket attacks in the past week, Diskin warned that it was not due to a change in Hamas policy, but rather a result of the group being distracted by all of the activity surrounding the breach in the security wall.

[Now that they have imported immense quantities of weaponry and gotten an infusion of Iranian-trained terrorists, we can expect Hamas to ramp up its terror attacks.

We can also, of course, expect Israel to be condemned for whatever it does to defend itself and its citizens.

Naturally, none of those criticizing Israel will suggest any realistic alternatives.]

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Egypt will resist any fresh attempts by the Palestinians to breach its border with Gaza, warned a presidential spokesman Sunday blaming the Palestinians, Israel and the European Union for last month's crisis on its frontiers with Gaza.

[It's always convenient to have a scapegoat.

It would have been relatively easy for Egypt to have prevented all the weapons smuggling that occurred even before the barrier was breached, even without the extra forces it got through an unnecessary modification of its treaty with Israel. It just found it more convenient to help Hamas bleed Israel.

Like the PA, Egypt continues to act against its real interests. The border breach effectuated a cross-polination of terrorists, with Iranian-trained terrorists crossing from Egypt into Gaza but with a number of Palestinian Arab terrorists infiltrating Egypt. Most will try to attack Israel, but some will perpetuate terror attacks in Egypt.]

Suleiman Awwad, a spokesman for President Hosni Mubarak said Egypt allowed the Palestinians to cross the border because of their "humanitarian sufferings" and the breaching of the frontier was a "reaction against the Israeli siege," he told reporters after a meeting between the president and the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

[If there was a siege, then Egypt participated in it.

Of course, there was no siege; even when it restricted fuel and other deliveries, Israel never had any control over what was transferred from Egypt to Hamastan and continued to provide power and make sure there was no humanitarian crisis.]

"That will not happen again, never," Awwad said. "Egypt is a respected state, its border cannot be breached and its soldiers should not be lobbed with stones," he said.

[One can only laugh at that absurd statement. If its border cannot be breached (now), then why was it breached in the first place.]

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"The Palestinians' sufferings cannot continue, the Israeli practices cannot continue, the ball is now in the court of the EU and Hamas," said Awwad.

[The Palestinian Arabs will continue to suffer as long as they insist on war rather than peace.]

After his talks with the Arab League chief Amr Moussa, Solana said the EU is ready to resume its role on the crossing. "We are ready to continue work in case, there is an agreement," said Solana.

Solana is leaving later in the day to Tel Aviv for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Israel has blockaded Gaza since it was taken over by the hard-line Hamas group in June. Last month, Israel tightened the sanctions in response to a spike in rocket fire, restricting some humanitarian supplies that had previously been allowed in and cutting off the trickle of commercial goods still making it into Gaza from Israel.

[Israel has not blockaded Gaza; it doesn't even have a presence on Gaza's border with Egypt.

It has, as is its right, tried to control passage between Israel and Hamastan.]

Last week, Hamas operatives broke open the blockade by blowing up the partition along Gaza's border with Egypt. The breach allowed hundreds of thousands of Gazans free access to Egypt, where they purchased huge supplies of food and fuel.

Under a US-brokered agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, the crossing was operated by Egypt and the Palestinians, with EU monitors deployed on the Palestinian side. During Hamas' takeover, the Europeans fled and Hamas took over the terminal.

[As usual, counting on third parties proved to be counterproductive.]

In talks in Cairo this week, Egyptian officials failed to convince both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leaders to end their rivalry so that they could cooperate in running the crossing.

[Hamas and Fatah hate each other almost as much as they hate Israel.]

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Egyptian troops closed the last breach in Egypt's frontier with the Gaza Strip on Sunday morning, witnesses and Hamas security officials said, bringing to an end a week and a half of free movement for Gazans.

The troops were allowing Gazans and Egyptians who remained on the wrong side of the border to cross back, the witnesses and officials said, but had stopped allowing any new cross-border movement.

[Having supervised the transfer of sufficient arms and operatives to the terrorists in Hamastan, it was time for Egypt to pretend it was a responsible party.]

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After severely rebuking Hamas leaders for their movement's role in tearing down the metal wall separating the Gaza Strip and Egypt, the Egyptians decided over the weekend to completely reseal the border and stop the influx of Palestinians into Sinai.

[See above.]

Hamas said it would "cooperate" with Egyptian efforts to close the border. Senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar called on Palestinians not to resort to violence against Egyptian border guards.

[With all the weapons it could get already in Gaza, Hamas had no more need for an open border.]

Israeli defense officials expressed satisfaction with Egypt's decision to seal off the border but predicted that violence would erupt between Egyptian security forces and Hamas gunmen. The officials said 17 openings had been blown in the fence and that it was unlikely that Hamas would stand as Egypt closed them.

[This is not unlikely, since there is little honor among thieves.]

The officials said that as long as the border was open, terrorists would continue to try to infiltrate Sinai to attack tourist sites in the desert or along the Israeli-Egyptian border.

[The terrorists are undoubtedly already in place, so no longer is there a need for the open border.]

On Friday, OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Yoav Galant beefed up forces in border-area communities, in case terrorists try to infiltrate Israel. One of the concerns is that Palestinian terrorists will try to abduct an Israeli into Sinai and then to Gaza.

[At which point Israel will be condemned for trying to get whomever is abducted back safely.]

The officials said that while Israel was not part of the talks on the closure of the border, the defense establishment was in favor of the Hamas declaration earlier Saturday that Gaza would receive fuel and electricity from Egypt instead of from Israel.

"This would be great," one defense official said. "We have no interest in continuing to supply them with anything and prefer that they get what they need from Egypt."

[Egypt should not only supply Hamastan with whatever it needs, it should take it over again, as it had between 1948 and 1967, but this time it should not only occupy Gaza but annex it.]

Egypt's decision to close the border came after government officials in Cairo held separate talks last week with Hamas and Fatah leaders. The talks ended in failure as both Palestinian movements stuck to their original positions, sources close to the two parties said.

Hamas rejected Fatah's demand to redeploy forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at the Rafah border crossing in accordance with a US-brokered agreement that was reached in 2005.

Hamas also rejected the return of European monitors to the terminal, insisting that the border should be controlled only by Palestinians and Egyptians.

[Even ineffective monitors somewhat impede the flow of weapons to terrorists.]

However, Muhammad Naser, a member of the Hamas delegation to the Cairo talks, said his movement would agree to the presence of international monitors at the border on condition that they live in the Gaza Strip or Egypt. He noted that the European Union monitors who were stationed at the border crossing until Hamas took over the Strip in June had lived in Israel.

[Few consider the hypocrisy of simultaneously complaining about Israel not transferring goods into Gaza while Gaza boycotts Israel.]

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Also Saturday, following a week of relative quiet in Sderot and other Gaza-border communities, four Kassam rockets slammed into the western Negev. Two children were evacuated to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon in shock and with ringing in their ears. The rockets struck open fields at the entrance to Sderot. On Thursday, two rockets were fired into the Negev.

[Now that they've supplied their armories, it's time for Hamas to get back to the serious business of murdering Jews.]