Leader
Thursday January 24, 2008
The Guardian
"If you bottle up 1.5 million people in a territory 25 miles long and six miles wide, and turn off the lights, as Israel has done in Gaza, the bottle will burst. This is what happened yesterday when tens of thousands of Gazans poured into Egypt to buy food, fuel and supplies after militants destroyed two-thirds of the wall separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt. It was the biggest jail break in history.
But it was also a reply to the argument that the only way to stop Qassam rockets falling on the Israeli town of Sderot and the western Negev is to turn the screw still further. One side of the vessel has now shattered. So much for the strategy of trying to contain Gazans. Jordan and Egypt, two Arab states with formal peace treaties with Israel, are furious - not least the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak who is under pressure to sever ties with Israel.....
Nor has Israel's policy of escalation in response to provocation done anything to bolster its Palestinian partners, President Mahmoud Abbas and the prime minister, Salam Fayyad...... The break-out has allowed Mr Fayyad's rival Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas in Damascus and its leading hawk, to say that the militant group is prepared to work with its brothers in Egypt and in Ramallah (the Palestinian Authority) to lift the siege of Gaza. If there are any permanent changes to the crossing with Egypt, Hamas not Fatah will get the credit......"
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