Speaking today at a mosque, Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told worshipers that he is “confident” that new Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi will shield the strip from future Israeli invasions and will fully open the border to trade.
“We are confident that Egypt, the revolution led by Mursi, will never provide cover for any new aggression or war on Gaza,” said Haniyeh. Mursi’s election was followed by major celebrations in Gaza, anticipating the change.
But while officials say that there has been some increase in traffic out of the Gaza Strip since Mursi took office, they say it is simply the usual seasonal change and that no actual policy shift has taken place so far.
And it might not be happening any time soon, as one diplomat said, because “the man has a million domestic problems to handle at home” and the Gaza Strip is likely to be fairly low on the list compared to his attempts to restore parliament and reconcile with the military junta.
Besieged Palestinian Gaza is an experiment in provocation. Stuff one and a half million people into a tiny space, stifle their access to water, electricity, food and medical treatment, destroy their livelihoods, and humiliate them regularly…and, surprise, surprise – they turn hostile. Now why would you want to make that experiment? Because the hostility you provoke is the whole point. Now under attack you can cast yourself as the victim, and call out the helicopter gunships and the F16 attack fighters and the heavy tanks and the guided missiles, and destroy yet more of the pathetic remains of infrastructure that the Palestinian state still has left. And then you can point to it as a hopeless case, unfit to govern itself, a terrorist state, a state with which you couldn't possibly reach an accommodation. And then you can carry on with business as usual, quietly stealing their homeland.
Well said.
USrael should be perished from the page of time. I wonder who said that.
Gaza must be reopened out of decency.