EU Again Backs Out of Monitoring Agreement, Endangers Israeli Security
When Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and gave the Palestinians land for their own state (or, as anti-Israel spokespeople described it, "turning the Gaza Strip into a prison" - talk about lose-lose)... anyway, when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, there was a significant debate on how to deal with the Egypt-Gaza border. On one hand, Israel wanted nothing to do with the Gaza Strip any more. On the other hand, relying on the Egyptians to stop the Palestinians from smuggling arms into Gaza - international agreements to that effect notwithstanding - is laughable. So Israel made another one of those vaunted "international monitoring agreements", wherein they entrusted to European soldiers the task of monitoring the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza. Don't underestimate the significance of this agreement - weapons fired from the Gaza Strip can easily reach many of Israel's population centers, and an unsecured Rafah could easily become the main conduit for those weapons. But nevertheless, Israel put their security in European hands. Turns out, not a smart move:
For the second time in the past four months European Union monitors fled the Rafah Border Crossing, on the Gaza-Israel border, on Tuesday, for fear of being kidnapped or harmed, Palestinian sources reported... The Rafah Crossing was presently being operated by Palestinians only, which goes against the deal reached by Israel and the PA regarding the crossing, which stated that EU monitors must be present when the crossing is operational.
That first sentence is an error, by the way - Rafah is on the Gaza-Egypt border, not the Gaza-Israel border. But the rest of it is true - that crossing is not supposed to be open without the presence of EU monitors, and it is undoubtedly the case that there are terrorists taking the opportunity to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip - which is exactly what happened last time. This situation obviously can't go on indefinitely, and Israel will eventually have to take some kind of action. Now, Israel would never have left the Rafah crossing if the British hadn't agreed to monitor it. And now the British are refusing to monitor it. But Israel can't go back there and make things the same way that they would have been had the British never falsely promised to monitor the crossing - that would be a "provocation".
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
For the second time in the past four months European Union monitors fled the Rafah Border Crossing, on the Gaza-Israel border, on Tuesday, for fear of being kidnapped or harmed, Palestinian sources reported... The Rafah Crossing was presently being operated by Palestinians only, which goes against the deal reached by Israel and the PA regarding the crossing, which stated that EU monitors must be present when the crossing is operational.
That first sentence is an error, by the way - Rafah is on the Gaza-Egypt border, not the Gaza-Israel border. But the rest of it is true - that crossing is not supposed to be open without the presence of EU monitors, and it is undoubtedly the case that there are terrorists taking the opportunity to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip - which is exactly what happened last time. This situation obviously can't go on indefinitely, and Israel will eventually have to take some kind of action. Now, Israel would never have left the Rafah crossing if the British hadn't agreed to monitor it. And now the British are refusing to monitor it. But Israel can't go back there and make things the same way that they would have been had the British never falsely promised to monitor the crossing - that would be a "provocation".
[Cross-posted at IsraPundit]
