Mere Rhetoric: Hamas Has 200 Tons Of Explosives That The US Gave To Fatah (Plus: Egypt Says It's Israel's Fault)

Shockingly, they got it from security assistance given to Fatah. How did nobody see this coming?

Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter warned Wednesday that over the past three months Hamas has equipped itself with 200 tons of explosives, most of which were obtained from the Palestinian Authority.... "When they do that, I hope we will be able to express our appreciation for their efforts, rather than lose our heads," he added. Dichter expresses his concern over the possibility of a similar situation taking place in the West Bank. "I am mentioning this issue of the weapon transfers in Gaza, sometimes from one street to another, so that we can understand the risks we are taking in the Judea and Samaria, unless we demand that they enforce the law."

We harp on Palestinian security assistance and weapons because they are exemplars of one of the two core problems in Israeli-Arab peacemaking (the other being that Israel is expected to give up tangible land for intangible promises). Israel makes concessions on the basis of international security guarantees. These assurances range from the US smugly insisting that weapons transfers to Fatah will be "done in a way that's monitored" or Egypt intercepting weapons or the EU monitoring the Gaza crossings or European forces watching over Palestinian prisoners or the United Nations preventing Hezbollah from approaching the Lebanese border. Those assurances are abandoned with such haste or implemented with such laxity that it's obvious that everybody knew that they'd never be fulfilled. Negotiators had just acted as if they didn't. It's the same dynamic as when Syria or Hezbollah or the Palestinians go to the UN and unblinkingly say that they want just this little bit of land and they'll give up their quest to wipe out Israel. And this is how it always happens. Always.

So the US supplies Hamas with weapons through Fatah and responds to security concerns by condescendingly telling officials in Israel and Congress that the Israelis are overreacting. When attacks on Israeli civilians and Fatah forces happen exactly the way Israeli security officials predicted, these same State Department officials turn around and say it's Israel's fault. As of this morning, we'll never again say that the Egyptians can't be taught by example:

An Egyptian document distributed in Congress asserts that Israeli soldiers cooperate with smugglers in allowing arms and military equipment into the Gaza Strip. The document was relayed to senior Israeli officials where it has served to intensify concerns in Jerusalem about Egypt's willingness to stem the flow of weapons from its territory into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The Egyptian document was circulated among congressmen by a group of Egyptian generals visiting Washington for meetings... News of the content of the document has stirred considerable ire in Jerusalem, where the issue of smuggling and the impression that Cairo is not doing enough to stop it has raised significant concerns in recent weeks... Two weeks ago, several dozen Hamas activists and militants were allowed to cross into the Gaza Strip from Sinai, and senior Israeli officials stressed in talks with their counterparts in the U.S. government that the smuggling is not "a technical problem but a strategic threat."

Trying to explain the logic of dreams, Freud told a joke about a neighbor returning a broken kettle and trying to talk his way out it: (1) I never borrowed a kettle from you; (2) I returned it to you unbroken; (3) the kettle was already broken when I got it from you. The point is that in dreams even the most blatant contradictions can coexist quite happily. The logic of international assurances to Israel: (1) we were never obligated to enforce that (2) we're not violating our obligation to enforce that (3) the violation of our obligation to enforce that is Israel's fault. Totally surreal, but this is how diplomacy works in the Middle East.

References:
* Dichter: Hamas obtained 200 tons of explosives [YNet]
* US Government To Give Palestinian Terrorists Cutting-Edge Weapons [MR]
* Egypt Uncovers A Single Smuggling Tunnel, Basically Calls It A Day (Plus: Egypt In Explicit Violation Of Security Agreements?) [MR]
* EU Again Backs Out of Monitoring Agreement, Endangers Israeli Security [MR]
* The Joke That Was Sa'adat's Sentence - How the Palestinian Authority Meets Its Obligations When It's Not Busy Violating Them [MR]
* International Community Can't Understand Why Israel is Unwilling to Let Palestinians Violate International Agreements [MR]
* Outrage Of The Day: UNIFIL Allowed Hezbollah To Plant Bombs [MR]
* Memo To Foreign Policy Sophisticates - You'd Sound A Lot Less Stupid If You Stopped Mixing Your Condescension With Demonstrably False Fantasies Of Competence [MR]
* US Security Envoy Blames Israel For Palestinian Rocket Attack On Israel. Or Something. [Video] [MR]
* Egypt: IDF soldiers are aiding arms smuggling to Gaza Strip [Ha'aretz]