Hamas must be destroyed now.

By Ted Belman

JPOST reports in Hamas calls for shared border control with Egypt

Mubarak, who has been under heavy pressure from Palestinians and Egyptians to reopen the Rafah terminal, told reporters in Cairo that when Gazans began storming their way through the border, he ordered the Egyptian army to allow them in to purchase food.

Hamas leaders expressed satisfaction with the developments at the border. They also voiced readiness to work out a deal with Egypt and the PA over joint control of the Rafah border crossing.

Syria-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said his movement would insist that the border be placed under exclusive Palestinian and Egyptian control.

“We in Hamas and our brothers in the Palestinian government headed by Ismail Haniyeh declare our readiness to reach an understanding with the brothers in Ramallah [the Fatah-controlled PA] and the brothers in Egypt on how to manage the border crossings,” Mashaal said.

“The most important criterion for lifting the siege on Gaza is that the Rafah crossing be opened and be placed under the exclusive control of Palestinians and Egyptians without any blackmail. We don’t want to control anything. We only seek freedom and relief for the Palestinian people,” he said.

Mashaal appealed to the Arab countries to work toward ending the international boycott of the Hamas government and to lift the siege on the Gaza Strip. “I am addressing all the Arabs – don’t say that there is an international agreement concerning the Rafah crossing,” he said. “No one can believe that you can’t lift the siege. Don’t deceive yourselves.”

In Gaza City, Hamas Prime Minister Haniyeh called for an urgent meeting with Egyptian and PA officials to work out a new agreement for running the border crossing. “We don’t want to be the only ones in control of these matters,” Haniyeh said. “The Palestinians are not only demanding food and fuel supplies. We want an end to the siege and the reopening of all the border crossings.”

In plain English, Hamas want an open border so it doesn’t have to build tunnels. How flagrant is that. “Seige” is a code word for restrictions on what and who comes in and goes out.. Hamas wants to do away with the Rafah Agreement engineered by Secretary Rice. Similarly Hezbollah ignored the restrictions placed on them by Res 1701. And Arafat also did not respect his international agreements made as part of Oslo. And Mubarak did not live up to his commitments in the peace agreement with Israel.

Is there a pattern here. You bet.

Is there a lesson here? You bet. Place not your reliance on international agreements or agreement with any Arab entity.

Disengagement brings more engagement not less. Israel fought the Lebanon War II because of disengagement and will have to fight the Gaza War sooner rather than later, because of the same thing.

Der Spiegle in “A Blessing in Disguise”, asks

So what is Israel doing about it? The open border to Egypt should surely be a security nightmare for the country. Terrorists are now free to bring weapons and ammunition into the coastal strip, which is controlled by the radical Islamist Hamas movement. Not all Palestinians who are going into Egypt, one suspects, are just bringing back bread and butter. The Israeli military is also worried that militant Palestinians could now leave Gaza to go to terrorist training camps for training in weapons and explosives. But the politicians in Jerusalem are reacting with remarkable restraint.

According to it, Israel thought otherwise,

The truth is, the Israeli government doesn’t regard the opened border as a new threat. After all there are hundreds of tunnels linking the Gaza Strip and Egypt through which weapons and ammunition have been smuggled in for years. These entrances are so cleverly concealed that they have only seldom been discovered by the Israelis. “What has been happening underground in the Gaza Strip is now happening above ground,” one government spokesman said.

In Jerusalem the opening of the border with Egypt is even being greeted with some relief. “Cairo now has to solve the humanitarian problem that we have been dealing with until now,” said one Israeli official. Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel told reporters Wednesday: “It’s the responsibility of Egypt to ensure the border works properly,” pointing to the agreements signed between the two states.

But, as Jerusalem sees it, Egypt now has responsibility for more than just the Gaza Strip’s southern border. “The opening of the border relieves us of our responsibility for Gaza,” a government official said, “and if the international community demands that the Israeli border with Gaza be opened, we will now point to the Egyptian role.” This view was echoed on Thursday when Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said that Israel wanted to “disconnect” from Gaza. He told Army Radio: “We are responsible for it as long as there is no alternative.”

In fact the opening of the Egyptian border is being seen as a “blessing in disguise,” according to one diplomat. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that he would not allow the situation in the Gaza Strip to turn into a humanitarian crisis. But he has also insisted that the inhabitants there can not expect a normal life so long as Israel is being pounded by rockets coming from Gaza.

What nonsense both on the part of the reporter and on the part of the government of Israel. The paper is hardly a day old and already Egypt has ordered everyone out of Egypt by 3:00PM yesterday Israel time. Hamas has threatened to have 500,000 march on the Erez crossing. This would really be a problem for Israel both from a security point of view and a public relations point of view.

What is needed is for the US to recognize that Hamas must be defeated and not just contained. The US should signal to Israel to do just that. It would serve Israel’s interests and America’s at the same time. If the US isn’t up to it, Israel must, as Nike suggests, “just do it”.