Olmert and Abbas fail to shut border

[bemildred]

For two hours in Jerusalem yesterday, Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas agonised over Hamas's demolition job on the Gaza-Egyptian border fence and the collapse of their joint strategy of isolating the Strip's Islamist rulers. But the Israeli Prime Minister and Palestinian President came up with no new answers.

Israel agreed to continue allowing humanitarian food and medical supplies to enter Gaza at the present rate of 50 lorries a day. It will also deliver about 500,000 litres of diesel oil and petrol a day for vehicles, industry and power stations after a 10-day embargo. This is enough to ward off a humanitarian crisis, but far short of meeting demand. Electricity is still being cut for hours every day.

But the summit did not address Mr Abbas's request for the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority to share control of the Rafah crossing with Egyptian and European monitors. Mr Abbas will discuss that with President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Wednesday. Egypt, which is trying to bring the two Palestinian sides together, is no longer even pretending to boycott Hamas.

Israeli officials doubt whether Mr Abbas's proposal will achieve anything. Shlomo Dror, a Defence Ministry spokesman, said: "As long as Hamas is determined to keep the crossing open, it will be very hard for either the Palestinian Authority or Egypt to close it. They don't have the power. Egypt is restricted to 750 armed police there. In the end, Hamas is going to control it."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/olmert-and-abbas-fail-to-shut-border-774867.html

[Vegasaurus]

1. I'm sure the Egyptians do not view this as great news

Let's see how much they like having terrorists controlling their borders.

[bemildred]

2. Eh, I think you are wrong.

I think Hosni doesn't consider Gaza to be his problem, doesn't WANT it to be his problem, and he's not going to be willing to take heat for it anymore. So the status quo ante will not be restored. I think Olmert is at least going to want to quiet things down until the publics attention wanders, too. He has other things on his mind. So I expect that under the table what is necessary to keep things quiet will be done for at least a while. Meanwhile the public posturing and buffoonery will continue.

I'm waiting to see whether Hosni will cut a deal, a modest "arrangement", with Hamas under the table.