By Daniel Pipes
"Listen to me carefully," President Hosni Mubarak, of Egypt instructed an interviewer on Jan. 30. "Gaza is not part of Egypt, nor will it ever be .... I hear talk of a proposal to turn the Strip into an extension of the Sinai peninsula, of offloading responsibility for it onto Egypt" but Mubarak dismissed this as "nothing but a dream."
Hardly a dream. It's a reality that surfaced since January 23, when Hamas operatives breached large segments of the wall separating Gaza from Egypt. That unexpected step alerted the world that an Egyptian embargo, no less than an Israeli one, prevents Gazans from leaving their territory or trading with the outside world.
Given that Gazans have shown themselves incapable of responsible self-rule and Cairo has tacitly allowed the smuggling of arms since 2000, Mubarak needs to be made responsible for the Gaza Strip. As my column last week argued, "Washington and other capitals should declare the experiment in Gazan self-rule a failure and press Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to help." Read more ...
"Listen to me carefully," President Hosni Mubarak, of Egypt instructed an interviewer on Jan. 30. "Gaza is not part of Egypt, nor will it ever be .... I hear talk of a proposal to turn the Strip into an extension of the Sinai peninsula, of offloading responsibility for it onto Egypt" but Mubarak dismissed this as "nothing but a dream."
Hardly a dream. It's a reality that surfaced since January 23, when Hamas operatives breached large segments of the wall separating Gaza from Egypt. That unexpected step alerted the world that an Egyptian embargo, no less than an Israeli one, prevents Gazans from leaving their territory or trading with the outside world.
Given that Gazans have shown themselves incapable of responsible self-rule and Cairo has tacitly allowed the smuggling of arms since 2000, Mubarak needs to be made responsible for the Gaza Strip. As my column last week argued, "Washington and other capitals should declare the experiment in Gazan self-rule a failure and press Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to help." Read more ...
Source: FrontPage Magazine
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