Breach in Gaza

From an op-ed in the Washington Post.

Full article here.

Mr. Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert committed themselves to reaching a peace accord in 2008 during President Bush's visit this month. Yet since then, political attention in the region has been focused on the rocket attacks, Israel's retaliatory strikes against militants in Gaza and the subsequent blockade, and yesterday's dramatic breach of the border. Naturally it is impossible for the peace negotiations to make progress in these conditions. So those who say their priority is an Israeli-Palestinian settlement ought to be trying to stop Hamas's disruptions.

That obligation doesn't just fall on Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert -- though Israel may have a lesson to learn from the way Hamas exploited its temporary shutdown of fuel supplies. Mr. Mubarak and other Arab leaders have to resist the urge to roll over every time they are challenged by Hamas and al-Jazeera television. Would Mr. Mubarak allow tens of thousands of Darfur refugees to illegally enter Egypt from Sudan, where a real humanitarian crisis is underway? Surely not. Egypt's obligation as a law-abiding state is to restore order on the border and prevent the ongoing and massive smuggling of armaments into Gaza. That would go a long way toward stopping the rockets.

The Bush administration and European governments should act to stop the ongoing farce at the U.N. Security Council and the U.N. Human Rights Council, which have ignored months of daily rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians but now rush to condemn a partial, three-day disruption of Gaza's power supplies. Hamas, and the people of Gaza, should get a consistent message that relief lies not in blowing up international borders but in ending attacks on Israel and allowing a peace process to go forward.