Summary
Even this bizarre arrangement sounds too great an Israeli concession, considering the approved text of Israel's Disengagement Plan, which specifically guarantees Israeli control over Palestinian movement in the post-disengagement phase. This inescapably summons the following question: Is Israel's shifting attitude towards Gaza revealing inconsistency in its policy, or is the Israeli "concession" a policy modification brought about by external pressure or by the tacit realization that suffocating Gaza is both unethical and impractical?
Failing to understand this context is failing to fathom Israel's yet newest "concession" in granting Palestinians the right to be present at their Gaza border. The Palestinian burden has now grown to an historic reach. Israel, on the other hand, will continue to reap the fruits of its Gaza maneuvering for years to come. Israel's fantastic win-win strategy (that of giving nothing and attaining the moon) must not be disturbed by border quarrels, unneeded distractions that invite such unpleasant criticisms like that of James Wolfensohn, former head of the World Bank, who suggested that Israel was acting as if it still occupied Gaza."Freeing" the Palestinians in Gaza was the needed confirmation of Israel's good intentions. Although we are yet to observe the Gaza border agreement in practice, there is little historic precedent to conclude that Israel will respect the arrangement. Since the Israeli army has the "green light" to strike Gaza at any time of its choosing (as it has repeatedly since the disengagement) and to freely assassinate any Palestinian "terror suspect", it is difficult to convince ordinary Palestinians that they are truly free, even if the man checking their worthless travel documents at the Rafah border looks and sounds Palestinian.See the full content of this document
Extract
Gaza Opens to the World
Starting November 25th, Palestinians from the Gaza Strip may, in theory, be able to freely cross the Rafah border into Egypt, according to an agreement brokered by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Typically, Israel wished to have the final say over the movement at the border crossing, not for the sake of preventing so-called "terror suspects" from entering Gaza, but rather to control the movement of goods in a...See the full content of this document
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