Time Passes, But Nothing Changes

5 Tevet 5786 

Spinning Our Wheels

When are we going to snap out of it and get off this wheel?!  "The Surrender" goes back even further than most think - at least as far back as Oslo! 

Something I saved from 20 years ago.  The seeds of October 7, 2023 were being sown even then!

15 November 2005

Rice Secures Rafah Package Stripped of Adequate Counter-Terror Safeguards

The White House ordered Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to stay over in Jerusalem until the deal for the Gaza Strip’s international crossings was in the bag. She was almost there – “an accord is within sight” – Monday, Nov. 14. But she delayed her departure to join President Bush in South Korea until it was settled down to the last detail at issue between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The breakthrough was announced after she met defense minister Shaul Mofaz Tuesday morning. It was achieved after Israel backed down from virtually all its demands for security safeguards against terrorist incursions.

...Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon relinquished a key element of Israel’s sovereign right to self-defense and agreed to hamstring its own army’s freedom to combat terror. The presence of Palestinian customs inspectors at Kerem Shalom makes an additional inroad on Israeli sovereignty.

From Dec. 15 to January 15, “secured Palestinian convoys” will start rolling across southern Israel from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. The Palestinians want their own forces to secure the trucks. All that has been settled is that the Americans and Europeans will determine the procedures for their passage through Israeli territory.

There is no sign of the Sharon government standing up to Washington’s demands on that point either, so it is more than likely that Palestinian “forces” will be let loose on a wide swathe of southern Israel to escort 150 trucks a day bound for Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin and Nablus.

The provisions for the Rafah crossing will also be applied to Gaza’s deep sea port construction of which begins without delay. Israel has therefore forfeited control and oversight over incoming goods and people to Gaza by sea as well as overland.