[San Antonio Express-News] Jonathan Gurwitz - When Hamas militants blew up that wall on Jan. 23 to end the Israeli blockade of Gaza, did you notice whose wall it was they destroyed? It was Egypt's wall. Funny, then, that the term "Israeli blockade" should have become so widely and so conventionally accepted with regard to Gaza. To blockade means to impede passage on all sides. It turns out that there is a back door to Gaza, which shares a seven-mile border with Egypt. In two-and-a-half years, Palestinians in Gaza have fired more than 4,000 rockets at Israeli civilian targets. Daily life in the southern Israeli city of Sderot consists of wailing sirens and 15-second dashes for cover. No nation in the world would withstand this daily barrage on its citizens and not take decisive action. No nation would sit passively as an enemy committed to its destruction grows menacingly on its border. Hamas is the Palestinian franchise of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian wellspring of the modern Islamist movement and the chief political opposition to the Mubarak dynasty.
2008-02-06 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive