Posted on 03/26/2006 10:40:43 AM PST by Sabramerican
Despite terror warnings, Israel to open Karni crossing By Aluf Benn
Under American pressure, Israel agreed over the weekend to reopen the Karni crossing Sunday to goods traffic into and out of the Gaza Strip.
Rice has been showing great interest in the smooth running of the crossings between Israel, the Gaza Strip and Egypt, having brokered the "crossings agreement" in November 2005.
Last Thursday, the assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development in the region, James Kunder, visited the area to assess the situation ahead of the Palestinian Authority's new Hamas government assuming its duties.
Livni told Rice that Israel would make every effort to reopen the crossings, barring security contingencies, and will act to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. She stated that Israel would not maintain any contact with the Hamas government.
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretzdaily.com ...
Israel is today a Banana Republic. But it's OK because Israel's Best Friend Ever® is in the White House.
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This only delays any meaningful solution.
The borders must be sealed and remain sealed. There should be no access into Israel by land. Gaza and the arab portions of the west bank must be forced to look the other direction for their markets, employment, and access to the world.
There will never be an independent west bank or Gaza, in my opinion, and its plain that the State Department agrees with me if they are bullying Israel into opening the border. But the answer is not making the arab regions into Israel's psychotic dependency, it is in forcing them to look toward Amman and Cairo.
The arabs want to keep things as they are, with the arab territories as a cancer on Israel. But if Israel seals the border, these areas become Egypt's cancer, and Jordan's cancer. Opening the border only preserves a very toxic status quo.
ping
Saudi money and business partnerships buy a lot of influence.
The Saudis are the hive for all that is evil from the Mideast.
If you and I ever live to see them overthrown, even if it is by their Islamic enemies and the West is then forced to intervene and bring some sort of Democracy there, we will live to see the Mideast on the way to being solved.
Nothing good will occur in the Mideast while the Saudis and the Wahabbis continue to control Arabia.
In pointing out that Saudi money and partnerships buy a lot of influence, I am not accusing them of being an enemy. I am merely pointing out what is to me, obvious.
At one time it was easy to view the Saudis as an extention of the US in terms of foreign policy. During the Cold War they provided the perfect hermetically sealed platform for running operations, they were our willing intermediary to the arab world, and when we organized the first Afghan war against the Soviets, they were our willing partner.
They often funded operations that congress would not authorize.
We had first preference on contracts in the kingdom. And in return, Saudi citizens were allowed to come and go freely in and out of the US. While citizens of other countries had to get in line for visas, a Saudi need merely pick up his visa at the travel agent, and stay as long as he likes.
In those days, when the Saudis seemed to have no ambitions of their own, other than to fund our ops and fund the retirement portfolios of our ambassadors and politicians, no one saw them as any kind of a threat.
Wahab islam was not an issue, because it was limited to their own territory.
Since the first afghan war, and the fall of the Soviet Union, however, the Saudis have begun funneling billions toward supporting the wahabi takeover of mosques all over the world, and funding the insurgencies that almost always result.
It is an unfortunate fact that wahab islam is a violent sect. When it was limited to the arabian peninsula, we could look the other way. Once it launched itself out into the world, however, backed by Saudi money and influence, it has led to dozens of insurgencies.
At one time, a Saudi partnership was the kind of thing a politician or state department guy or retired spook could aspire to with a fairly easy conscience, since they were our foreign policy partner almost everywhere (except Israel, where we agreed to disagree). That is no longer the case.
Your point that the wahab fanatics also want to bring down the Saudi monarchy is true but not relevant. Its always been this way. Its a partnership. The royals allow the clerics to run the people, and the clerics let the royals run the country. Once in a while, the wahabs may become a threat to the royals, but they deal with that with the axe. Mostly, they keep the wahabs pointed outward and away from their handlers, the royals and priests.
In a global world, that means toward you.
Despite everything, I still don't see the saudis as enemies per se. But be clear about who they are. They are the primary sponsors of a movement that is everyone's enemy.
It is probably saudi influence that led us to establish Kosovo as a muslim ministate. It was saudi influence that led us to contain Saddam all those years rather than overthrow him.
Hi Tailgunner,
I would value you input on this thread. Very interesting discussion.
Thats a tough nut to crack, because traditionally the Saud family has seen itself as sponsor of the Wahab faith, and that alliance has been the bedrock of their regime. Their alliance goes back over two hundred years; coincidentally about the time our founding fathers were reading John Locke, these people adopted wahab as their guiding faith.
As you say, we now have to convince them that this very alliance is now a threat to them. It will be like weaning someone off of crack.
Its going to be a process, step by step. But we really don't have any choice but to go down this road.
Thanks for the link.
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