Israel Caves In To Hamas, Opens Border Crossings

The way that Israel has been handling Hamas lately reminds me of the parent who sends his kid to their room without dinner for misbehaving and after 5 minutes of the kid screaming and banging on his bedroom door, the parent delivers a full plate of mac and cheese and a full package of Oreos to him.

Israel has now reopened all of its border crossings with Gaza and once again, has shown Hamas that violence against Israel gets you want you want. Here's the info from DEBKA's article here:

On Wednesday, April 23, Israel reopened all the Gaza crossings, including those attacked last week by Hamas: Kerem Shalom, Erez and the Nahal Oz fuel terminal, and restored fuel supplies to the Gaza population. Israel forces were alerted to threat to Sufa crossing by armed bands as the trucks passed through.
DEBKAfile’s sources disclose this step as being a unilateral Israel gesture to Hamas to encourage the Palestinian terrorist group to accept the Egyptian-brokered arrangement for Gaza. This arrangement would lift the blockade on the Hamas-ruled enclave in return for its stopping missile fire on Israeli civilian communities and attacks on the border fence.

The Palestinian fundamentalists will also have proved that they have made terrorist attacks and threats to breach the borders with Egypt and Israel pay off handsomely and forced Cairo and Jerusalem to surrender to violence and threats.

Now, I have always disagreed with this "blockade" type approach to Hamas in Gaza, mostly because it never, ever sticks. I've been the proponent of the strategy that the only message that Hamas understands is the blood of their mid-level and high-level leaders running into the sewer drains of Gaza. We have seen it over the years that when Hamas continues attacks against Israel, if the Israelis take out a few leaders in precision strikes...the Hamas attacks stop immediately. Why abandon this strategy?

It will be scary to see what the newest tactics of Hamas will be once they have decided they want something new. And even scarier as to how much further Israel will bend and appease in this whole process.

Here's the full story at DEBKA.

Exclusive: Israel opens all Gaza crossings amid official denials of indirect talks with Hamas

The proposed deal does not oblige Israel to give up counter-terror operations on the West Bank; but neither is Hamas required to abandon its West Bank-based terrorist activity against Israeli targets.
Additional elements of the proposal: Like Israel, Egypt will reopen the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Sinai. Therefore, if Hamas accepts these terms, it will have achieved its objective of freeing the Gaza Strip from isolation on both its land borders. The Palestinian fundamentalists will also have proved that they have made terrorist attacks and threats to breach the borders with Egypt and Israel pay off handsomely and forced Cairo and Jerusalem to surrender to violence and threats.
If the deal goes through, Hamas will have come out of its confrontation with Israel and Egypt with kudos among fellow Palestinians; he will also deliver a nasty knock to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas on the day he calls at the White House in Washington to report on laggard progress in his talks with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Tuesday, 86 trucks carrying, fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, flour, sugar, diapers and medicines from Israel passed through reopened Sufa crossing to Gaza; Palestinian patients in need of Israeli hospitals were admitted through the Erez crossing.
The Kerem Shalom and Kissufim crossings Hamas tried to blow up Saturday, April 19, injuring 13 Israeli soldiers. It was the first attack by Hamas using two explosives-backed jeeps and two armored personnel carriers. Israeli forces thwarted its kill-and-kidnap objective and captured an APC. Monday, Hamas leaders in Damascus threatened to “crash” Israeli crossings.