That won't stop the rockets into Israel

Submitted by Gabriel (Israel), Feb 7, 2008 at 12:50

Dr. Pipes says if Gaza is handed to Egypt, Egypt will stop the rocket attacks from Gaza to Israel...

The Gaza rockets are an exclusively Israeli problem -- Israeli citizens are the ones being attacked. So the Israeli army is the one who has to solve the problem -- via air strikes, a ground invasion, or whatever it takes.

Dumping onto Egypt the task of defending Israel from the Palestinians -- something that is upon Israel itself to do -- is clearly prone to failure. Does anyone expect Arabs will turn against fellow Arabs in order to defend Jews? All the more so if this is done against Egypt's will.

The reason Israel is unsuccessful in stopping the rocket attacks is because of civilian casualties. Israel is held to hypocritically high standards of warfare by the world community. So they are in a bind -- whatever they do will kill civilians, so they do nothing.

Making Gaza Egypt will not change this situation in any way. And Israel obviously won't attack Cairo and kill civilians that have nothing to do with Gaza.

Finally, Dr. Pipes's suggestion that "Mubarak ... can deal with this challenge in ways that Israel cannot" is reminiscent of a similar claim made back in the Oslo days by the Oslo proponents. They said Arafat would be able to fight the terrorists more effectively than Israel. We all saw how effective Arafat was.

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