Fellow_Human,

I think my original post makes it clear.

From New Scientist 10 January 2009:

NUCLEAR MIDDLE EAST

Iran isn't the only Middle Eastern nation that has observers worried about nuclear proliferation. Nine other countries in the region plan to build around 12 nuclear power plants over the next decade. This will produce enough plutonium in spent fuel for 1700 nuclear weapons, … With nuclear weapons already in Israel, Pakistan, India and potentially Iran, there is motivation to acquire them.

If the newcomers acquire fuel production and reprocessing facilities then the risk of material finding its way into weapons will rise sharply. Inspections might prevent this, but only eight countries in the region - including Iran - have signed the International Atomic Energy Agency's most stringent inspections agreement, known as the Additional Protocol. Only four countries enforce it. Egypt says it will never sign. Both it and Turkey reject a proposed

Meanwhile, Gulf states have decided it makes business sense to sell their ever-scarcer oil and buy nuclear power for themselves. In December, the US agreed to sell a nuclear reactor to the United Arab Emirates. Both sides say the UAE will forego enrichment and sign the protocol. Yet it's unclear whether the signed deal stipulates this, says Henry Sokolski, who serves on the US Congress's anti-proliferation commission.

END QUOTE

Perhaps a future Middle-East war will be nuclear.

Steven,

Sounds like Egypt's goal is not to let the Gaza mess into its borders.

Gaza is an occupied territory which means the authorities involved are Israel, UN and the local Palestinian authoirity.

Why would Israel want to outsource its mess to Egypt?
If you make a mess, clean it up yourself.

Fellow human “Gaza is an occupied territory which means the authorities involved are Israel, UN and the local Palestinian authority.”

No, Gaza is an autonomous territory and has been that way for more than10 years, that is how they elected Hamas to replace Fatah .

The fact that the Palestinians, much to the chagrin of the limp left, have continued an unrelenting campaign of rocket attacks into, among other places, schools in southern Israel is irrefutable.

Another fact
Egypt has a delicate internal balance of political power which could easily be skewed by insurgent terrorism (remembering the assassination of Anwar Sadat).

Doubtless Egyptian politicians do not wish to see Egypt and its millions get flushed into a similar sewer as a few thousand Palestinians have ensconced themselves in and thus as an effort to prevent social unrest, seek to maintain the highest standard of border security between Egypt and Gaza.

Palestinians seem, despite being Muslim in faith, to have incredible similarities to alcoholics.

Every opportunity and every resource being devoted, regardless of its stupidity, to satisfying an illogical craving…

To blast Israel off the face of the planet,

Just like alcoholics spend every cent on booze and ignore consideration of the necessities, which would otherwise make for a better life for themselves.

Fellow_Human

For the moment let us forget the long history of who did what to whom, of who is in the right and who is in the wrong, of whether Israel should exist or not, of whether Israel has a right to be a Jewish state. Let us just leave all the baggage behind and focus on 2005. That is when the Israelis withdrew from Gaza.

At that point the Palestinians stood at the cross-roads. They could have said something along the following lines. "At last we got rid of this damn Jews. We have a little sliver of territory we control. Let's show the world what we can do."

They could have said "YES WE CAN."

They could have sent trade missions to Europe with the following message. "You don’t need to go all the way to Asia to build factories. Come and invest in Gaza. You will find an educated and willing labour force. Forget aid. Give us investment."

They could have turned Gaza into the Singapore of the Mediterranean.

You will say the Israelis would never have allowed that, blockade, brutality, Palestine still occupied, right of return, yada yada.

I say the Israelis would have been delighted to have Gaza as a trading partner rather than an enemy. It would have made it much easier for the Sharon government to withdraw from areas in the West Bank. Perhaps there would have been a Palestinian state already

But you know the REAL TRAGEDY Fellow_Human?

The REAL tragedy is that we'll never know what might have been The Palestinians in Gaza never tried the path of peace and economic development. Instead they went straight for the war option.

And the Palestinians voted in a party whose charter lays out its genocidal intentions more clearly than even Hitler's Mein Kampf; a party that has shown by word and deed that its first priority is the extermination of Jews.

The Palestinians voted for a party that said it wanted war. They got a war. I am at a loss to know how they could have expected anything else.

Hi Steven,

Not sure why would anyone assume that an occupied nation won’t resist its occupier. Making trading partners with Palestinians would suggest Israel to follow the steps of the British empire with its colonies (ie liberate and support real autonomy, etc..). Israel is doing the opposite.
Regardless, the 2 questions that I find puzzling to an Israeli are these:

- How did murdering 500 children with F-16 bombs solve the Hamas problem? If not add its popularity and its legitimacy now that European countries want to provide aid and assistance to the disaster zone.

- How can a country survive in a region without having good relations with the region it wants to exist in?

Col Rouge,

Two reservations on your comment:

- Cause & effect: it’s easy to judge 3 generations of homeless refugees. But is this a cause or an effect?

- You would have to agree that the Fatah autonomy was rejected by Palestinians because of mismanagement and corruption. Israel’s support to Fatah contributed to Hamas’s popularity. While I am not blaming Israel it’s a poor crisis management on its side.