When it began, even leaders of the Arab world blamed Hamas, in large part, for Israel's invasion of Gaza. As Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, put it a few days after it began, Hamas "served Israel the opportunity to hit Gaza on a golden platter." Now, however, most of the world is calling for a ceasefire - and I agree, if Hamas commits to stop firing rockets.
While responsibility for this war lies largely with Hamas, I have another candidate for blame: George W Bush and Condoleezza Rice. The Bush administration's slavish support of Israel, with nary a critical word, may seem a blessing to Israel's supporters in the United States. But true friends stand up and say something when a friend is making a mistake. Weeks from now, I fear, the invasion will seem as unproductive as the war over Lebanon in the summer of 2006.
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The Bush administration's responsibility runs deeper than uncritical support. Most everyone has probably forgotten the agreement Rice negotiated in Nov 2005 - a full 18 months before Hamas seized control of Gaza - to give Palestinians free access to and from Gaza. Rice worked late into the night with Israeli, European and World Bank leaders and announced it with great fanfare at a news conference early in the morning.
It is a major step forward for the Palestinian people in their own movement toward independence," Rice boasted. "This agreement is intended to give Palestinian people the freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives." Under the five-page pact, Israel would allow Palestinians to operate convoys of people and goods between the West Bank and Gaza, escorted by Israeli security. Bus convoys were to begin in a few weeks and trucks a short time later. The Palestinians were given permission to build a seapor
t. And they would take control of the Rafah border crossing to Egypt.
Less than a month later, Rice was back in Washington, and not surprisingly the agreement began to unravel. At her news conference in November, Rice had averred: "The parties are establishing new patterns of cooperation." In December, the opposite seemed to be true.
Israel, as always, was loading down the agreement with a dozen unachievable demands.
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