Hamas abuses Egyptian restraint

NY Times:

Egyptian riot police used armored vehicles to try to restrict Gazans from taking cars into Egypt on Saturday, and the Egyptian foreign minister warned of “provocations” at the border. He said that at least 36 Egyptian security officers had been hospitalized, some in critical condition, after confrontations with Palestinians.

In a thinly veiled rebuke to the militant group Hamas, which runs Gaza, the Egyptian minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said in Cairo that Egypt would show restraint but not at the cost of Egyptian lives.

“The Egyptian decision has been to allow in the sons of Gaza to ease their suffering,” he said. “This was the Egyptian decision taken a few days ago and we are still holding to it.”

He added that the Egyptians wanted to regulate the entry and exit of Gazans and talk with the “concerned parties” to devise a new border system. But it was unlikely that Egypt would tolerate a continued confrontation with Hamas.

After Israel severely tightened its import restrictions on Gaza, to try to force a reduction of rockets and mortar shells fired into Israel, Hamas breached the border with Egypt in nearly 20 places early Wednesday morning.

Hamas explosives blew down large sections of the wall that Israel had built just inside Gaza to protect its forces, which used to patrol along the Egyptian border in what was otherwise a no-man’s land. The border itself is marked by a low concrete wall topped with barbed wire, which is easily breached.

Traffic over the border remained heavy on Saturday, but residents of the Egyptian towns Rafah and El Arish reported severe shortages of supplies and a growing fatigue with the Palestinian influx.

In El Arish, Said Aghlaby, 48, a taxi driver, said: “It’s getting tiring. We can’t take all these people. They’re sleeping in the streets.”

He said he had to wait in line seven hours for gasoline, and could not get a full tank. “I’ve never seen so much garbage,” he said, “and I’m used to seeing garbage: I’ve lived in Cairo.”

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Hamas and its Palestinian followers are unpleasant with everyone. Many accept that they cannot get along with the Jews of Israel, but they also cannot get along with the Palestinians on the West Bank and now they are demonstrating to the Egyptians why they should not be integrated into their society too. The Palestinians of Hamas are a culture built on the charity of others and a hatred in their souls. They are a death cult with no productive enterprise. What enterprise that may have existed is crushed by Hamas's determination to make war on their best potential customers, Israelis. They have become a creature of their hatred and in the process have made themselves a pariah to those who might help them.