Now that the ceasefire has gone into effect and seems to be generally holding, even though there are reports that one Palestinian farmer has been shot and killed and 10 Palestinian farmers have been shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers for walking too close to the border, there are two things that have caught my attention.
Did anyone else notice that after a couple of vague but very populist speeches which had little substance by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and a well organized photo op in Gaza for Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu, the Turkish Government’s involvement quietly evaporated?
It might have had something to do with the Obama Administration’s very firm message to the Turkish Government that their actions were not constructive and needed to be reconsidered, or it might have been that the populist image had been sufficiently polished so it was time to move along; no need to bother with anything boring or messy like substance.
While Egypt ...
I have this slight feeling of unease. For years I have been watching advocates for Israel determinedly try to push the notion that it wasn’t so much Israel that was responsible for the dire conditions in the Gaza Strip, it was Egypt.
It doesn’t matter, they say, that Israel blockades all but 11 km of the Gaza Strip’s land border and all of its coastline, or that Israel controls and violates at whim the airspace over the Gaza Strip, or that Israel controls and limits what is imported to or exported from Gaza, or that Israel imposes - with very deadly force - a no-man’s-land between 200 m and 1 km wide along the Palestinian side of the border, or that the Gaza Strip’s finances - both public and private - are controlled and manipulated by Israel, or that the Gaza Strip’s electricity, water and communications are controlled by Israel; all the problems in the Gaza Strip would magically go away if Egypt would just step in, assert itself, and open the Rafah border crossing on the 11 km long border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. And since Egypt doesn’t do this and doesn’t really care about the Gaza Strip, why should Israel?
I have a feeling that we are now going to be hearing a lot more statements like ‘If the situation in the Gaza Strip is bad it’s Egypt’s fault. Egypt is Hamas’ friend and Egypt is the Gaza Strip’s guarantor, talk to them about the situation there.’
One thing that I hope to do soon is learn more about the status of the Rafah border crossing. I understand that its operation is subject to a series of agreements going all the way back to the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty.
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Turkish media are reporting that the placement of six batteries of Patriot missiles in Turkey is being discussed by the US, NATO, Holland and Turkey. The missiles will reportedly be sent to Turkey by Holland to protect the Turkish border from Syrian missile attack.
They reportedly will be placed in Şanlıurfa (about 45 km from the Syrian border), Diyarbakır (about 95 km from the Syrian border) and Malatya (about 160 km from the Syrian border) and be connected to the NATO AN/TPY-2 X-band radar which was recently installed in Malatya.
It is also being reported that the missiles will be sent with the conditions that they can only be used for defensive purposes and that they cannot be used in the imposition of a no-fly zone or any other offensive military activities by Turkey against Syria.