[Jerusalem Post] Etgar Lefkovits - A cease-fire that does not prevent the transfer of weapons to Gaza will be "a major strategic victory" for Hamas and will only serve to strengthen its rule there, a senior Israeli official said Wednesday. "A cease-fire, which is the easy way out, will ensure us several months of quiet but will also entrench the Hamas state in Gaza, which will become more and more dependent on the Iranians," he said. Such a cease-fire would also serve to further weaken Mahmoud Abbas, he added. The official noted that "hundreds" of Palestinians were freely crossing through Gaza's porous border with Egypt to receive training from Iran, and that "The Egyptians, to put it mildly, are not successfully preventing the supply and rearming of Hamas."
2008-05-15 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive