Desperate Palestinians pour into Egypt

Thousands of Palestinians desperate for food and fuel stormed into Egypt last week, after Hamas militants blew holes in a Gaza border wall. The crisis began after Israel cut off supplies to Gaza in retaliation for a barrage of Hamas rocket fire that hit Israeli cities. As Gaza cities went dark and store shelves emptied, Hamas blew up part of the border wall at the Sinai Peninsula town of Rafah. After clashes erupted between the surging Palestinians and Egyptian forces, the Egyptians largely abandoned the border and tried instead to keep the Palestinians from leaving Rafah.

The Egyptians had most of the breach repaired by this week. But concerned that Hamas would again blow open the wall, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to work with the Islamist Hamas movement to bring some order to the area. But Abbas said he would not negotiate with Hamas unless it relinquished control of Gaza.

It’s no wonder Egyptians are in a state of “near-hysterical alarm,” said Bret Stephens in The Wall Street Journal. There’s a real danger that Islamists from Gaza could “conquer Egypt.” Hamas, after all, is simply the Palestinian branch of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which has long been seeking to topple Mubarak’s government. The weapons that have flowed from Egypt into Gaza could just as easily flow back—and into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood.

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Egypt has itself to blame for letting Hamas become such a threat, said Jonathan Spyer in the London Guardian. Cairo has only “halfheartedly” tried to slow the shipments of rockets into Gaza, knowing those rockets were being used against Israel. Egypt’s failure to police its own border means that a major Israeli operation in Gaza is becoming “a near inevitability.”

The best hope now is for the U.S. to step in and start dealing with Hamas, said Helena Cobban in The Christian Science Monitor. The “bust out” of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt has “reinforced the strength of Hamas’ popular support among Palestinians.” Washington will have to talk to Hamas—despite the group’s terrorist history—if the peace process is to have a chance.