Ouda lived in the Palestinian capital, which is allegedly controlled by Abbas’ US-trained police.

The West Bank, to all purposes, is under sovereign rule by the PA regime, which rejects even the talk of peace with Jews. Why allow any migration from there to Israel at all? As Rabin said, close the border and let them kill each other like spiders in a can. Let them enjoy independence.

IAF bombing raids are ludicrous: there is no conceivable reason to bomb two tunnels out of 400. More importantly, IAF bombs them in such a way as to minimize Palestinian casualties. Since IAF refrains from bombing the Egyptian end of the tunnels, smugglers run there when they are attacked and survive.

Egypt employs the more fearsome tactic of flooding the tunnels and killing the smugglers, which frightens them greatly and drives many people out of that business.

We will not dwell on the fact that Israel spends more on keeping the Gazans at bay than the UNRWA spends on keeping them alive.

Radar is good while the Gaza border is closed. If relations are normalized and tens of thousands of Arabs cross daily into Israel legally rather than through fence openings, there will be no way to intercept or check them properly.

The prospects are bright, really. Under pressure from Fatah thugs, very few Palestinians would accept the citizenship, yet enough of them would accept it to make Palestinian jurisdiction problematic.

The move would turn Palestinian towns into Israeli settlements. Instead of settling the land, we give citizenship to those who already live in the West Bank. Russia successfully implemented a similar policy in Osetia.

The transfer itself is not a problem: if Gazans did not receive transaction cash from Israel, they would get it from somewhere else. Israel, like any other country, profits from exporting its paper currency. Rather, the issue lies in tax transfers: Israel indirectly taxes Jewish consumers to support our Arab enemies. The continuing transfers are especially odd considering that the PA takes an increasingly militant position in peace negotiations. The transfers make Israel the PA’s largest donor.

But how do Gazans spend shekels? Since Israel instituted the blockade, they cannot spend shekels, but they cannot be hoarding that much cash, either. It is clear that despite the blockade Israeli-Gazan trade is in full swing.

Clearly Abbas cannot purge corruption, which would require purging every official in Fatah’s government. The PA has issued an arrest warrant for Shabana. He can only hope to stay alive with Israel’s help. Shabana’s revelations are being published through Israeli media.

If Abbas’ government falls, Israel will be able to legitimately and indefinitely takes possession over the West Bank to protect it from a Hamas takeover.

The last we heard, it was Hamas— not really a staunch US ally—that walked out of the reconciliation talks.

The reconciliation, which will nominally reestablish Fatah’s rule in Gaza, will open the floodgates of foreign aid to the terrorist group.

Haniyeh and Shaath spoke in front of the background of the Dome of the Rock banner, leaving no doubt about their demands on Israel.

Hamas maintains good relations with the Red Cross, and uses its ambulances for smuggling. Perhaps the friends had a quarrel.

Palestinians issue their own passports, which are recognized by more than 70 countries and allow visa-free entry into more than 40 countries. But Israelis delude themselves into thinking that Palestine is somehow not a state yet.

Mossad’s involvement in strangling Mabhouh (or poisoning him through a pillow, by another account) is made somewhat doubtful by reports that he had noticed weeks before his assassination that he was being shadowed. Mossad would normally abandon a non-vital operation if the target had been alerted.

Hamas does not want to pay for fuel either.

It seems that Israel will now supply free fuel to Gaza, in addition to free water and electricity. Well, not exactly free: they send us rockets in return.

Despite its use of live human shields, Hamas expresses no doubt about the propriety of its actions during the 2009 war, and refuses to launch an investigation as the Goldstone report demands.

This Israeli infamy stands in stark contrast to the Egyptian position. After Hamas members shot an Egyptian soldier, Mubarak cracked down hard on Hamas, even barring Mashaal from Egypt and practically closing the smuggling channels.

Burdened with civil and political responsibilities, Hamas leaders in Gaza and the West Bank grew relatively moderate while Syrian wing of Hamas takes rejectionist line as Iran commands it.

Hamas’ Gazan leaders have to submit to Iranian whims because Iran largely finances and arms the group.

If Dahlan believes that Hamas might renege on an explicit security promise to a guest, Fatah-Hamas reconciliation is very far off.

The collective punishment of the blockade only becomes a problem when Israeli doves insist that we’re conducting some police operation in Gaza rather than fighting a Jewish-Muslim war.

Israel has little choice: if she closes her border with Gaza, Egypt will be hard pressed to open the Rafah Crossing, and Israel will lose even the minimal customs control she now exercises over the goods entering Gaza.

To please the Americans, the government normally praises Fatah police’s activities.

In the meantime, four shells were fired from Gaza at Israeli population centers.

Too late. The PA has been honoring Mughrabi for many years, with schools and a stadium named after her— just as Israel honors its own terrorists.

What is bizarre is the fact that Israel complains to the Americans instead of cutting off tax transfers, reducing the water and electricity supply, or withdrawing Abbas’ transit privileges.

On one hand, the Iron Dome will provoke terrorists to shoot more rockets at Israel: they can both show activity to their sponsors and avoid irritating IDF with Jewish civilian casualties. Other other hand, the Iron Dome will make rocket launching futile and might eventually lead to the collapse of the Kassam industry.

The Iron Dome does not intercept shells, an increasing part of the fire from Gaza.

Hizbollah is expected to join the front formally next week.

Abbas has remained in office illegally since his presidential term expired last winter. He was to have passed the authority to Hamas’ spokesman of the Palestinian council.

Mashaal will involve Hamas in the same defense pact with Iran as Syria did.

The facts that they have used such rockets shows that they have no problem with smuggling. Terrorists find it easier to transport virtually useless rockets into Gaza than to manufacture their own Kassam rockets.

Fayad remains undeterred by the fact that Israel pays his salary and funds his government through tax transfers. After Israel refused to release Barghouti, the allegedly moderate terrorist took off his mask and called on Palestinians to kidnap more Israeli soldiers.

Fayad also criticized Israel for stalling the peace process by refusing to abandon Jerusalem to the Palestinians. In the same way, the Nazis accused Czechoslovakia and Poland of torpedoing German peace efforts by refusing to cede Sudetenland and Danzig.

Ultra-cheap labor, free water and electricity stolen from Israel, a tax-free environment, and the politically correct European propensity to procure West Bank produce from Arabs rather than Jews ensures the Arabs’ competitiveness.

Abbas, whose presidential term has long expired, legally must step down and let Hamas’ parliament speaker rule. Supported by IDF, Abbas refuses to relinquish his post.

Abbas has recently suffered a series of blows to his credibility: he met with Netanyahu despite having vowed to avoid him; he agreed to resume peace talks without a settlement freeze; he agreed to ignore the Goldstone report; he rescinded his promise to avoid running for reelection; and now he has rescinded the elections themselves. Abbas’ chances in the elections, if and when they happen, are slim.

Typically an irresponsible splinter group, often backed by Fatah in order to torment Hamas, launches a rocket at the Israeli desert to provoke the next round of clashes.

IAF’s feeble response contrasts with the “iron fist” policy Defense Minister Barak promised against IDF’s own soldiers.

Neither does the Israeli government want to crack down on smuggling, because efficient closure of the border would damage the ceasefire understanding with Hamas. If anything, Hamas profits from border closure because it extracts racketeering fees from smugglers.

By far, the bulk of smuggled goods are household stuff.

The halt will last until IDF’s next hostile action. In a typical cycle of violence, some guerrillas come dangerously close to IDF personnel near the fence, IDF responds with fire, and the Gazans shoot a few shells into Israel. IDF then retaliates against empty tunnels in Rafah, and the violence starts all over again.

In war, confidence-building and half-measures do not work.

Israel collects taxes for the terrorist Palestinian entity. Technically, the taxes are levied on Palestinian laborers in Israel, but in the end they increase prices for Israeli consumers.

Khoury also claimed that Israel is somehow stifling the Palestinian economy, which is quite an accusation from an ethnic group which sports the highest economic growth rate among non-oil-producing Arabs, a feat it has accomplished by leeching off Jews for a century.

The spectacle took place in Jerusalem, which some still consider an Israeli city.

On other hand, Israel has no reason to reject the profit and pass the deal to the Egyptians, who would be happy to supply Gaza.

The Americans are unlikely to allow Abbas to resign because his only potential replacement is Dahlan, a Palestinian strongman with no support in Netanyahu’s cabinet. It would take a leftist government in Israel to negotiate with Dahlan or release another possible leader, Marwan Barghouti, from jail.

The problem is that, according to Jewish law, Jews must kill their enemies, even when they wave flags of whatever color. In halacha, once an enemy rebels against God by refusing to heed the demands of his people, that enemy must be killed, combatants and non-combatants alike.

Leftists ignored the rocket threat to Sderot, but would support bombing Gaza into dust for an attack on Tel Aviv.

It is often alleged that terrorists have an implicit arrangement withIsrael to avoid shelling high-ticket spots. Out of 12,000 rockets from Gaza, none hit Israeli gas and oil terminals nearby, and Hezbollah is careful to direct its rocket fire toward poor villages across the border rather than at a handful of affluent and influential kibbutzim at the same range.

Not surprisingly, the plan failed. The Palestinians immediately destroyed the greenhouses, which in any case could have employed a few thousand Arabs at most. The plans for tourism were equally questionable: with excellent, cheap, and safe Red Sea resorts in Egypt, why would foreigners fly to Gaza?

Hamas has refused to participate in the elections. If elections are held, they will cement the separation of Palestine into two enclaves, an outcome more than welcome for West Bankers, who would hate to have pauperized and criminal Gazans pouring into the affluent West Bank.