Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Israeli-Egyptian Negotiations on Gaza

The main problem is the fact that Israel is preconditioning a cease-fire to a solution to the smuggling, while Egypt is asking for a cease-fire and the opening of the border crossings, before a resolution of the Hamas tunnels issue. 

And:
Solana said Wednesday that the Union is ready to assist Egypt in preventing smuggling, but in an interview to Reuters he qualified that the assistance "will be mostly technological and not by the deployment of forces." 

The good news is that the Europeans support Israel's demands for an end to weapons smuggling into Gaza. The bad news is that few countries are willing to have their soldiers involved in the actual policing that would help to accomplish this.

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