Lekarov Reports
Saudi King Abdullah has warned Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak that extreme steps must be taken to bring the Palestinian fundamentalists under control. This was the essence of a message urgently delivered to Cairo yesterday by Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal.
The tumultuous “invasion” of Sinai by Hamas recently and the escalating war between Hamas and Israel are beginning to pose a threat to the stability of the Saudi throne as well as the Egyptian regime. Hamas, Al-Faisal said, had removed itself from the Arab mainstream and was going wild.
After funding the radical Palestinian Hamas for years, the Saudi monarch now perceives the Hamas-orchestrated surge into northern Sinai as a coup, the second in seven months, after its conquest of the Gaza strip from the Palestinian Authority. The Saudi ruler sees Hamas turning its back on its two Arab patrons, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and moving over into the extremist Iranian-Syrian orbit.
This is a serious blow for US Middle East objectives and a corresponding triumph for Tehran and Damascus.
It could plant dangerous ideas in the heads of the Saudi religious establishment and the Muslim Brotherhood branches in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. They are watching their Palestinian offshoot first seize Arab territory by force, then engineer a mass exodus to grab a slice of territory from the largest Arab nation, Egypt.
King Abdullah fears Hamas’ actions will kindle an existential crisis for Saudi throne as great as that generated by al Qaeda before its suppression. And he probably has very good reason to be afraid.
Meanwhile, the Egyptians threatened Hamas with severe punishment for any further incursions into Gaza. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, issued a stern warning to Hamas yesterday. “Anyone who violates Egypt’s borders will get his legs broken,” he said. And of course, his next comment said that Israel is responsible for all the problems in Gaza. So what’s new?
Sources told The Jerusalem Post that Cairo had also declared Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal persona non grata. In addition, several Hamas leaders from the Gaza Strip have been told they would not be allowed to enter Egypt. They include Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siam.
Adding insult to injury, it was reported today that many of the Palestinians who went on frenzied shopping sprees in Egypt paid for their goods with counterfeit money!
It is all Kabuki theater and sleight of hand but what it boils down to is this:
++ It does not matter who is funding Hamas or other terror groups, whether it is Egypt and Saudi or Syria and Iran or America and the EU, the money finds it way to help grow these violent organizations.
++ The new reality is that Hamas’ border with Egypt will never be fully sealed – even before the breach it was porous and absolutely open and uncontrolled for the purposes of getting weapons across.
++ The only way that the terrorists shooting rockets at Israel are to be deterred is with a harsh military response; otherwise, like children, they will grow progressively more dangerous and experiment with bigger and better weapons and terror techniques.
++ If Israel wants a secure border then they will have to deal a lethal blow to Hamas, one that will take quite some to recover from. The world will bitch and scream but deep down in their hearts they will know that it is the right and moral thing to do and they will be delighted that Israel, not them, is the one to deliver the good message in the form of a severe punishment for crimes committed and to prevent future crimes from occurring.