Mideast-Conflicts/Gaza/Egypt/ ANALYSIS: Egypt opening of Gaza border: not all doom for Israel

By Ofira Koopmans May 29, 2011, 11:47 GMT

Tel Aviv - For the Palestinians, the significance of Egypt's decision to open its border crossing with Gaza is clear. For Israel, it is more ambiguous.

For the first time in four years, Gazans, who have often described their territory as 'the world's biggest open-air prison,' feel they have some air to breathe.

A door is open for the more than 1.6 million Palestinians living in the claustrophobic strip measuring little more than 40 by 9 kilometres.

Egypt had opened the Rafah crossing before, but only to students, patients and others with special authorization.

Starting this week-end, as far as the authorities in Cairo are concerned, anyone can pass through freely, except for men aged 18 to 40 (a large section of Gaza's young society), who still need security clearance.

Israeli officials called the development 'deeply troubling,' and expressed concern that militants, even munition, may now freely enter Gaza, without any foreign supervision.

Nonetheless, they seemed confident the decision would not mean a security blow for Israel.

Weapons, even people, were anyway being smuggled in through the network of tunnels dug under the Gaza-Egypt border.

Worse was the political significance, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Arab media have portrayed Egypt's act as humiliating for Israel, and as a triumph for its enemy, the Hamas movement that rules Gaza.

Not only did Egypt pay no heed to Israel, the decision grants 'legitimacy' to Hamas, strengthens the Islamist movement, and facilitates its ability to govern Gaza, one senior Israeli government official said.

Israel sees Hamas as a threat, because it refuses to recognize its right to exist, and has launched rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza, as well as, until 2004, scores of suicide bombings in Israeli cities.

The opening of the border crossing ends the four-year closure that Egypt under ousted president Hosny Mubarak had imposed on Hamas, after it seized sole control of Gaza in 2007, said Eyal Zisser, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Tel Aviv University.

It 'betokens the end of the undeclared alliance between Cairo and Jerusalem,' said the former director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.

That alliance had been based on a shared recognition that Hamas in Gaza posed a mutual threat to both, he wrote in the Israel Hayom daily.

But the biggest-selling Israeli daily, Yediot Ahronot, claimed Sunday that while Israel would not say so out loud, a 'sense of relief' could actually be felt during consultation held at the Israeli Defence Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Some observers said that Israel would now be trying to wash its hands of the hot potato of Gaza, and argue that Egypt, not it, was responsible for the strip's residents.

Also, some observers said, critics could no longer argue Gaza was under siege - without Israel having to climb down.

Israel greatly eased restrictions on the entry of goods into Gaza last year. But fierce world criticism continued over ongoing restrictions on exports and the movement of people.

The unilateral Egyptian decision could take some of the wind out of the sails of the next pro-Palestinian flotilla, scheduled to sail to Gaza in June, they argued.

Israel imposed its blockade of the strip in response to rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza, and after the capture of an Israeli soldier in a 2006 cross-border raid from Gaza> He is still being held captive.

It tightened the blockade after Hamas' Gaza takeover in 2007.

The opening of the Gaza-Egypt border is a 'diplomatic, psychological, political achievement for Hamas in the short-run,' said Alex Fishman, a commentator for Yediot.

'It is also a very bad signal in terms of Israeli-Egyptian relations.' Egypt had not hesitated to 'grossly violate' security agreements with Israel, he charged.

But, he argued, 'in the long-run, the benefit will be all ours.'

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