What if Bush Had Done This?
Sorry, force of habit.
Egypt blocked six senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders from leaving through Rafah Crossing to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, obligatory for Muslims at least once in their lives.
Palestinians local sources reported that Egypt blocked the departure of Dr. Mohammed Al-Hindi, a senior Jihad official in the Gaza Strip.
It also blocked two Hamas parliament members, Zekariah Dugmush - head of the national resistance councils - and two other senior officials.
Maybe the Hamass terrorists—sorry, parliamentarians—can paraphrase a line from Passover: next year in Mecca! Or one from Brooklyn: wait till next year!
Anyhow, why would Egypt behave so insensitively toward its Arab brother?
Maybe this is why:
Gunmen ambushed an Egyptian patrol shortly after it seized contraband cement intended for Gaza, leaving one officer and five soldiers wounded, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.
The security source mentioned by The Associated Press said Egyptian security forces were searching for a smugglers warehouse in the mountainous area in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, south of the Rafah border crossing.
The security forces, travelling in a convoy of two armored vehicles and almost twelve police vans, seized 200 tons of cement intended by smugglers to be transported into Gaza via a network of tunnels, according to a local security official.
You move 200 tons of cement through Egypt and you don’t give them a taste of the action? What do you expect?