The PR War in Gaza

It's hard to imagine a more vivid postcard of Palestinian deprivation than the scene this morning at the sun-bleached crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. After masked men blew a series of huge holes in the border fence late last night, thousands of Palestinians streamed through the holes and swarmed the streets of the Egyptian border town of Rafah, clearing local shops of whatever they could manage to buy and carry off: milk, powdered detergent, the occasional motorcycle. Hatchbacks stuffed with cramped Palestinians looked like clown cars as they sped deeper into Egyptian territory along the Sinai coast. For many Gazans, the crossing was the first taste of freedom in months; the border has been tightly sealed after the Islamists in Hamas swept to power last June. Some reports put the number of Gazans who managed to cross in the hundreds of thousands; although many later returned, thousands are likely to have vanished from the besieged coastal strip permanently. Amid the chaos, Egyptian border police looked on helplessly or sympathetically, for the most part appearing to sanction the exodus.

The Egyptian border debacle is just one more reminder that the law of unintended consequences tends to rule in the Middle East, despite the best intentions of U.S. policymakers. It is also an illustration of just how difficult it will be for George W. Bush to realize his hopes for a "West Bank First" strategy that aims to turn Gazan public opinion against the Islamists--much less his goal of a comprehensive peace agreement. The Bush administration's strategy since Hamas swept to power in local elections two years ago has been to squeeze the Islamists by depriving them of the aid money the Palestinian economy usually depends on to operate. For a while at least, the tactic seemed to be working, at least on some superficial level. In public-opinion surveys, the Islamists' popularity has been slipping by a point or two with each month that passes, according to Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki.

Yet over the last few weeks, increasing Israeli crackdowns in response to intensifying rocket fire from Gaza threaten to push Palestinian public opinion back in the other direction. Last week Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced that the Jewish state would tighten its "closure" policy, sealing remaining crossings to Gaza and preventing fuel and other supplies from entering the coastal strip. "As far as I'm concerned, the residents of Gaza can walk if they don't have gasoline for their cars," Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said Tuesday, before later easing the blockade slightly.