From DEBKAfile, January 21, 2008, 10:36 PM (GMT+02:00):
... Monday night, defense minister Ehud Barak gave a “one-time” order to resume the heavy fuel and medicines deliveries to the Gaza Strip. He thus surrendered to the pressure drummed up by Hamas’ highly telegenic humanitarian crisis that never was.
Neither the foreign ministry nor the army spokesman was geared to fend off this psychological war stunt. By the time they argued back that Israel, while taking 50 missiles a day, was feeding Gaza 75 percent of its electricity and its hospitals (unlike those in Arab countries) were caring for dozens of Palestinian patients from the Gaza Strip, no one was listening.
This episode had ...immediate effects:
1. Hamas successfully mustered Arab opinion across the Middle East against the Western siege imposed on the terrorist-ruled Gaza Strip.
2. The prestige of Palestinian Authority leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyed suffered a knock for failing to force its peace partner, Israel, to lift the siege of Gaza.
3. Israel’s surrender to pressure was an object lesson for the Lebanese terrorist group Hizballah, as well as the Palestinian Islamists Hamas. Hassan Nasrallah has launched his own propaganda campaign against Israel over the remains of soldiers allegedly left in Lebanon from the 2006 war.
4. The plight of Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants did not reached crisis point – unlike the dwindling Israeli communities living under constant Palestinian missile fire. Yet their plight never made it to the world media in the same way as the show of suffering in Gaza....
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