June 7,
2008: As Iranian money has poured into
Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza, much of it is being used to buy
weapons. But Gaza is supposed to be cut off from the outside world (because of
Hamas vowing to destroy Israel). The solution to that is the smugglers, who
primarily move goods, and people, in and out of Gaza via tunnels, will move
anything for the right price, and right now, weapons are hot items. Nearly all
the smuggling is along the border with Egypt, although the Egyptians are
particularly eager to keep weapons out of Gaza. That's because anti-Egyptian
Islamic terrorists are believed to have taken refuge in Gaza. These groups have
made several attacks in Egypt over the past few years. Egypt has let it be known
that smugglers of weapons will have a harder time of it if caught. Rewards have
been increased, for tips about weapons
being moved towards Gaza, or for use by terrorists inside Egypt. It is feared
that Egyptian officials who control weapons, either at state factories, storage
depots or even military units, will be tempted, by the high prices, to sell
weapons to the smugglers. This is a more attractive deal than selling to
Islamic terrorists. The smugglers insist that any weapons going into Gaza are
not coming out, but will be used against Israel.
That may
appeal to greedy government officials and soldiers, but police recently
discovered a cache of weapons, apparently owned by smugglers, that contained 30
shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles. Several of these have shown up in Gaza
(and been used against Israeli helicopters), but the Egyptians are also afraid
that Islamic terrorists would use such missiles against airliners moving
tourists in and out of the country. Islamic terrorists have, for decades, been
trying to destroy the lucrative tourist industry, in order to create economic
and political chaos that would enable an Islamic takeover. Most Egyptians don't
care about attacks on Israel, but do care about the millions of jobs created by
the tourism.
