While social issues are important, I respectfully suggest that sealing the border with Eqypt trumps social issues. Why? If you end up dead, surely social issues will be the least of your concerns. Sharon has other priorities, and I would bet that he has deals tied up with both PA AND Eqyptian interests. Stay tuned. All the garbage will spill out sooner or later. It always does.

REMEMBER HITLER REMEMBER THE PIZZA PARLOR REMEMBER THE PESACH HOTEL REMEMBER GUSH KATIF REMEMBER NATANYA J. POLLARD DANNY PERL 1947

Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew, 1Dec05 The Situation at the Rafiah Crossing - Total Neglect - Yossi Yehoshua Less than a week has gone by since the Rafiah crossing was opened between Gaza and Egypt and the Israeli security establishment is extremely worried by the new reality, which was defined Wednesday by a senior security source as "total neglect." Army sources argue that because of pressure by Secretary of State Rice, the agreement had been signed too hurriedly, without providing an answer to Israeli security needs. According to the Israeli understanding of the agreement, the Israeli-Palestinian joint command center was supposed to obtain comprehensive information about whomever is passing from Gaza to Egypt and the reverse. In actuality, since the crossing has been opened, Israel only receives pictures of whomever is crossing and only eight minutes or so later information arrives about the identity of the person passing through. In that time, it is possible to go through the crossing without Israeli security authorities knowing the identity of the person. A senior member of the General Security Services remarked: "It's like watching a movie without any voice or subtitles." After raising the matter with the EU representative, it became clear that there was no common understanding. The EU's Italian general argued that he doesn't recognize a requirement to pass on data to Israel in real time. Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, who heads the political-military section of the Ministry of Defense, stated that the critical clause exists: "With this situation, the agreement is worthless." (Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew, 1Dec05)

Send your defense minister and political rival to work out a plan and then ream him out for making it too expensive and squeezing out the needs of the poor. Get it?

don't matter to Sharon, Peres, et.al. Actually, I doubt it very much that they care about the poor, except as as a voting block. After all, rich people don't get blown up in the markets and on the busses, do they?