The posts about the Gaza closure to weaken Hamas backfiring is exactly what the U.S. State dept. is saying right now to Israel. Also Olmert was talking tough today, and Carole may be right about the situation perhaps getting worse soon - militarily speaking in Gaza.

Talking tough today again the the president of Iran who said in a speech : "criminal and terrorist Zionist regime" with a track record of 60 years of plundering, aggression and crimes ... has reached the end ... and will soon disappear from the geographical" charts.

There is a lot of dangerous and confrontation talk going on today. Scary!

My opinion - It's so complicated a situation - but I believe the Palestinian State issue should have been dealt with seriously 30 years ago. The Israeli government has let it fester too long and we now have a new young generation of Palestinians thave has grown up completely in despair and they know nothing but misery and confrontation. What a mess!

Here is today's article:
Israel's continued blockade of the Gaza Strip is misguided and has helped rather than harmed Hamas, a senior State Department official told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

Olmert meets with Abbas in Jerusalem regarding peace negotiations and ceasefire in Gaza

The State Department is likely to convey its unhappiness regarding Israel's Gaza policy to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert when he arrives in Washington before dawn on Tuesday. His three-day visit will include a meeting with US President George W. Bush and a keynote address to the annual AIPAC policy conference.

"What we're telling the Israelis is that the policy that was adopted after the summer [of June 2007] wasn't working, of really closing the borders," said a senior State Department official.

On Monday night, Olmert said that the "hour of decision" was approaching regarding continued Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, pledging that the attacks, which have continued unabated for seven years, will be stopped "one way or another."
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"I said in the past that I prefer the path of dialogue, but as long as all the steps we take do not lead to the hoped-for calm, we will be forced to turn to the sword," Olmert said at the official Jerusalem Day ceremony at Ammunition Hill, marking 41 years since the reunification of the capital. "We will brandish it in a heavy, sharp and painful manner."

"I say to the residents of Sderot and the Gaza envelope: My heart and thoughts are with you," he added. "You pay the ongoing price which effects your way of life, primarily that of your children. The hour of decision is approaching, after which you too will have the longed-for quiet. The threat towards you will also be removed, one way or another."

The beleaguered premier, who is facing growing calls for his ouster in the wake of the latest in a series of corruption scandals, made the remarks just hours before he left for Washington in what could be his last visit to the US capital as prime minister, and after months of on-again, off-again negotiations for an Egyptian-mediated truce with Hamas have failed to bear fruit.

Olmert arrives in Washington in the midst of a stiff diplomatic agenda that includes peace talks with Syria and a 2008 deadline to come to a final status agreement with the Palestinians. But he leaves Israel under threat of a possible indictment for money laundering that has shaken his coalition and left politicians scrambling to work toward new elections.

The senior State Department official said that Olmert's political situation was a "challenge" but that the US remains "confident that there's broad support within Israeli society for a two-state solution."

The United States, he said, was still looking for an agreement by the end of Bush's term.

The peace process, he said, "is not just the work of one person."

"We remain positive about it, despite all the obstacles and challenges," he said, indicating there are other challenges, not just Olmert's political prospects.

Israeli media on Monday speculated that this could be Olmert's last trip, with Channel 1 adding in that he had thought of canceling it.

But Olmert's spokesman Mark Regev refused to comment on the matter, stating only, "We have a lot of work on the agenda that needs to be done and we want to do that work."

Part of that work is likely to be new look at Israel's continued closure of the Gaza borders to all but humanitarian aid and basic supplies. Hamas's violent take over of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 suspended all border agreements on movement and access.

Those agreements have been hard to implement in light of Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel and given that there has been no agreed-upon body to replace Fatah, which until last summer had controlled the border crossings.

Israel has held the opinion that a blockade of Gaza would also weaken Hamas's hold on the strip.

But a senior State Department official told the Post that policy has appeared to have backfired. Palestinian rocket attacks against southern Israel have continued and Hamas is gaining strength due to popular disaffection and Hamas can still get the resources it needs.

"Within Gaza, Hamas seems the least effected by the closure," he said.

A new approach must be found that "that wouldn't benefit Hamas... but to find that new approach is very difficult because Hamas is in control."

Among the ideas US officials will kick around with Israel is a new look at the possibility of monitors and the defunct agreement on movement and access.

"You could envision Rafah being open under an agreement on movement and access with EU monitors. But all of that requires in some ways Hamas's acquiescence," he said.

He also called the idea of having some sort of international force between Israel and Gaza a "creative idea."

Regev said he imagined that Gaza would be on the agenda with the US, as well as the Egyptian brokered talks on a cease fire.

The State Department official told the Post that on the issue of a cease-fire the US would like to see a new approach. He did not elaborate.

"We don't want Israel to do anything that would make Israel feel like it put itself at jeopardy or risk," the official said.

Egypt, he said, has been playing a "constructive role," adding that Egypt has been making "more of an effort" when it comes to smuggling.

Talking tough today again the the president of Iran who said in a speech : "criminal and terrorist Zionist regime" with a track record of 60 years of plundering, aggression and crimes ... has reached the end ... and will soon disappear from the geographical" charts.

There is a lot of dangerous and confrontation talk going on today.