Egypt Jittery Over Israeli Gaza Proposal

It was not clear if the proposal for Israel to relinquish all control over Gaza, expressed privately by several Israeli officials and publicly by one, was serious or just an effort to test international reaction to the idea. But Egyptian officials were fuming.

"This is a wrong assumption, the current situation is only an exception and for temporary reasons,"

Hossam Zaki, the official spokesman for Egypt's Foreign Ministry, said of Israeli hints that it was thinking of giving up administration of Gaza now that the Palestinian territory's southern border with Egypt is open.

"The border will eventually go back to normal."

[And there it is. Why should any Arab nation do anything to help their Arab brethren? Better to leave things as they are so Palestinian self-destruction can forever be spun as Israeli maleficence - even when Israel is explicitly trying to remove itself. Only the media could spin this situation so far from reality.]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/01/24/international/i105612S15.DTL