In the wake of Hamas blowing up the border fence between Egypt and Gaza the images of Palestinians from Gaza streaming across the border into Egypt were unsettling to the Israelis, Egyptians, Palestinian Authority, and Bush Administration. Only Hamas benefited from the images. In breaking down the wall sealing the Sinai from Gaza, Hamas seemed to liberate Palestinians besieged in Gaza and outmaneuvered all those trying to build pressure on it to change its behavior.

For Israel, a policy of isolation and containment of Hamas, designed both to pressure Hamas to stop rocket fire and show it could not succeed, came crashing down. For Egypt, the desire to keep the contagion of an Islamist Palestinian neighbor from seeping into it was suddenly undone; Egypt does not mind Israel looking like it inflicts pain on Palestinians, but it is something else for it to do so before its own public and the Arab world.

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