As I was reading the news of the latest flare-up between Gaza and Israel, in which two Israeli soldiers were hit by sniper fire and an 80-year-old woman was badly wounded by shrapnel from one of two hundred rockets fired by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and that, in the estimate of Israeli military analysts, "both Hamas and PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad] have restored their military capabilities to their pre-2014 strength," I naturally thought, "How could this have happened?" The answer, I suspect, is simple: though Egypt does what it can to stop cross-border smuggling between the near lawless Sinai and the Gaza strip, materiel still gets into Gaza, to be made into rockets, and arms still get smuggled, too.  Stop the smuggling, and Gaza's armament industry will grind to a halt, and with it Hamas's and Jihad's ability to fight.  Create an Israeli-controlled buffer zone at the south of the strip that is, say, 15 miles wide...(Read Full Post)