There's a fascinating dispatch in Ha'aretz reporting that Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has made it clear to President Obama that he doesn't want Israel's naval blockade against Hamas lifted. This should be no surprise, and it raises difficult questions for both America and the meddlesome Europeans who can produce nothing diplomatically but hot air. In fact, why doesn't Europe attend to its own terrible problems, among which are the survival of the Eurozone itself and the very liquidity of Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland? What does that mean? Leave Israel alone. But it won't. An article in this morning's Jerusalem Post reports that Spain—poor, impoverished, pretentious and powerless Spain—has initiated a proposal for the European Union to monitor goods going into Gaza. Their model presumably is the UNIFIL operation which has failed in each and every one of its missions from 1978 on. It is a phantasy world.
As you will see from the Ha'aretz article, Abbas wants it both ways. He wants Israel to ease up on barring items that won't help Hamas, his mortal enemy and a threat to Egypt, as well. But he wants Jerusalem, if anything, to stiffen its rules against seaborne commerce with Gaza. The Palestinian Authority was not taken in by the ever more jihadist regime in Turkey which, allied now with Iran, has become comrade with Muslim fundamentalists everywhere. This discourse is done in shadows.
Almost nobody noticed that Egypt also didn't want to cave to the Islamist pirates out of Ankara and Istanbul. And it doesn't want to now. Cairo understands the game. It has relaxed its own land blockade against Gaza. But my guess (an informed guess) is that the loosening of the grip will loosen very little. If anything.
So the question is: What will President Obama demand? He has no reason to reward Istanbul. Still, Turkey was a key element in his global design. I 'm not sure that he realizes it is an utter failure.