With the Rafah agreement, which has not yet been signed, Israel is signing away her status as a sovereign nation.

A sovereign nation has two basic rights — to control its borders and to self defense. Both of this things are about to be surrendered.

Consider the following:

— There was a terrorist warning at the Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel. Israel, under this agreement, no longer has the right to close it unilaterally. She must ask permission. Israel, per the understanding, asked the US if the crossing could be closed. The US said no, it cannot be completely closed. (This is from Steve Rodan of the Middle East News Line, a superb and reliable source.) Can you imagine this? A situation in which Israel no longer has the right to say who may and may not enter the country, or when?? Unheard of for a sovereign state. Imagine a situation in which Mexicans tell America they have the right to come in whether the American gov’t wants them to or not.

— According to Rodan, the PA is now insisting that Israel has no right to enter the “liaison office” to be headed by the EU that is spelled out in the agreement. This is the office where there will be live video feed and computer feed from the Rafah crossing. That is, not only will Israel not be able to stop anyone from crossing, it turns out that if the PA has its way, Israel won’t even know who is crossing. The PA says the agreement doesn’t say Israel has a right to be in that liaison office.

I took a close look at the wording of that agreement with Dr. Aaron Lerner of IMRA this morning. Actually, the wording does not spell out Israel’s presence specifically, but Dr. Lerner says in diplomatic parlance the term “liaison” implies the presence of all parties. Certainly this is the way it was understood here — Sec. of Defense Mofaz made a statement to the effect that we would have the right to view the video to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee last week.

— Also according to Rodan, the PA is now demanding that its security people accompany the convoy of buses of Palestinians who will make their way per the agreement between Gaza and Judea/Samaria. This is a most serious matter as it would establish a principle of Palestinian sovereignty within Israel.

— There is nothing new on the matter of checkpoints in Judea/Samaria that Israel has agreed to try to reduce in number, in consultation with the US. But we can extrapolate a bit. If the US refuses to “allow” Israel to completely close Erez while checking for terrorists, because doing so interfers with Palestinian commerce, it is easy to imagine what pressure the US will now bring to bear on Israel to cut those checkpoints to ease Palestinian traffic flow.

The agreement, as it stands, if signed, will have one of two results: It will cause a tremendous weaking of Israel as a sovereign state — which certainly will lead to instability in the region and the strengthening of terrorist elements. Or it will simply blow up because it is untenable as is, and there will be considable loss of life. With all of our strength we must attempt everything possible to halt the signing of the agreement.

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