Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas' military wing who has been on Israel’s “Most Wanted” list since the mid-1990s, disseminated a recording this week (July 27) in which he stipulated the removal of the closure on the Gaza Strip as a pre-condition for a cease-fire. All of the military conflicts between Israel and Hamas revolved around this issue. Hamas wants, more than anything else, to end the blockade because this state of affairs makes it difficult to rule the Strip and provide for the needs of the population. Israel, on the other hand, obstinately refuses to revoke the decision taken by former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on June 15, 2007.

Olmert’s decision was adopted the day after Hamas’ military coup in the Strip. The prime minister was in the throes of a fight for political survival after the publication of the Interim Report of the Winograd Commission that probed the failures of the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The following day, Olmert was supposed to go to the United States for a meeting with the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US President George W. Bush. Before his departure, Olmert instructed the defense system to close all border crossings to Gaza. To avoid American criticism of “collective punishment,” he also ordered the continuation of humanitarian aid.

We can assume that the hurried decision was accepted mainly to examine the significance of Hamas’ transformation into ruler of the Gaza strip, and learn the ramifications of this new reality. Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer was interviewed by the Israeli Army Radio Station two days after the coup and said, “We must halt all relief and assistance to the Strip. I am stopping everything until I understand what’s going on there. We must simply deepen the separation between Gaza and Judea-Samaria, to totally close them [Hamas] off. The only opening that needs to remain is in the direction of Rafah.”

The Olmert government and the Netanyahu government that followed have never held a serious, in-depth discussion with the defense system and the civil administration regarding this decision, which morphed from an ad-hoc act into strategic policy. Israel’s working assumption was that economic pressure on the Gaza Strip would cause unrest among its residents, forcing Hamas to relinquish authority when it would not be able to provide for their well-being. This policy was encouraged by President Mahmoud Abbas’ people in Ramallah, who were brutally and shamefacedly booted out of Gaza.