EU would be happy to be used as anti-aircraft cover for Hamas

Well, European Union Leader Solana did not say it exactly that way but experience should teach us that is what this hair brained scheme would amount to. Taken from Ha’aretz:

The European Union would consider participating in an international force in Gaza if asked by the major players in the region, the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Wednesday. "If we are asked, of course, we will consider the possibility," Solana told reporters.

He spoke in response to a suggestion by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that international forces could be stationed along the Gaza Strip's volatile border with Egypt to prevent arms from reaching Palestinian militants.

The EU, which has police officers already helping to monitor the Gaza-Egypt border, has long said it would examine a possible peacekeeping role in the region if there is an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Solana stressed that as yet there had been no decision among players in the region to seek EU help."We are far from a decision," he said. "We'll see how things go, and what is the decision to be taken by the important players, that have to take a decision, which are ... the Israelis, the Palestinians and the Egyptians."

One thing is certain, the EU is already in full denial. The EU observers already posted on the Philadelphi route have yet to miss an opportunity to high tail it and run to the nearest IDF outpost when events on the border threaten to turn ok corralish. As far as a UN international force, well, let us remember about what an outstanding job of looking the other way UNIFIL has been doing on the Lebanese-Israeli border for the last 20 or so odd years while Hezbollah dug-in and fully stockpiled weapons and munitions.

The weak player on the border is, and has always been, the Egyptians. If the Egyptians could be weaned from the cash cow arms smuggling has become and fully police/enforce their side of the border there would be no need of an international force to be stationed on the Philadelpi route. I cannot envision a scenario, whereby the Egyptians could be induced to allow an international force police carte blanche to be stationed alongside their border with Hamastan. And then, of course, there is always the question of why should Hamastan agree to a foreign force policing their side of the border?