Millions to Hamas

President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for sharply limiting Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, following the May 31 deaths of nine Turkish blockade runners when Israeli forces stopped an uninspected shipment from Cyprus to Gaza, as they repeatedly warned they would.

The White House also announced a $400 million aid package for Gaza and the West Bank.

Despite the fact that the Israelis already let humanitarian aid through to Gaza, Mr. Obama now calls for even more narrowly tailoring the blockade. "The key here is making sure that Israel's security needs are met, but that the needs of people in Gaza are also met," said Mr. Obama, channeling Solomon the wise.

This is the classic notion of the "balancing test," sometimes called "cutting the baby in half."

Had the Israelis allowed the shipments to proceed uninspected, of course, their blockade would have been at an end, no longer subject to any of the "fine-tuning" Mr. Obama now urges. They would then have had only the "word" of the Palestinian Arabs that they do not intend to re-arm.

But Hamas, which now rules Gaza, is at war with Israel. The Palestinians in Gaza continue to rain deadly rockets on Israeli civilian population centers, and declare they will not stop till the Jews are driven into the sea.

Again and again for more than 40 years, the Israelis have been urged to trade "land for peace." Yet every time they pull back the Arab aggressors simply move their active rocket launchers farther forward, closer to Israeli civilian towns and cities.

So now Mr. Obama's answer is to urge Israel to relax their embargo while, meantime, handing the Palestinians nearly half a billion dollars with which to re-arm.

In fact, "negotiations" are pointless until after the Palestinians announce, in public, in Arabic, that they recognize the right of Israel to exist indefinitely within its current borders.