February 2, 2008 (LPAC)--Schemes to permanently separate the Gaza Strip from Israel, to ostensibly align it economically with Egypt, are a British-inspired chaos operation run through the Muslim Brotherhood that would escalate the danger of regional war, said Lyndon LaRouche yesterday.

And, both the Egyptian government--President Hosni Mubarak and other Egyptian leaders--and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak oppose such a scheme. This option came to the fore as a result of mass demonstrations that broke through the wall that separates the Gaza Strip and Egypt, after the humanitarian disaster that followed when Israel cut off fuel deliveries--and therefore electricity, water purification, and sanitation in late January. An estimated 700,000 desperate Palestinians fled from Gaza to Egypt to buy food, water, and medicines when they were cut off.

"The danger is that an adjoining Egypt/Israel border at Gaza would accelerate the danger of general war. That is why Barak denounced statements advocating this. He may be ambitious, but he's not stupid," LaRouche said, adding that those who propose a Gaza-Egypt merger, notably the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Palestine, are pushing a British trap.

At the same time however, a high level Egyptian diplomatic source told EIR that the Rafah Crossing should never have been closed in 2006-2007, because the move had turned Gaza into an open air prison. LaRouche also noted that the U.S.-British-Israeli decision to seal the Rafah Crossing (from Gaza to Egypt) is part of the same British chaos operation. A viable border agreement involving Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians, was broken by Israel--egged on by the Anglo-American war party--after Hamas was elected as the Palestinian Authority government.

Muslim Brotherhood circles are now trying to exploit the Gaza crisis as an excuse to overturn the Paris Agreement of 1993-1994 that linked the economy of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza and the West Bank, to Israel. According to an Egyptian intelligence source, Hamas is now embracing that idea.

That was in part confirmed by Ismail Haniyeh, the deposed Hamas Prime Minister himself, who was quoted today in Ha'aretz, telling the pro-Hamas daily Palestine, that Hamas would like to see Gaza receiving its fuel and electricity from Egypt. "We have said from the days of our election campaign that we want to move toward economic disengagement from the Israeli occupation," Haniyeh said.

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground continues to be fluid. Haniyeh, in the same comments reported above, also said he would not allow Egypt to reseal the border. However, another senior Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, said, after meetings with Egyptian officials on Saturday, that "We will work to close the border between us and Egypt [and] restore control over this border, in cooperation with Egypt and gradually."