Nature and Terrorists Abhor a Vacuum

Al-Qaeda is filling the void left in Gaza after the recent Israeli withdrawal. This is, of course, bad news for Israel as stated at Powerline:

When pressed for an alternative to President Bush's policy of vigorous military action against Islamic terrorism, the suggestion most often given by those on the left is to sell out Israel. They blame the terrorists' antipathy toward the U.S. on our friendship with Israel, and argue that if America pursued a more pro-Palestinian policy, the terrorists would leave us alone. We have always thought this was folly, for a number of reasons.

But the time may be fast approaching when this debate becomes moot. When it becomes clear that al Qaeda intends to use Gaza as a base for international terrorism, the administration will have no choice but to face up to the dangers posed by the Palestinians' failure to develop a normal civil society, and to think seriously about what can be done to mitigate those dangers.

I think this is worse news for Egypt. Ayman al-Zawahiri is a fervent hater of the current Egyptian regime and would like nothing more than to overthrow that government. If the terror groups Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad aid them, it could be trying times ahead for Hosni Mubarak.

The various Arab governments--chiefly Saudi Arabia--have tried to appease al-Qaeda using money and other means and have had no success. The Egyptians fed ammunition and arms to the Palestinian terrorist groups for decades. Those groups such as Hamas may still feel an allegiance, al-Qaeda and their splinter groups have no such compunction.