Fatah Refuses Egyptian Offer of Talks with Hamas

Notwithstanding the Israeli disengagement there, I think that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas recognizes how inconsequential and how screwed up Gaza is, and so he is snubbing the Egyptian offer of mediating talks with Hamas because he does not want the region.

That makes three governmental entities that have said they don't want anything to do with it now.

Ignoring Israeli-Palestinian issues, Gaza has nothing going for it as a geographical entity.

Let's see what you have by way of pluses and minuses with Gaza:

Minuses:

• Overpopulated.
• No economy to speak of.
• This is independent of the blockade. There is simply thing there in the way of meaningful economic development.
• Not enough drinkable water, the water in Gaza is increasingly saline, and now well beyond UN health standards, as a result of over subscription of the aquifer, and subsequent infiltration from the Med.
• BTW, this has their only industry, agriculture, living on borrowed time.
• Medieval social structure, even by the standards of Arab society, with clan loyalties trumping everything else.
  

Pluses:

• Ummmm.....Maybe a decent soccer team?