You may never have heard of Etan Steinberg, but you might want to know what he had to say.
More than three years ago, when Israel was considering pulling out of the Gaza Strip, we interviewed Steinberg. He served as spokesman for the 8,000 plus Israelis living in the 21 Jewish communities in Gaza, spread throughout the Gush Katif Settlement Bloc.
For more than 30 years, many of these Jews settled Gaza and literally made the desert bloom. But three years ago, they faced expulsion by the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon. Sharon proposed unilateral "disengagement" as a means of achieving peace with the Palestinians or at least a measure of quiet.
Israel gained neither peace nor quiet from the Gaza pullout. Not only did the daily rocket attacks -- ongoing since 2001 -- not diminish, they increased fourfold, according to Jerusalem Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld.
As a result, at least one-fourth of the population of the southern Israeli town of Sderot have abandoned their homes and fled. It's hard to imagine an American town enduring a similar onslaught without a massive U.S. military response.
When we interviewed Steinberg, he warned that Gaza's Jews represented "the finger in the dike" against global terrorism. He said if they were evicted, Palestinian terrorists would make Gaza a center for global terror. Steinberg believed it would mark one more step toward their global ambition to first establish a Middle East caliphate and then make Islam the supreme religion of the world.
He might have sounded alarmist at the time, but his warnings are proving chillingly accurate. Since August 2005, when Israelis were literally torn from their homes and synagogues by their own soldiers and police force, Gaza has become the undisputed domain of the Islamic group Hamas. Last summer, it wrested control of the Gaza Strip from the Fatah party. And in a stunning coup last week, Hamas blew open its border with Egypt.
I'm sure you've seen the pictures -- tens of thousands of Palestinians pouring into Gaza through the breach in the destroyed wall -- in many ways perceived and portrayed as a humanitarian crisis.
While not making light of the plight of the people in Gaza, Hamas used the economic sanctions to create a public relations coup, portraying Israel as the culprit. In fact, Israel imposed the blockade in an effort to thwart the daily rocket barrages on its citizens and avoid a major military incursion.
The pictures told the story: Palestinian children and the Hamas cabinet foto candlelight.
But there's a glitch. Seventy percent of Gaza's electricity is supplied by cable from Israel's power plant in Ashkelon. That electricity was never turned off.
In one incident, Palestinian journalists were told to wait outside before videotaping a Hamas cabinet meeting to allow the legislators to finish lighting their candles. The meeting was held during the day so the curtains were drawn, but Hamas portrayed the image it wanted the world to see.
Last week, Hamas capitalized on the blockade by blowing up the concrete wall, something it apparently had been working on for a number of weeks. The result looked like a mad shopping spree, but it represented much more.
Since last week, we've talked with several experts about the impact of this newest development in the Middle East. One of those experts is Moshe Sharon, a professor of Islamic studies at Hebrew University and the author of "Jihad."
Sharon told us that four years ago, he wrote that when Israel pulled out of Gaza, it would merge with the Sinai. It appears his prediction may come to pass, and Sharon says the Sinai will become "a highway of terror."
With a porous and open border, more sophisticated weapons may now be carried freely into Gaza. In fact, with an open border, the ones who dug the smuggling tunnels under the border are suffering. Who needs a tunnel when you can bring weapons openly?
Sharon says the breach in the wall should be understood in its religious context. For Hamas, this success means that Allah is with them, one more step in their goal of conquering Israel bit by bit.
Sharon believes Iran is behind this latest incident, further evidence that the Islamic republic is doing everything in its power to weaken and ultimately destroy Israel.
We also talked with Boaz Ganor, the founder of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism. Ganor said this development portends a major change in the region, which is bound to lead to an increase in terror and raise considerable danger on Israel's southern border.
The Israeli army already issued a high alert and temporarily closed a number of roads and tourist attractions in the country's Negev desert region. Ganor believes al-Qaeda and Iran will play an even more active role within Gaza. And he too believes Iran was behind this move.
Finally, we talked with retired General Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the IDF's Military Intelligence Research. In the accompanying video, we asked him about the kind of weapons coming into Gaza that might shift the strategic balance between Israel and Hamas and about Iran's involvement in the recent developments. I think you'll find his perspective instructive.
But what does all this mean to you? It is one more step in Islam's war against the West. It's one more face of an Islamic territorial push in the world today. It's one more battle in the war against radical Islam.
For Israel and the U.S., it was not a step in the right direction nor does it bode well for the free world.