Israel: Olmert Regime Rejects Yet Another Peace Bid - Plots Escalation Instead
Zionism, Irrelevant Within A Generation | 24.11.2006 19:18 | Anti-racism | World
The violence on both sides is now the sole responsibility of the Olmert Regime, since Israel could be enjoying peace right now, but their Extremist Rulers decided to escalate the violence instead.
Israeli Extremists can say they want peace until they're blue in the fact. Until they actually seek peace, the world sees them for exactly what they are. I hope this is well publicized within the Israeli population.
Israeli Extremists can say they want peace until they're blue in the fact. Until they actually seek peace, the world sees them for exactly what they are. I hope this is well publicized within the Israeli population.
Israel rejects Palestinian offer to halt rocket fire
(AFP)
24 November 2006
GAZA CITY - A proposal from Palestinian factions to stop rocket attacks in exchange for an end to Israeli offensives in Gaza and the West Bank was rejected as inadequate by Israel on Friday.
Just hours after a spokesman for the ultra-radical Islamic Jihad made the offer following an overnight meeting between rival factions, a Hamas militant was killed during ongoing Israeli operations in the northern Gaza Strip.
“We are getting nothing from these rockets because nothing they achieve matches the force and power of the Israeli response,” Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas declared in Gaza City late Thursday.
“We talked about the rocket fire. There is an agreement to stop the fire in exchange for a halt to Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza,” the Jihad spokesman said after inter-faction talks.
“This idea will be transmitted to the Israelis by Abu Mazen (Abbas). If they accept, there will perhaps be a stop to fire on Israeli towns but not a general truce,” Khader Habib added.
But Israel did not accept the offer, with government spokeswoman Miri Eisin describing it as a “partial ceasefire” impossible to take seriously.
“The suggestion concerns a partial ceasefire, limited to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip in exchange for a total halt to Israeli operations on all fronts. This is not serious,” she told AFP.
“Israel has always aspired to an end to violence and we count on a change of attitude from the Palestinians and primarily Hamas in order to give development a priority in the Gaza Strip instead of continued attacks,” she added.
(That's a bald-faced LIE)
The army, meanwhile, said three rockets fired from the territory exploded in Israel overnight, one of which damaged a commercial centre in the town of Sderot, where two people have died in such attacks in the last 10 days.
A spokesman for the Islamist movement Hamas, which heads the internationally boycotted Palestinian government, and an independent MP involved in the faction talks said there could be no way forward if Israel remained intransigent.
“There is no chance of a truce as long as the enemy aggression continues,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum.
“If the enemy agrees to withdraw from the zones it is occupying and stop its operations, we can look at something else,” he added.
Independent MP Mustapha Barghuti lashed out, branding the Israeli reaction “very discouraging”.
“Israel is responsible for the cycle of violence. Each time Palestinians want an end of violence, Israel refuses. Israel is the one that does not want to stop the cycle of violence,” he told AFP in Gaza City.
The Jihad spokesman had said that Hamas, Abbas’s Fatah movement, his own faction and the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP and DFLP) had accepted the agreement.
A spokesman for the cabinet headed by Hamas, whose armed wing on Thursday claimed its first suicide attack in almost two years when a grandmother blew herself up in Gaza, also said there was willingness for a mutual halt.
“The Palestinian groups are ready to stop the rocket fire if Israel agrees to stop all forms of aggression. If there is such a halt, there will be a halt to the (rocket fire),” said Ghazi Hamad.
But Tawfiq Abu Khussa, a spokesman for Fatah said talks needed more time, saying the movement was talking about an “unconditional” halt to violence.
Israeli troops have stepped up an air and ground offensive in the northern Gaza Strip in a bid to counter near daily Palestinian rocket attacks.
Ayman Juda, 22, a Hamas militant was killed by Israeli fire in Beit Lahiya, a medic said. An army spokeswoman said she was ”checking” the report.
Seven Palestinians, including at least four militants, were killed by Israeli fire in the territory on Thursday.
www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2006/No
Analysis: Israel ponders Gaza escalation
By JOSHUA BRILLIANT
UPI Israel Correspondent
JERUSALEM, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Israel's Political-Security Cabinet instructed the military to present plans for, "a more extensive operation" in the Gaza Strip to stop rocket attacks and arms smuggling.
(This is unnecessary. Now that Israel rejected the Palestinian offer, the continued rockets are their fault.)
The order was issued as more Palestinian Qassam rockets were fired on the town of Sderot, near the Gaza Strip. The army spokesman reckoned that this month Palestinians fired 157 rockets of which 91 made it to the border. Two Israelis were killed in Sderot in the past week.
(It's interesting that these articles never contrast this against the ammunition used by Israel, or the number of Palestinians they've killed.)
During the recent Lebanon War, Hezbollah fired some 4,000 short-range rockets that led an estimated 350,000 Israelis to leave their homes. The Israeli military failed to stop those attacks and realized the rockets have become a strategic weapon.
(They are no such thing. They are a clumsy annoyance at best, one for which Israel has counter-measures, but does not employ them, because without the rockets, there is no "excuse" for their long-planned operations.)
Palestinians maintain Israel is still occupying Gaza, albeit differently than the way it had occupied it before last year's withdrawal.
The head of the Palestinian president's press office, Mohamed Edwan, said Israeli troops surround Gaza, its aircraft fly over it, and it has closed the crossing to Egypt stranding thousands of people.
(The UN has called this "Collective Punishment", which has resulted in a "Humanitarian Disaster".)
"Some of those who shelled these Qassam rockets are ... provoking Israel, but Israel is very much provoking them because of all kinds of occupation and terror actions against Palestinian civilians. Do not forget the Beit Hanoun massacre," he said. Edwan was referring to the shelling of that town a fortnight ago. Israel said it wanted to hit a Qasam rocket launching area but that a faulty circuit board caused the cannon to hit the town. Twenty people were killed.
(After its many exposed, serious lies over the past few months, however, the Regime of Ehud Olmert has very little credibility.)
The Palestinian Maan news agency Wednesday quoted medical sources as saying 105 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of November. That brought the Palestinian death toll, since June, to 400. In June, Palestinian militants crossed into Israel and kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit sparking intensified fighting.
(Actually, the Israeli ship that fired upon and killed an entire Palestinian family, picnicking on a Gaza beach which had formerly been off-limits to Palestinian Arabs, was when the fighting 'intensified'.)
Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Sunday told the Cabinet that in the past three and a half months Israel killed some 370 armed Palestinians.
The Israelis insist they pulled out from Gaza, completely. Gaza is not under occupation and there is no justification for continued attacks from there.
They note that they regretted attacks in which innocent civilians were hit but that Palestinian attackers deliberately target Israeli civilians.
"No state would have put up with a situation...whereby crossing a road in one of its cities, or going to the grocery store, would become a bloody poker (move)," wrote Ha'aretz columnist Yoel Markus.
(There are no other such militant, Apartheid states, bent on a perpetual war to drive out the areas rightful inhabitants.)
The Israelis retaliated with raids into Beit Hanoun and other areas. It controls a sand dune area that is closest to Ashkelon and strategic Israeli sites including a power plant and a fuel dumps.
Tank and infantry battalions are now inside the Strip clearing vegetation and structures. Then it would easier to monitor movements there. One force Wednesday killed a Palestinian militant and arrested another who tried to launch a rocket. The arrest and interrogation could produce intelligence Israel would need for further operations.
Nevertheless Israel's major concern in the military buildup going on in Gaza. It says arms are smuggled there in tunnels from the Sinai, and by sea.
(Perhaps it's time the International Community began demanding Israel provide its evidence for these claims.)
The head of the Shabak security service, Yuval Diskin, last week told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that in the past year the Palestinians have smuggled into the Gaza Strip some 33 tons of military grade TNT, 20,000 assault rifles, 12 anti-aircraft shoulder fired missiles, 410 anti tank rockets with 95 anti tank rocket launches. They also smuggled Grad rockets, he said.
The Israelis remember all too well that their failure to stop Hezbollah's buildup in southern Lebanon led suddenly made them face thousands of rockets and well-entrenched fortified bunkers. They do not want a repetition in Gaza.
(I guess they should not have plotted against and invaded Lebanon ...)
Military Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Dani Halutz Sunday told the cabinet the buildup was more disconcerting than the rocket attacks.
And so, for the time being, the Political-Security Cabinet instructed the army, "To continue countermeasures against all stages of missile launching activity, including know-how, production, storage and firing."
In what seemed be a reference to more targeted killings the Cabinet talked of "Specific countermeasures against those actively involved in terrorist operations." Sunday Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer noted that when he had been defense minister, "Targeted killings of all Hamas leaders and not just the activists in the field produced results ... such activity should be resumed."
Israel might also hit "Hamas institutions in the Gaza Strip," but Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz would first have to specifically approve that.
Meanwhile Israel will try to persuade Egypt to increase its efforts to stop the arms smuggling. According to Diskin the Egyptians know the "smuggling barons'" identities but do not do enough to stop them.
It is also expected to discuss the money smuggling, sometimes in suitcases, through the Rafah Crossing under the eyes of European Union monitors. Diskin estimated that $50 million to $70 million have been smuggled into the Gaza Strip to finance Hamas activities.
Militants reportedly went to Syria and Iran for training then returned to Gaza.
(Reported by whom, exactly? The people who are conspiring against Iran and Syria, just they did against Iraq?)
The cabinet statement thus said Israel would "continue diplomatic efforts and cooperation with Egypt and the international community to confront the strengthening of terrorist forces in the Gaza Strip...as well as the transfer of know-how and resources into the Strip."
www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20061122-035535-5
But then they rejected diplomatic steps which would halt the rocket attacks altogether, proving these words again empty.
Once again, the Zionists prove to the world who's interested in peace, and who isn't.
Israel dismisses new peace plan
Israeli forces in the centre of the West Bank city of Hebron
The Middle East peace process has ground to a complete halt Israel has dismissed a Middle East peace plan put forward by Spain, France and Italy.
The plan calls for a ceasefire and increased international intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
An Israeli official said parts of the plan were being discussed, but it was not being taken seriously as it was not co-ordinated with the EU or Israel.
The Spanish prime minister proposed the plan, saying the situation required urgent action by the outside world.
"We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes," Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.
"Violence has reached a level of deterioration that requires determined, urgent action by the international community."
Israeli opposition
Israel has long opposed greater international intervention and does not favour an international peace conference.
"Israel believes that it is right to conduct direct negotiations with all sides of the conflict," Amira Oron, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, said.
Peace between Israel and the Palestinians means to a large extent peace on the international scene
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
Spanish prime minister
A senior Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, welcomed the plan in principle.
But he added: "We don't need to reinvent the wheel, we don't need a new initiative. What we need is a mechanism for implementation and timelines [for settlement]."
"President Bush has specified the endgame as a two-state solution. What we need is a realistic political track, and that's where this initiative can come in."
EU summit
"Peace between Israel and the Palestinians means to a large extent peace on the international scene," Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said on Thursday as he presented the initiative.
French President Jacques Chirac (left) and Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
Zapatero [right] and Chirac are two of the plans main advocates
He said a plan would be put to an EU summit in December and he hoped it would be backed by the UK and Germany.
The proposal would include an immediate ceasefire and the formation of a Palestinian unity government.
The other three components of the plan would involve an exchange of prisoners, talks between Israel's prime minister and the Palestinian Authority president and an international mission in Gaza to monitor a ceasefire.
The peace move comes after a major Israeli ground offensive in Gaza aimed at ending militant rocket fire into Israel.
More than 80 Palestinians were killed in the operation and the period immediately after it, many of them civilians.
On Wednesday, a Palestinian rocket fired into Israel killed an Israeli woman and seriously injured two men.
Israeli forces have made regular incursions into Gaza and the West Bank since the capture of an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid by Palestinian militants on 25 June.
Fourteen months ago Israel withdrew its settlers and military bases from the Gaza Strip, which it occupied in 1967.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6157144.stm
During this time, it also seized more land in the W. Bank than it "sacrificed" in Gaza, while finally fulfilling its legal obligations.
It then surrounded Gaza, which it had already encircled in concrete walls and gun towers, with artillery, in an operation ominously named 'First Rain'.
It imposed a blockade on Gaza, creating what the UN called a "humanitarian nighmare", which it called "Collective Punishment".
It also continued to routinely kill Palestinian civilians, eliciting the desired response after shelling an entire Palestinian family, picnicking on a beach that, not long before, was exclusively for Gaza's illegal Israeli Settlers.
The violence has escalated ever since, to such a degree that Hamas is considering ending a two-year, self-imposed cease-fire.
Israel has dismissed peace talks with several groups over the past four years, and three times rejected an offer from Hamas for a 'Hudna'.
The Zionists do this because they know that what they are engaged in is morally reprehensible, but they do not care. They do not view Palestinians - or any Arab - as human beings, so they feel that any compromise on their part would shame them - not to mention, cost them power.
(AFP)
24 November 2006
GAZA CITY - A proposal from Palestinian factions to stop rocket attacks in exchange for an end to Israeli offensives in Gaza and the West Bank was rejected as inadequate by Israel on Friday.
Just hours after a spokesman for the ultra-radical Islamic Jihad made the offer following an overnight meeting between rival factions, a Hamas militant was killed during ongoing Israeli operations in the northern Gaza Strip.
“We are getting nothing from these rockets because nothing they achieve matches the force and power of the Israeli response,” Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas declared in Gaza City late Thursday.
“We talked about the rocket fire. There is an agreement to stop the fire in exchange for a halt to Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza,” the Jihad spokesman said after inter-faction talks.
“This idea will be transmitted to the Israelis by Abu Mazen (Abbas). If they accept, there will perhaps be a stop to fire on Israeli towns but not a general truce,” Khader Habib added.
But Israel did not accept the offer, with government spokeswoman Miri Eisin describing it as a “partial ceasefire” impossible to take seriously.
“The suggestion concerns a partial ceasefire, limited to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip in exchange for a total halt to Israeli operations on all fronts. This is not serious,” she told AFP.
“Israel has always aspired to an end to violence and we count on a change of attitude from the Palestinians and primarily Hamas in order to give development a priority in the Gaza Strip instead of continued attacks,” she added.
(That's a bald-faced LIE)
The army, meanwhile, said three rockets fired from the territory exploded in Israel overnight, one of which damaged a commercial centre in the town of Sderot, where two people have died in such attacks in the last 10 days.
A spokesman for the Islamist movement Hamas, which heads the internationally boycotted Palestinian government, and an independent MP involved in the faction talks said there could be no way forward if Israel remained intransigent.
“There is no chance of a truce as long as the enemy aggression continues,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum.
“If the enemy agrees to withdraw from the zones it is occupying and stop its operations, we can look at something else,” he added.
Independent MP Mustapha Barghuti lashed out, branding the Israeli reaction “very discouraging”.
“Israel is responsible for the cycle of violence. Each time Palestinians want an end of violence, Israel refuses. Israel is the one that does not want to stop the cycle of violence,” he told AFP in Gaza City.
The Jihad spokesman had said that Hamas, Abbas’s Fatah movement, his own faction and the Popular and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP and DFLP) had accepted the agreement.
A spokesman for the cabinet headed by Hamas, whose armed wing on Thursday claimed its first suicide attack in almost two years when a grandmother blew herself up in Gaza, also said there was willingness for a mutual halt.
“The Palestinian groups are ready to stop the rocket fire if Israel agrees to stop all forms of aggression. If there is such a halt, there will be a halt to the (rocket fire),” said Ghazi Hamad.
But Tawfiq Abu Khussa, a spokesman for Fatah said talks needed more time, saying the movement was talking about an “unconditional” halt to violence.
Israeli troops have stepped up an air and ground offensive in the northern Gaza Strip in a bid to counter near daily Palestinian rocket attacks.
Ayman Juda, 22, a Hamas militant was killed by Israeli fire in Beit Lahiya, a medic said. An army spokeswoman said she was ”checking” the report.
Seven Palestinians, including at least four militants, were killed by Israeli fire in the territory on Thursday.
www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2006/No
Analysis: Israel ponders Gaza escalation
By JOSHUA BRILLIANT
UPI Israel Correspondent
JERUSALEM, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- Israel's Political-Security Cabinet instructed the military to present plans for, "a more extensive operation" in the Gaza Strip to stop rocket attacks and arms smuggling.
(This is unnecessary. Now that Israel rejected the Palestinian offer, the continued rockets are their fault.)
The order was issued as more Palestinian Qassam rockets were fired on the town of Sderot, near the Gaza Strip. The army spokesman reckoned that this month Palestinians fired 157 rockets of which 91 made it to the border. Two Israelis were killed in Sderot in the past week.
(It's interesting that these articles never contrast this against the ammunition used by Israel, or the number of Palestinians they've killed.)
During the recent Lebanon War, Hezbollah fired some 4,000 short-range rockets that led an estimated 350,000 Israelis to leave their homes. The Israeli military failed to stop those attacks and realized the rockets have become a strategic weapon.
(They are no such thing. They are a clumsy annoyance at best, one for which Israel has counter-measures, but does not employ them, because without the rockets, there is no "excuse" for their long-planned operations.)
Palestinians maintain Israel is still occupying Gaza, albeit differently than the way it had occupied it before last year's withdrawal.
The head of the Palestinian president's press office, Mohamed Edwan, said Israeli troops surround Gaza, its aircraft fly over it, and it has closed the crossing to Egypt stranding thousands of people.
(The UN has called this "Collective Punishment", which has resulted in a "Humanitarian Disaster".)
"Some of those who shelled these Qassam rockets are ... provoking Israel, but Israel is very much provoking them because of all kinds of occupation and terror actions against Palestinian civilians. Do not forget the Beit Hanoun massacre," he said. Edwan was referring to the shelling of that town a fortnight ago. Israel said it wanted to hit a Qasam rocket launching area but that a faulty circuit board caused the cannon to hit the town. Twenty people were killed.
(After its many exposed, serious lies over the past few months, however, the Regime of Ehud Olmert has very little credibility.)
The Palestinian Maan news agency Wednesday quoted medical sources as saying 105 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of November. That brought the Palestinian death toll, since June, to 400. In June, Palestinian militants crossed into Israel and kidnapped Cpl. Gilad Shalit sparking intensified fighting.
(Actually, the Israeli ship that fired upon and killed an entire Palestinian family, picnicking on a Gaza beach which had formerly been off-limits to Palestinian Arabs, was when the fighting 'intensified'.)
Israel Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Sunday told the Cabinet that in the past three and a half months Israel killed some 370 armed Palestinians.
The Israelis insist they pulled out from Gaza, completely. Gaza is not under occupation and there is no justification for continued attacks from there.
They note that they regretted attacks in which innocent civilians were hit but that Palestinian attackers deliberately target Israeli civilians.
"No state would have put up with a situation...whereby crossing a road in one of its cities, or going to the grocery store, would become a bloody poker (move)," wrote Ha'aretz columnist Yoel Markus.
(There are no other such militant, Apartheid states, bent on a perpetual war to drive out the areas rightful inhabitants.)
The Israelis retaliated with raids into Beit Hanoun and other areas. It controls a sand dune area that is closest to Ashkelon and strategic Israeli sites including a power plant and a fuel dumps.
Tank and infantry battalions are now inside the Strip clearing vegetation and structures. Then it would easier to monitor movements there. One force Wednesday killed a Palestinian militant and arrested another who tried to launch a rocket. The arrest and interrogation could produce intelligence Israel would need for further operations.
Nevertheless Israel's major concern in the military buildup going on in Gaza. It says arms are smuggled there in tunnels from the Sinai, and by sea.
(Perhaps it's time the International Community began demanding Israel provide its evidence for these claims.)
The head of the Shabak security service, Yuval Diskin, last week told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that in the past year the Palestinians have smuggled into the Gaza Strip some 33 tons of military grade TNT, 20,000 assault rifles, 12 anti-aircraft shoulder fired missiles, 410 anti tank rockets with 95 anti tank rocket launches. They also smuggled Grad rockets, he said.
The Israelis remember all too well that their failure to stop Hezbollah's buildup in southern Lebanon led suddenly made them face thousands of rockets and well-entrenched fortified bunkers. They do not want a repetition in Gaza.
(I guess they should not have plotted against and invaded Lebanon ...)
Military Chief of General Staff, Lt. Gen. Dani Halutz Sunday told the cabinet the buildup was more disconcerting than the rocket attacks.
And so, for the time being, the Political-Security Cabinet instructed the army, "To continue countermeasures against all stages of missile launching activity, including know-how, production, storage and firing."
In what seemed be a reference to more targeted killings the Cabinet talked of "Specific countermeasures against those actively involved in terrorist operations." Sunday Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer noted that when he had been defense minister, "Targeted killings of all Hamas leaders and not just the activists in the field produced results ... such activity should be resumed."
Israel might also hit "Hamas institutions in the Gaza Strip," but Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz would first have to specifically approve that.
Meanwhile Israel will try to persuade Egypt to increase its efforts to stop the arms smuggling. According to Diskin the Egyptians know the "smuggling barons'" identities but do not do enough to stop them.
It is also expected to discuss the money smuggling, sometimes in suitcases, through the Rafah Crossing under the eyes of European Union monitors. Diskin estimated that $50 million to $70 million have been smuggled into the Gaza Strip to finance Hamas activities.
Militants reportedly went to Syria and Iran for training then returned to Gaza.
(Reported by whom, exactly? The people who are conspiring against Iran and Syria, just they did against Iraq?)
The cabinet statement thus said Israel would "continue diplomatic efforts and cooperation with Egypt and the international community to confront the strengthening of terrorist forces in the Gaza Strip...as well as the transfer of know-how and resources into the Strip."
www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20061122-035535-5
But then they rejected diplomatic steps which would halt the rocket attacks altogether, proving these words again empty.
Once again, the Zionists prove to the world who's interested in peace, and who isn't.
Israel dismisses new peace plan
Israeli forces in the centre of the West Bank city of Hebron
The Middle East peace process has ground to a complete halt Israel has dismissed a Middle East peace plan put forward by Spain, France and Italy.
The plan calls for a ceasefire and increased international intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
An Israeli official said parts of the plan were being discussed, but it was not being taken seriously as it was not co-ordinated with the EU or Israel.
The Spanish prime minister proposed the plan, saying the situation required urgent action by the outside world.
"We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes," Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said.
"Violence has reached a level of deterioration that requires determined, urgent action by the international community."
Israeli opposition
Israel has long opposed greater international intervention and does not favour an international peace conference.
"Israel believes that it is right to conduct direct negotiations with all sides of the conflict," Amira Oron, the foreign ministry spokeswoman, said.
Peace between Israel and the Palestinians means to a large extent peace on the international scene
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
Spanish prime minister
A senior Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, welcomed the plan in principle.
But he added: "We don't need to reinvent the wheel, we don't need a new initiative. What we need is a mechanism for implementation and timelines [for settlement]."
"President Bush has specified the endgame as a two-state solution. What we need is a realistic political track, and that's where this initiative can come in."
EU summit
"Peace between Israel and the Palestinians means to a large extent peace on the international scene," Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said on Thursday as he presented the initiative.
French President Jacques Chirac (left) and Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero
Zapatero [right] and Chirac are two of the plans main advocates
He said a plan would be put to an EU summit in December and he hoped it would be backed by the UK and Germany.
The proposal would include an immediate ceasefire and the formation of a Palestinian unity government.
The other three components of the plan would involve an exchange of prisoners, talks between Israel's prime minister and the Palestinian Authority president and an international mission in Gaza to monitor a ceasefire.
The peace move comes after a major Israeli ground offensive in Gaza aimed at ending militant rocket fire into Israel.
More than 80 Palestinians were killed in the operation and the period immediately after it, many of them civilians.
On Wednesday, a Palestinian rocket fired into Israel killed an Israeli woman and seriously injured two men.
Israeli forces have made regular incursions into Gaza and the West Bank since the capture of an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid by Palestinian militants on 25 June.
Fourteen months ago Israel withdrew its settlers and military bases from the Gaza Strip, which it occupied in 1967.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6157144.stm
During this time, it also seized more land in the W. Bank than it "sacrificed" in Gaza, while finally fulfilling its legal obligations.
It then surrounded Gaza, which it had already encircled in concrete walls and gun towers, with artillery, in an operation ominously named 'First Rain'.
It imposed a blockade on Gaza, creating what the UN called a "humanitarian nighmare", which it called "Collective Punishment".
It also continued to routinely kill Palestinian civilians, eliciting the desired response after shelling an entire Palestinian family, picnicking on a beach that, not long before, was exclusively for Gaza's illegal Israeli Settlers.
The violence has escalated ever since, to such a degree that Hamas is considering ending a two-year, self-imposed cease-fire.
Israel has dismissed peace talks with several groups over the past four years, and three times rejected an offer from Hamas for a 'Hudna'.
The Zionists do this because they know that what they are engaged in is morally reprehensible, but they do not care. They do not view Palestinians - or any Arab - as human beings, so they feel that any compromise on their part would shame them - not to mention, cost them power.
Zionism, Irrelevant Within A Generation