Calling Israel's Bluff: Palestinians Agree To Truce Offer
Zionist Extremism Key IMpediment to Peace | 01.05.2008 01:28 | Anti-racism | World
It says the proposed ceasefire will be a "comprehensive, reciprocal and simultaneous truce", and will later be extended to the West Bank.
Fatah and Hamas, the two main rival Palestinian groups, did not attend the talks in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
(They aren't really 'rival' groups. Last June, Israel and the US used corrupt elements on Fatah as proxies in a failed Coup attempt, which effectively divided the Palestinians, in that old Colonial trick of "Divide & Rule" also being used in Iraq and Afghanistan.)
Israel on Friday rejected proposals by Hamas for such a truce.
(Proving that it is the Palestinians who have no 'partner for peace'. But of course they did. They engineered this crisis, and it's their desperate last-ditch effort to try and destroy the chance of a Palestinian state, as international condemnation and understanding of the conflict spreads worldwide.)
Israeli officials described the offer by Hamas as a ploy to gain time to prepare for more fighting.
(So what ... ? They're pathological liars, who reject peace.)
But responding to news of Wednesday's agreement in Cairo Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said: ''Israel wants quiet in the South. For quiet to be sustainable, it must contain three vital elements: an end to all hostile fire from Gaza into Israel, an end to terror attacks and an end to the smuggling of weapons into Gaza. If this were to happen we could have quiet tomorrow.''
(Israel's problem is that it think s 'negotiations' means 'give us everything we want, and then maybe we'll talk'.)
Truce conditions
The 12 smaller Palestinian factions backed the ceasefire proposed by Hamas after a series of meetings with senior Egyptian officials in Cairo.
Mena quoted an unnamed high-ranking Egyptian official as saying that the proposal included a "comprehensive, reciprocal and simultaneous truce".
The official added that it would be "implemented in a graduated framework starting in the Gaza Strip and then subsequently moving to the West Bank".
Egypt has been working to broker a deal that would include a six-month ceasefire between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip, an exchange of prisoners and the opening of Gaza's border crossing.
But the Palestinian groups want the truce to also include the West Bank.
"We are in favour of the truce, on the condition that it be balanced, reciprocal, equal and comprehensive, to include Gaza and the West Bank as well," Talal Nagy of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but it still controls the borders of the territory where Hamas seized control last year (After the corrupt elements of Fatah, in a Coup attempt. coordinated by the US and Israel, failed to unseat the ELECTED Government. Ignoring these revelations this far along proves a conscious intent within the corporate media to mislead the public.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7375511.stm
No Middle East Peace Without Tough Love
The scandal of the international community's impotence in resolving one of history's longest bloodlettings is that it knows what the problem is but does not have the courage to speak the truth, much less deal with it. The next peace conference in Germany (or in Moscow, where the Russians want to hold it) will suffer from the same gutlessness that has marked all previous efforts. It will deal with everything except the problem primarily responsible for this conflict's multi-generational impasse.
That problem is that for all of the sins attributable to the Palestinians - and they are legion, including inept and corrupt leadership, failed institution-building and the murderous violence of the rejectionist groups-there is no prospect for a viable, sovereign Palestinian state primarily because Israel's various governments, from 1967 until today, have never intended allowing such a state to come into being.
https://israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8915/index.php
Carter: Israel Rejected Truce Offer
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?14272S
Carter: Gaza Blockade is an Atrocity, Residents Starving to Death
http://www.winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?13695S
As Predicted: Israel Rejects Truce Offer
http://www.winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?14099S
Calling Israel's Bluff: Hamas Offers Truce, Negotiations
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8898/index.php
Hamas offers Gaza truce with Israel
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8890/index.php
Real Diplomacy: Carter Meets Hamas
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8877/index.php
No Peace Without Hamas
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8876/index.php
Hamas ready to accept Israel as its neighbour: Carter
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8874/index.php
No Middle East Peace Without Tough Love
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8915/index.php
Zionist Extremism Key IMpediment to Peace