Why would they accept a truce?
They engineered this, and will keep the killing going so long as nobody says or does anything about it.
History will not judge us kindly for our shameful silence and inaction ...
They engineered this, and will keep the killing going so long as nobody says or does anything about it.
History will not judge us kindly for our shameful silence and inaction ...
Israel minister rejects Gaza truce as Hamas chief killed
by Beth O'Connell Thu May 1, 12:56 PM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - A senior Israeli minister rejected on Thursday a proposed truce in the Gaza Strip, as the air force killed a Hamas commander suspected of involvement in the 2006 capture of an Israeli soldier.
Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit insisted that Israel could not accept an Egyptian-brokered proposal on Gaza, claiming it would only give the Islamist movement Hamas the opportunity to boost its military capabilities.
(But in reality, Israel's ruling Extremists engineered this situation, with the help of those in the White House, because they refuse to recognize the elected Palestinian Government. They don't want this new round of fighting to end, because, as this minister says, it's designed to unseat Hamas, the elected Government.)
"No deal whatsoever should be reached with Hamas because this terrorist movement would exploit any truce to gain strength, perfect its weapons and prepare for the next confrontation," the security cabinet member told public radio.
(This is a ludicrous excuse, since Hamas is only reacting to Israel's illegal policies, and its recent slaughter of hundreds of civilians, in attacks planned before the Annapolis conference. Ending Israeli aggression and War Crimes would eliminate the 'next confrontation'. But Israel will not enter into serious negotiations, because it never intends to live up to its legal and moral obligations, and allow a Palestinians state, so long as the world watches in silence and does nothing to stop them.)
Sheetrit's comments came as the air force "targeted and identified hitting Nafiz Mansur, a Hamas terror operative who was involved in terror attacks against Israel," the military said.
The military said Mansur had been involved in the capture of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, seized by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid from Gaza claimed by Hamas and two other militant groups.
It said Mansur was also responsible for the killing of two Israeli soldiers in a July 2006 attack, and took part in setting up a suicide assault on a border post on April 19.
Hamas confirmed Mansur's death and said it would "respond to this crime at the appropriate time and place."
Mansur, 40, was killed near his home in Rafah, according to Muawiyah Hassanein, who heads the Gaza emergency services. Three more people, including a child, were wounded in the air strike, he said.
Following the strike, Gaza militants retaliated, firing at least eight rockets and three mortar rounds at southern Israel. The attacks caused some damage to property but no casualties, a military spokeswoman said.
Sheetrit, who is also a deputy prime minister, said Israel's goal should be to break up Hamas, which European Union and the United States join with Israel in blacklisting as a terror group.
(This is what this has all been about all along.)
"We must break Hamas, not hold negotiations with them, because their demands are unacceptable," he said. "The armed forces must attack those terrorists night and day to break their arms and their legs."
(Despite the fact that a strong majority of Israelis support negotiations with Hamas. Some democracy ...)
Public radio said several other ministers had also opposed a Gaza truce at Wednesday's security cabinet meeting.
In the face of the near-daily violence on its doorstep, Egypt has again stepped in as a mediator in the impoverished Palestinian territory.
It brought together Hamas, the Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and nearly a dozen other factions, hammering out with them a proposal for a "comprehensive, simultaneous and reciprocal period of calm to be applied progressively, first in Gaza and then in the West Bank."
The pointman in the talks, intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, is expected to deliver the offer to Israel in the coming days.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev has already said that "to be sustainable and real, the calm must contain three vital elements -- total absence of fire from Gaza against Israel, complete cessation of terrorist attacks and the end of arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip."
(That's what a cease-fire is. Israel always makes DEMANDS before talks, as a way of avoiding negotiation and compromise.)
Hamas has insisted that, as part of any truce, Israel must lift the blockade it imposed after the Islamists seized power in Gaza in June.
Israel allows only very limited humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza. It says the blockade is intended to put pressure on the Hamas authorities to stop militants firing rockets on its territory.
In another Israeli military operation in Gaza on Thursday, a Palestinian civilian in his sixties, Mohammed Abu Daqqa, was killed and three other people wounded, Palestinian medics said.
The deaths brought to 447 the number of people killed since Israel and the Palestinians relaunched peace negotiations at a US-hosted conference in November, according to an AFP tally.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080501/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgaza
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
As Predicted: Israel Makes New "Generous Offer"
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/05/397937.html
No Middle East Peace Without Tough Love
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8915/index.php
Palestinians Offer Peace, Likud Calls for Blood
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?14323S
by Beth O'Connell Thu May 1, 12:56 PM ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) - A senior Israeli minister rejected on Thursday a proposed truce in the Gaza Strip, as the air force killed a Hamas commander suspected of involvement in the 2006 capture of an Israeli soldier.
Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit insisted that Israel could not accept an Egyptian-brokered proposal on Gaza, claiming it would only give the Islamist movement Hamas the opportunity to boost its military capabilities.
(But in reality, Israel's ruling Extremists engineered this situation, with the help of those in the White House, because they refuse to recognize the elected Palestinian Government. They don't want this new round of fighting to end, because, as this minister says, it's designed to unseat Hamas, the elected Government.)
"No deal whatsoever should be reached with Hamas because this terrorist movement would exploit any truce to gain strength, perfect its weapons and prepare for the next confrontation," the security cabinet member told public radio.
(This is a ludicrous excuse, since Hamas is only reacting to Israel's illegal policies, and its recent slaughter of hundreds of civilians, in attacks planned before the Annapolis conference. Ending Israeli aggression and War Crimes would eliminate the 'next confrontation'. But Israel will not enter into serious negotiations, because it never intends to live up to its legal and moral obligations, and allow a Palestinians state, so long as the world watches in silence and does nothing to stop them.)
Sheetrit's comments came as the air force "targeted and identified hitting Nafiz Mansur, a Hamas terror operative who was involved in terror attacks against Israel," the military said.
The military said Mansur had been involved in the capture of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit, seized by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid from Gaza claimed by Hamas and two other militant groups.
It said Mansur was also responsible for the killing of two Israeli soldiers in a July 2006 attack, and took part in setting up a suicide assault on a border post on April 19.
Hamas confirmed Mansur's death and said it would "respond to this crime at the appropriate time and place."
Mansur, 40, was killed near his home in Rafah, according to Muawiyah Hassanein, who heads the Gaza emergency services. Three more people, including a child, were wounded in the air strike, he said.
Following the strike, Gaza militants retaliated, firing at least eight rockets and three mortar rounds at southern Israel. The attacks caused some damage to property but no casualties, a military spokeswoman said.
Sheetrit, who is also a deputy prime minister, said Israel's goal should be to break up Hamas, which European Union and the United States join with Israel in blacklisting as a terror group.
(This is what this has all been about all along.)
"We must break Hamas, not hold negotiations with them, because their demands are unacceptable," he said. "The armed forces must attack those terrorists night and day to break their arms and their legs."
(Despite the fact that a strong majority of Israelis support negotiations with Hamas. Some democracy ...)
Public radio said several other ministers had also opposed a Gaza truce at Wednesday's security cabinet meeting.
In the face of the near-daily violence on its doorstep, Egypt has again stepped in as a mediator in the impoverished Palestinian territory.
It brought together Hamas, the Fatah party of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and nearly a dozen other factions, hammering out with them a proposal for a "comprehensive, simultaneous and reciprocal period of calm to be applied progressively, first in Gaza and then in the West Bank."
The pointman in the talks, intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, is expected to deliver the offer to Israel in the coming days.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev has already said that "to be sustainable and real, the calm must contain three vital elements -- total absence of fire from Gaza against Israel, complete cessation of terrorist attacks and the end of arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip."
(That's what a cease-fire is. Israel always makes DEMANDS before talks, as a way of avoiding negotiation and compromise.)
Hamas has insisted that, as part of any truce, Israel must lift the blockade it imposed after the Islamists seized power in Gaza in June.
Israel allows only very limited humanitarian supplies to enter Gaza. It says the blockade is intended to put pressure on the Hamas authorities to stop militants firing rockets on its territory.
In another Israeli military operation in Gaza on Thursday, a Palestinian civilian in his sixties, Mohammed Abu Daqqa, was killed and three other people wounded, Palestinian medics said.
The deaths brought to 447 the number of people killed since Israel and the Palestinians relaunched peace negotiations at a US-hosted conference in November, according to an AFP tally.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080501/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgaza 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 As Predicted: Israel Makes New "Generous Offer"
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/05/397937.html No Middle East Peace Without Tough Love
http://www.israel.indymedia.org/newswire/display/8915/index.php Palestinians Offer Peace, Likud Calls for Blood
http://winnipeg.indymedia.org/item.php?14323S
