Thread: So Israel should concede, but Hamas should not??? oh wtf??

bunch of jackasses!

To those that think the Arab countries have nothing to do with it (and to observer who didn't think that all Arab countries hate Israel per another thread here)
~*~


Iran warns Hamas not to accept truce

Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday.

The official told The Jerusalem Post by phone that two senior Iranian officials who visited Damascus recently warned Hamas leaders against accepting the proposal.

His remarks came as Hamas representatives met in Cairo with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Omar Suleiman and his aides to discuss ways of ending the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas representatives reiterated their opposition to a cease-fire that did not include the reopening of all the border crossings into the Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesmen said on Sunday.

The spokesmen said Hamas voiced its strong opposition to the idea of deploying an international force inside the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian official said that the two Iranian emissaries, Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and Said Jalili of the Iranian Intelligence Service, met in the Syrian capital with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Shallah.

"As soon as the Iranians heard about the Egyptian cease-fire initiative, they dispatched the two officials to Damascus on an urgent mission to warn the Palestinians against accepting it," the Egyptian government official told the Post.

"The Iranians threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. The Iranians want to fight Israel and the US indirectly. They are doing this through Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon".

The official pointed out that the Iranians were applying "double standards" regarding the current conflict - on the one hand, they encouraged Iranian men to volunteer to fight alongside Hamas; on the other hand, Iran's spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, told the volunteers that they would not be permitted to join the fight against Israel.

"The Iranians never fired one bullet at Israel," he said. "But now they are trying to appear as if they are participating in the war against Israel. The leaders of Teheran don't care about the innocent civilians who are being killed in the Gaza Strip".

The Egyptian official accused Iran of "encouraging" Hamas to continue firing rockets at Israel with the hope that this would trigger a war that would divert attention from Iran's nuclear plans.

"This conflict serves the interests of the Iranians," he said. "They are satisfied because the violence in the Gaza Strip has diverted attention from their nuclear ambitions. The Iranians are also hoping to use the Palestinian issue as a 'powerful card' in future talks with the Americans.

"They want to show that they have control over Hamas and many Palestinians".

Karam Jaber, editor of the semi-official Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Youssef magazine, said that Hamas was caught between the Syrian anvil and the Iranian hammer. The Iranians, he said, prevented Hamas from negotiating a cease-fire with Israel, while the Syrians were blackmailing and intimidating the Hamas leaders in Damascus.

"History won't forget to mention that Hamas had inflicted death and destruction on the Palestinians," he said. "We hope that Hamas has learned the lesson and realizes that it has been fighting a war on behalf of others. We hope the Hamas leaders will realize that they are fighting a destructive war on behalf of the Iranians and Syrians".

Egyptian political analyst Magdi Khalil said he shared the view of the Palestinian Authority and Egypt that Hamas was responsible for the war in the Gaza Strip. "Ever since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, they turned the area into hell," he said. "They imposed restrictions on the people there and even prevented them from performing the pilgrimage to Mecca".

The analyst said that the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service was right when he recently described Hamas as a group of gangsters. "Hamas and its masters in Damascus and Teheran want to spread chaos in Egypt," he said. "They want to solve the problem of the Gaza Strip by handing the area over to Egypt. They want to create a homeland for the Palestinians in Sinai".

He said that Hamas was not only jeopardizing Egypt's national security, but had also destroyed the Palestinians' dream of statehood. "By endorsing the Iranian agenda, Hamas has brought the Iranians to Egypt's eastern border," he said. "Hamas has also copied Hizbullah's policy of entering into pointless adventures".












They don't want the fighting to end -- they want Israel to end existance. Israel is the country --------- Palestine is merely a REGION.

Originally Posted by atprm

bunch of jackasses!

To those that think the Arab countries have nothing to do with it (and to observer who didn't think that all Arab countries hate Israel per another thread here)
~*~


Iran warns Hamas not to accept truce

Iran is exerting heavy pressure on Hamas not to accept the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, an Egyptian government official said on Sunday.

The official told The Jerusalem Post by phone that two senior Iranian officials who visited Damascus recently warned Hamas leaders against accepting the proposal.

His remarks came as Hamas representatives met in Cairo with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Omar Suleiman and his aides to discuss ways of ending the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

The Hamas representatives reiterated their opposition to a cease-fire that did not include the reopening of all the border crossings into the Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesmen said on Sunday.

The spokesmen said Hamas voiced its strong opposition to the idea of deploying an international force inside the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian official said that the two Iranian emissaries, Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, and Said Jalili of the Iranian Intelligence Service, met in the Syrian capital with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal and Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Ramadan Shallah.

"As soon as the Iranians heard about the Egyptian cease-fire initiative, they dispatched the two officials to Damascus on an urgent mission to warn the Palestinians against accepting it," the Egyptian government official told the Post.

"The Iranians threatened to stop weapons supplies and funding to the Palestinian factions if they agreed to a cease-fire with Israel. The Iranians want to fight Israel and the US indirectly. They are doing this through Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon".

The official pointed out that the Iranians were applying "double standards" regarding the current conflict - on the one hand, they encouraged Iranian men to volunteer to fight alongside Hamas; on the other hand, Iran's spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei, told the volunteers that they would not be permitted to join the fight against Israel.

"The Iranians never fired one bullet at Israel," he said. "But now they are trying to appear as if they are participating in the war against Israel. The leaders of Teheran don't care about the innocent civilians who are being killed in the Gaza Strip".

The Egyptian official accused Iran of "encouraging" Hamas to continue firing rockets at Israel with the hope that this would trigger a war that would divert attention from Iran's nuclear plans.

"This conflict serves the interests of the Iranians," he said. "They are satisfied because the violence in the Gaza Strip has diverted attention from their nuclear ambitions. The Iranians are also hoping to use the Palestinian issue as a 'powerful card' in future talks with the Americans.

"They want to show that they have control over Hamas and many Palestinians".

Karam Jaber, editor of the semi-official Egyptian weekly Roz Al-Youssef magazine, said that Hamas was caught between the Syrian anvil and the Iranian hammer. The Iranians, he said, prevented Hamas from negotiating a cease-fire with Israel, while the Syrians were blackmailing and intimidating the Hamas leaders in Damascus.

"History won't forget to mention that Hamas had inflicted death and destruction on the Palestinians," he said. "We hope that Hamas has learned the lesson and realizes that it has been fighting a war on behalf of others. We hope the Hamas leaders will realize that they are fighting a destructive war on behalf of the Iranians and Syrians".

Egyptian political analyst Magdi Khalil said he shared the view of the Palestinian Authority and Egypt that Hamas was responsible for the war in the Gaza Strip. "Ever since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, they turned the area into hell," he said. "They imposed restrictions on the people there and even prevented them from performing the pilgrimage to Mecca".

The analyst said that the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service was right when he recently described Hamas as a group of gangsters. "Hamas and its masters in Damascus and Teheran want to spread chaos in Egypt," he said. "They want to solve the problem of the Gaza Strip by handing the area over to Egypt. They want to create a homeland for the Palestinians in Sinai".

He said that Hamas was not only jeopardizing Egypt's national security, but had also destroyed the Palestinians' dream of statehood. "By endorsing the Iranian agenda, Hamas has brought the Iranians to Egypt's eastern border," he said. "Hamas has also copied Hizbullah's policy of entering into pointless adventures".


First of all I never said that the Arabs countries









They don't want the fighting to end -- they want Israel to end existance. Israel is the country --------- Palestine is merely a REGION.

First-I never said that the Arabs countries didn't hate Israel.The only think I ever stated was that Israel is just as responsible for the conflict in the Middle-East.

Second-I am not discussing this topic anymore, you have your opinions and I have mine.So please refrain from putting my name in it or anymore threads.

Originally Posted by observer

First-I never said that the Arabs countries didn't hate Israel.The only think I ever stated was that Israel is just as responsible for the conflict in the Middle-East.

Second-I am not discussing this topic anymore, you have your opinions and I have mine.So please refrain from putting my name in it or anymore threads.

there is a huge difference between INSTIGATING and DEFENDING.

Hamas is a known terrorist group -- and they have been firing rockets out of CIVILIAN held and UN held buildings for YEARS.

Now it's time to pay the price!

Israel didn't start this.
but hopefully Israel will end this -- either that or the US can go in and help them (though they have their own very strong military and do a damn good job on their own.) If I could, I would volunteer to help them -- Kind of like Desert Storm...blow the schit out of the sandbox get rid of all the turds.

With as many strikes as Israel has made... any other military outlet would not have had so few casualties ... Israel is very careful to hit their target, and do not fire wantonly.

What makes it bad is that Hamas uses civilians to hide behind (cake) and then cries about their losses later (icing).

You know this was coming ....


An inside story of how the US magnified Palestinian suffering
By Norman H. Olsen and Matthew N. Olsen
Mon Jan 12, 3:00 am ET

Cherryfield, Maine; and Washington – A million and a half Palestinians are learning the hard way that democracy isn't so good if you vote the wrong way. In 2006, they elected Hamas when the US and Israel wanted them to support the more-moderate Fatah. As a result, having long ago lost their homes and property, Gazans have endured three years of embargo, crippling shortages of food and basic necessities, and total economic collapse.

We spoke again Saturday with three of our longtime Gazan contacts. They and their families, all Fatah supporters, were in their eleventh day without electricity, running water, or heat. They are cowering in cold basements trying to protect their children from the storm of explosions that is filling Shifa hospital with amputees and the dead. Our friends in Israel are likewise living in fear.

The 850-plus dead Gazans, more than a dozen dead Israelis, and some 3,000 injured have since the end of the cease-fire become part of what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice once called the birth pains of a new Middle East.

It didn't have to be this way. We could have talked instead of fought.

Hamas never called for the elections that put them in power. That was the brainstorm of Secretary Rice and her staff, who had apparently decided they could steer Palestinians into supporting the more-compliant Mahmoud Abbas (the current president of the Palestinian authority) and his Fatah Party through a marketing campaign that was to counter Hamas's growing popularity – all while ignoring continued Israeli settlement construction, land confiscation, and cantonization of the West Bank.

State Department staffers helped finance and supervise the Fatah campaign, down to the choice of backdrop color for the podium where Mr. Abbas was to proclaim victory. An adviser working for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) explained to incredulous staffers at the Embassy in Tel Aviv how he would finance and direct elements of the campaign, leaving no US fingerprints. USAID teams, meanwhile, struggled to implement projects for which Abbas could claim credit. Once the covert political program cemented Fatah in place, the militia Washington was building for Fatah warlord-wannabee Mohammed Dahlan would destroy Hamas militarily.

Their collective confidence was unbounded. But the Palestinians didn't get the memo. Rice was reportedly blindsided when she heard the news of Hamas's victory during her 5 a.m. treadmill workout. But that did not prevent a swift response.

She immediately insisted that the Quartet (the US, European Union, United Nations, and Russia) ban all contact with Hamas and support Israel's economic blockade of Gaza. The results of her request were mixed, but Palestinian suffering manifestly intensified. The isolation was supposed to turn angry Palestinians against an ineffective Hamas. As if such blockades had not been tried before.

Simultaneously, the US military team expanded its efforts to build the Mohammed Dahlan-led militia. President Bush considered Dahlan "our guy." But Dahlan's thugs moved too soon. They roamed Gaza, demanding protection money from businesses and individuals, erecting checkpoints to extort bribes, terrorizing Dahlan's opponents within Fatah, and attacking Hamas members.

Finally, in mid-2007, faced with increasing chaos and the widely known implementation of a US-backed militia, Hamas – the lawfully elected government – struck first. They routed the Fatah gangs, securing control of the entire Gaza Strip, and established civil order.

Its efforts stymied, the US has for more than a year inflexibly backed Israel's embargo of Gaza and its collective punishment of the Strip's 1.5 million residents. The recent six-month cease-fire saw a near cessation of rocket fire into Israel and calm along the border, yet the economic siege was further tightened.

Gaza's economy has collapsed, and the population, displaced for decades from their farms and villages, relies ever more on food aid from Hamas and the UN. The US expresses shock that Gazans resort to using smuggling tunnels for survival rather than passively accepting the suffering inflicted by the embargo. What would we expect Americans to do in the same circumstances? With no easing of the blockade, the missile launches have increased in range and frequency, yielding massive Israeli response.

Our "good," US-supported Palestinians did not vanquish the "bad" Palestinians any more than Washington's Lebanese clients turned on Hezbollah, despite the suffering and death of the 2006 war with Israel. Abbas sits emasculated in Ramallah. The Israelis continue to build settlements while blaming Iran for their troubles, as though the Palestinians have no grievances of their own. And we are further than ever from peace.

Cultural differences aside, Gazans, like Americans, unite in adversity. Neither punishment, nor a cease-fire that extends the embargo will make them accept the loss of their property, 60 years of displacement, or life in squalid refugee camps.

Nor, as decades of experience have proved, will too-clever US manipulation make Palestinians pliable to US and Israeli wishes. US financial and military support for Israel can maintain the status quo indefinitely, if that's what we want, but it cannot resolve fundamental issues or bring peace. For that, we need to talk, even if at arm's length initially, and not leave the hard issues to the end. That only leaves the radicals on both sides the opportunity to undermine peace efforts and extend the senseless loss of life. Until we talk about real issues, both Palestinians and Israelis will be cowering in cellars.

Such dialogue won't be easy, but with concerted US-led effort, it is within reach. A significant portion of the provisions that will constitute a comprehensive agreement, even on the most difficult issues, have already been put together by discreet, experienced Track2 negotiators.

The difficulty lies in the politics of giving concessions and selling them to the public. Only the US has the influence to move the parties past their weaknesses with a comprehensive regional initiative, thereby defusing those who argue against concessions for any bilateral peace agreement while other enemies remain.

That's why President-elect Obama must reconsider his plan to appoint a traditional Washington-based Middle East envoy, reportedly former envoy Dennis Ross, and instead pursue a course that signals change. He should:

•Declare his determination to pursue from his first day in office, not the final six months, full peace between Israel and all its neighbors. Only by doing so can he win support among Israelis, Palestinians, the Congress, and the international partners we'll need to support this historic effort.

•Name an outstanding peace envoy to be resident full time in the region with authority over our missions in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. He or she must have the presidential backing and stamina to withstand the pressures and pitfalls of a comprehensive peace process over the long haul. In addition, this envoy must have authority over all US interactions with the Palestinians and Israelis and later, with other parties, reporting directly to the president in collaboration with the National Security Adviser and secretary of State. Assisted with staff comprising the US government's foremost experts, this envoy would be the single US voice on this issue.

•Empower the envoy to engage with all parties to the conflict, regardless of current prohibitions, on all issues, overturning long-established policy.

•Fund a political and economic development process second only to those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Only by an "all out" effort can we hope to convince all the parties, and a skeptical international community, that the US is determined to achieve peace and prosperity for all the peoples of the region.

• Norman H. Olsen served for 26 years as a member of the US Foreign Service, including four years working in the Gaza Strip and four years as counselor for political affairs at the US Embassy in Tel Aviv. He was most recently associate coordinator for counterterrorism at the Department of State. His son, Matthew N. Olsen, is the director of Explore Corps, a nascent NGO that uses outdoor education and youth programming to facilitate peace-building among young adults, with several current projects in the Gaza Strip.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090112...LKErtpAS.7e8UF

January 14, 2009

Why Israel Can’t Make Peace With Hamas
By JEFFREY GOLDBERG

Washington - IN the summer of 2006, at a moment when Hezbollah rockets were falling virtually without pause on northern Israel, Nizar Rayyan, husband of four, father of 12, scholar of Islam and unblushing executioner, confessed to me one of his frustrations.

We were meeting in a concrete mosque in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza. Mr. Rayyan, who was a member of the Hamas ruling elite, and an important recruiter of suicide bombers until Israel killed him two weeks ago (along with several of his wives and children), arrived late to our meeting from parts unknown.

He was watchful for assassins even then, and when I asked him to describe his typical day, he suggested that I might be a spy for Fatah. Not the Mossad, mind you, not the C.I.A., but Fatah.

What a phantasmagorically strange conflict the Arab-Israeli war had become! Here was a Saudi-educated, anti-Shiite (but nevertheless Iranian-backed) Hamas theologian accusing a one-time Israeli Army prison official-turned-reporter of spying for Yasir Arafat’s Fatah, an organization that had once been the foremost innovator of anti-Israeli terrorism but was now, in Mr. Rayyan’s view, indefensibly, unforgivably moderate.

In the Palestinian civil war, Fatah, which today controls much of the West Bank and is engaged in intermittent negotiations with Israel, had become Mr. Rayyan’s direst enemy, a party of apostates and quislings. “First we must deal with the Muslims who speak of a peace process and then we will deal with you,” he declared.

But we spoke that day mainly about the hadith, the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, that specifically concerned Jews and their diverse and apparently limitless character failings. This sort of conversation, while illuminating, can become wearying over time, at least for the Jewish participant, and so I was happy to learn that Mr. Rayyan had his own sore points.

“Hezbollah is doing very well against Israel, don’t you think?” I asked. His face darkened, suggesting that he understood the implication of my question. At the time, Hamas, too, was firing rockets into Israel, though irregularly and without much effect.

“We support our brothers in the resistance,” he said. But then he added, “I think each situation is different.”

How so?

“They have advantages that we in Gaza don’t have,” he said. “They have excellent weapons. Hezbollah moves freely in Lebanon. We are trapped in the Israeli cage. So I don’t like to hear the sentence, ‘Hezbollah is the leader of the resistance.’ It’s a very annoying sentence. They are heroes to us. But we are the ones fighting in Palestine.”

“And they’re Shia,” I said. Mr. Rayyan, who was educated by Wahhabi clerics in Saudi Arabia, was known in Gaza as a firm defender of Sunni theology and privilege, and sometimes lectured at the Islamic University of Gaza on the danger of Shiite “infiltration.”

“Yes! There are many different secret agendas,” he said. “We have to be aware of this.”

Hamas men across Gaza were of two minds on the subject of Hezbollah: One night, I met the members of a Hamas rocket team in the town of Beit Hanoun, on Gaza’s northern border with Israel. The group’s leader, who went by the name of Abu Obeidah, said that he, too, was frustrated by Hezbollah’s success against Israel; he even asked if Hamas’s rocket attacks that summer were featured on television in America, and seemed to deflate physically when I told him no.

“Everyone, all the media, says that Hezbollah is wonderful,” he complained. “We stand with our brothers of Hezbollah, of course, but, really, look at the advantages they have. They get all the rockets they will ever need from Iran.”

Hamas is not a monolith, and opinions inside the group differ about many things, including engagement with the Shiites of Hezbollah and Iran. The former Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi told me shortly before he was assassinated by Israel in 2004 that it would be “uncharitable” to find fault with Iran.

“What do the Arab states do for us?” he asked. “Iran is steadfast against the Jews.”

Today, there is no doubt that Rantisi’s view holds sway inside the organization, and many in Hamas wish for even closer ties with Tehran, particularly over the past month as they have absorbed a battering from Israel. Even those who believe that Iran is secretly trying to bring Sunni Palestinians to Shiism acknowledge anti-Israel Shiites as ideals of resistance.

As the Gaza war moves to a cease-fire, a crucial question will inevitably arise, as it has before: Should Israel (and by extension, the United States) try to engage Hamas in a substantive and sustained manner?

It is a fair question, one worth debating, but it is unmoored from certain political and theological realities. One irresistible reality grows from Hamas’s complicated, competitive relationship with Hezbollah. For Hamas, Hezbollah is not only a source of weapons and instruction, it is a mentor and role model.

Hamas’s desire to best Hezbollah’s achievements is natural, of course, but, more to the point, it is radicalizing. One of the reasons, among many, that Hamas felt compelled to break its cease-fire with Israel last month was to prove its potency to Muslims impressed with Hezbollah.

Another reality worth considering concerns theology. Hamas and Hezbollah emerged from very different streams of Islam: Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood; Hezbollah is an outright Iranian proxy that takes its inspiration from the radical Shiite politics of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. But the groups share a common belief that Jews are a cosmological evil, enemies of Islam since Muhammad sought refuge in Medina.

Periodically, advocates of negotiation suggest that the hostility toward Jews expressed by Hamas is somehow mutable. But in years of listening, I haven’t heard much to suggest that its anti-Semitism is insincere. Like Hezbollah, Hamas believes that God is opposed to a Jewish state in Palestine. Both groups are rhetorically pitiless, though, again, Hamas sometimes appears to follow the lead of Hezbollah.

I once asked Abdel Aziz Rantisi where he learned what he called “the truth” of the Holocaust — that it didn’t happen — and he referred me to books published by Hezbollah. Hamas and Hezbollah also share the view that the solution for Palestine lies in Europe. A spokesman for Hezbollah, Hassan Izzedine, once told me that the Jews who survive the Muslim “liberation” of Palestine “can go back to Germany, or wherever they came from.” He went on to argue that the Jews are a “curse to anyone who lives near them.”

Nizar Rayyan expressed much the same sentiment the night we spoke in 2006. We had been discussing a passage of the Koran that suggests that God turns a group of impious Jews into apes and pigs. The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, among others, has deployed this passage in his speeches. Once, at a rally in Beirut, he said: “We shout in the face of the killers of prophets and the descendants of the apes and pigs: We hope we will not see you next year. The shout remains, ‘Death to Israel!’”

Mr. Rayyan said that, technically, Mr. Nasrallah was mistaken. “Allah changed disobedient Jews into apes and pigs, it is true, but he specifically said these apes and pigs did not have the ability to reproduce,” Mr. Rayyan said. “So it is not literally true that Jews today are descended from pigs and apes, but it is true that some of the ancestors of Jews were transformed into pigs and apes, and it is true that Allah continually makes the Jews pay for their crimes in many different ways. They are a cursed people.”

I asked him the question I always ask of Hamas leaders: Could you agree to anything more than a tactical cease-fire with Israel? I felt slightly ridiculous asking: A man who believes that God every now and again transforms Jews into pigs and apes might not be the most obvious candidate for peace talks at Camp David. Mr. Rayyan answered the question as I thought he would, saying that a long-term cease-fire would be unnecessary, because it will not take long for the forces of Islam to eradicate Israel.

There is a fixed idea among some Israeli leaders that Hamas can be bombed into moderation. This is a false and dangerous notion. It is true that Hamas can be deterred militarily for a time, but tanks cannot defeat deeply felt belief.

The reverse is also true: Hamas cannot be cajoled into moderation. Neither position credits Hamas with sincerity, or seriousness.

The only small chance for peace today is the same chance that existed before the Gaza invasion: The moderate Arab states, Europe, the United States and, mainly, Israel, must help Hamas’s enemy, Fatah, prepare the West Bank for real freedom, and then hope that the people of Gaza, vast numbers of whom are unsympathetic to Hamas, see the West Bank as an alternative to the squalid vision of Hassan Nasrallah and Nizar Rayyan.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, is the author of “Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/op...gewanted=print

Iran president: 'Not feasible' for Israel to live
Sarah El Deeb, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 15 mins ago

CAIRO, Egypt – A top Israeli envoy delivered his country's stance on a cease-fire agreement in Gaza to Egyptian mediators trying to seal a truce on Thursday. The Iranian president said the fighting showed Israel's continued existence in the region is "not feasible."

The development came as the U.N. secretary-general pressed Israel, and Gulf leaders gathered in Saudi Arabia to discuss the conflict.

The diplomatic push gained momentum despite competing agendas among Arab and Islamic governments, who are openly disagreeing about how to resolve — or even discuss — the conflict between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops pushed deeper into the densely populated Gaza City on the 20th day of the offensive to rout out Hamas militants. Israeli tanks shelled the crowded downtown, sending terrified residents fleeing for cover.

Witnesses and U.N. officials said Israeli shells struck the United Nations headquarters building that serves as a shelter for hundreds of people, setting it ablaze.

The Israeli push ratcheted up pressure on Hamas to accept a proposed cease-fire. It also came as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon was in Israel trying to promote a cease-fire.

Mark Regev said Israel wants a total end to Hamas' rocket launches into Israel, and an arms embargo on Gaza's militant rulers.

"There is momentum in these discussions," Regev told AP Television News. "We are hopeful that a deal will be based on a total cessation of Hamas fire into Israel and an arms embargo to prevent Hamas from rearming is close and attainable."

Regev said the Israeli envoy — Amos Gilad, who flew to Egypt on a private plane — will discuss the "parameters of the end game." He will not be meeting Hamas envoys who are also in town.

Gaza-based Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said the deeper incursion reflected pressure on his group.

"I think Israel is seeking in the last moments to escalate the military operation to pressure the parties," Hamad told The Associated Press. "I don't think this will change the issues on the table."

Hamad said his group has offered amendments to Egypt's original peace proposal, and he expected the Egyptians will convey them to the Israelis. "Consultations are continuing," he said.

Hamas' deputy chief Moussa Abou Marzouk, who is based in Damascus, took a hard line on a ceasefire, telling The Associated Press that the group would not abandon its demand that that Israel withdraw its troops from Gaza. "This is our main demand, along with the reopening of the border crossings," he said.

The Egyptian proposal calls for a 10-day cease-fire but would delay any Israeli withdrawal until an arrangement is negotiated at border crossings to ensure weapons cannot be brought in. It was not clear if Abou Marzouk's comments were a rejection of that position.

A long term truce is to be discussed later, Marzouk said, adding he expected "clear answers" from the Israelis through the Egyptians on Thursday.

In Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to speak out over "the massacre of your children in Gaza," the official Iranian news agency reported.

Saudi Arabia is overwhelmingly Sunni, as are the Palestinians.

Ahmadinejad said a firm Saudi stand would dash hopes of those who want to divide Islamic countries.

At a news conference, Ahmadinejad said the fighting in Gaza has been "a great lesson for all," saying it shows "the absolute defeat and desperation of this (Israeli) regime."

He says that "even for the supporters of the occupying regime and its leaders, it has become clear that the continuation of the Zionist regime's life in the region is not feasible."

He urged Arab states to pressure Israel's Western backers to stop the fighting and to cut all ties with Israel, and also dismissed allegations Iran is urging Hamas to reject Egyptian truce efforts.

Israel says it launched the offensive Dec. 27 to stop rocket fire against southern Israeli towns by Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007. Iran is Hamas' main backer, providing political and financial support. Iran denies sending Hamas weapons.

Meanwhile, an emergency summit of the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries, called by Saudi Arabia to discuss Gaza, is to take place in Riyadh later Thursday.

But a separate summit by Arab League heads of state called by Qatar for Friday in Doha was in doubt as Qatar couldn't get a two-thirds majority of the organization to attend.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia are against the Doha summit, believing it could scuttle Egyptian efforts to broker a truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers.

Gaza medical officials say 1,100 Palestinians have been killed since Israel's offensive started Dec. 27.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090115/...east_diplomacy


Please note that the article doesn't bother to mention that Hamas had begun their attacks on Dec 25 ... two DAYS before Isreal responded.





See also :
Israeli forces shell UN headquarters in Gaza : AP

( why - Hamas had terrorists hiding in the buildings and firing at the IDF)

Scores put at risk in Gaza hospital attack: Red Cross

(why ? Hamas is hiding terrorists and muniotions INSIDE the hospital .. even using ambulances to fire missiles into Isreal )

Hamas Fires from Media Headquarters, Reporter Laughs

Plenty of criticism has been heaped on the Israeli Defense Forces for firing on United Nations and media headquarters during the operation inside the Gaza Strip. During these incidents, UN employees and reporters claimed it was impossible for Hamas to fire rockets from these compounds and intimated the Israelis intentionally targeted the facilities. Here is one such report in Editor and Publisher, America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newspaper Industry:

Bullets also entered another building housing The Associated Press offices, entering a room where two staffers were working but wounding no one. The Foreign Press Association, representing journalists covering Israel and the Palestinian territories, demanded a halt to attacks on press buildings.

The army had collected the locations of media organizations at the outset of fighting to avoid such attacks.

But we have at least one confirmed incident of Hamas's launching rockets from a media headquarters:

Al Arabiya reporter Hannan al-Masri is live on the air in Gaza when she is told that Hamas has just fired rockets from inside the Al Arabiya studio building, news which apparently strikes her as quite humorous.

Watch the video below and turn on the subtitles feature. The first laugh might be dismissed as nervous laughter, but the second one can't. She is clearly amused by the launch.

If the Israeli Air Force responded by striking the building housing Al Arabiya, it would have been completely justified in doing so.

Editor and Publisher was adamant the Israelis are "attacking" media headquarters, yet there is no report of the Al Arabiya incident on the website or a mention of the unprofessional behavior of the Hannan al-Masri. Surely E&P will eventually cover both sides of this story for the sake of balance. Right?

http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblog..._headqua_1.asp Posted by Bill Roggio on January 19, 2009

There is no such term as "collateral damage" in the Radical Islamic world. All areas are viable staging areas. Schools, Mosques, News Stations. Women and children are not human, they are possesions. They can be used as a shield in the same manner you may use a car to hide behind when bullets are flying.

Any such retaliation to said staging area that may result in the MSM reporting that the "Evil West" or Israel is killing "innocent" women and children is useful and acceptable to their cause.

When you are fighting an Urban Guerilla War, you must be able to look at all targets as viable, as they will be exploited if you do not.

War is not pretty. There are casualties, yes, even civilians. But when you are fighting a group of individuals who have shown repeated lack of respect for not only their own lives (see homicide bombers) but the lives of civilians, you must fight them on their terms.

My talk with Hamas about peace with Israel
Helena Cobban
Wed Jun 24, 5:00 am ET

Washington – Since his first days in office, President Obama has defined winning a final peace between Israel and the Palestinians as an urgent US interest.

On Jan. 21 he named former Senate majority leader George Mitchell his envoy to achieve that peace, and Mr. Mitchell has since made four fact-finding trips to the Middle East. But neither has yet said how the administration will grapple with one of the biggest challenges that peace diplomacy faces: the continuing strength of the Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas.

Hamas has been on the State Department's "terrorism list" since its founding in 1987. It has steadfastly refused to recognize Israel. But it has also won – and kept – considerable popular support among Palestinians.

In 2006 it won parliamentary elections held in the West Bank and Gaza. More recently it survived the military onslaught Israel launched against Gaza last December – and in the wake of that war, Hamas's popularity among Palestinians increased.

Meanwhile, Washington's ongoing campaign to strengthen the rival Fatah party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has backfired badly. Rather than strengthening Fatah, the aid that Washington and its allies have sent to Mr. Abbas has further fueled the nepotism and corruption within Fatah and hastened its internal decline.

Clearly, if there is to be a Palestinian team at any peace negotiations, its work must be supported by Hamas as well as Fatah. But can Hamas, whose 1988 Charter still rejects participation in peace conferences and calls for an end to the State of Israel, really be judged a valid party to the peacemaking?

The history of numerous other peace efforts indicates it can. Consider the examples of South Africa and Northern Ireland. Nationalist parties there that were once denounced as "terrorist" and hunted down ended up as valued – indeed, essential – participants in the peacemaking.

In both those earlier cases, parties invited to the table were required to verifiably set aside their arms (though not, in the first instance, to disarm completely). They were also required to agree to principles of nonviolent, democratic decisionmaking. It worked.

Stereotypes and challenges
Many Westerners might think of Hamas as only a collection of gun-toting fanatics intent on killing civilian Israelis. But Hamas also has a strong civilian wing that provides valued services in many Palestinian communities.

In 2006 it was that wing that participated peacefully and successfully in the nationwide vote. Meanwhile, Hamas's military wing has shown during several periods that it can exercise full or near-full restraint during cease-fires: That happened in 2005 and 2008, and has generally been the case in recent months, too.

One major challenge for today's peacemakers has been Hamas's refusal to meet the three preconditions that Washington and its allies in the international "Quartet" set in 2006, before they would even start talking to it.

Hamas, they said, must renounce violence, recognize Israel, and sign on to all the agreements previously reached by the Palestinian Authority (PA.) (Another challenge has been Washington's refusal, until now, to consider any reframing of those demands.)

Hamas, part of the solution?
I interviewed Hamas head Khaled Meshaal, in Damascus, Syria, on June 4. He restated his opposition to the preconditions, on principle. He noted that Washington did not apply any such preconditions to hard-line members of Israel's government. Also, he pointed out that in Mr. Obama's speech in Cairo, he had called for talks with Iran's government without any preconditions at all.

Discussing the "Mitchell Principles," established by Mitchell during his successful peacemaking in Northern Ireland, Mr. Meshaal argued that they were applied equally to all sides. They were established during Mitchell's earliest rounds of meetings with the warring parties, rather than being preconditions for those contacts.

Meshaal is a sober, intelligent man who talks in a way that seems much more "political," and politically savvy, than religious. He stressed that Hamas wanted to be "part of the solution, not part of the problem."

He expressed a strong desire for Hamas to heal its present deep rift with Fatah. He also reaffirmed Hamas's support for a 2006 proposal whereby Abbas or other non-Hamas negotiators would conduct the actual peace negotiations with Israel. Any resulting peace agreement would then be submitted to a Palestinian-wide referendum, and Hamas would abide by its results, he said.

If Hamas and Fatah can rebuild enough trust to authorize a unified Palestinian team to start negotiating, this proposal could allow peace talks to proceed without finding a complete prior answer to the West's "dealing with Hamas" problem.

Meshaal also restated Hamas's support for establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel, in the areas that Israel occupied in 1967 – providing that all the occupied land, including East Jerusalem, as well as the right of Palestinian refugees to return to areas they fled in 1948, would also be implemented.

No Israeli government would accept this plan as it stands. But it represents a notable shift toward pragmatism and away from the positions stated in Hamas's 1988 Charter. It can be seen as Hamas's starting point in a negotiation in which all parties would need to show further flexibility. The hard-line language in Hamas's Charter – as in the 1999 Charter of Israel's Likud Party – could be changed somewhere in the future, as happened in the South African peacemaking, rather than requiring it to be changed upfront.

If Hamas is folded into the peacemaking, it would emerge – like South Africa's African National Congress, or Northern Ireland's Sinn Fein – as a very different organization afterward.

In addition, if Obama's peace diplomacy works – with Israelis, Palestinians, and other Arabs – then the whole Arab-Israeli arena would become very different from what we see today. Israel and its neighbors could finally turn their attentions away from preparing and waging war and rebuild their own societies in a climate of security and hope.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20090624/cm_csm/ycobban


See also : http://www.bigbigforums.com/news-inf...trination.html