Israel enters Gaza
Israel entered Gaza last night, under cover of darkness, after air attacks on three bridges and the main Gaza power station knocked out electricity in most of the coastal strip.
The aim of the Israelis is to ensure the release of Gilad Shalit, the 19 year old soldier taken hostage by Palestinian rebels.
It's a high risk move by the Israelis who surely understand that the death of a single innocent Palestinian might signal the death of the soldier who's life they seek to save.
Even Condoleezza Rice has urged Israel to "give diplomacy a chance".
The last time a soldier was snatched in such circumstances was 12 years ago. The military hurriedly launched an operation to rescue Nachshon Wachsman. He was killed along with one of the men sent to rescue him.
And all of this is happening at a time when Hamas have lost a crucial power struggle over recognition of Israel yesterday by agreeing to surrender control of the Palestinian government in favour of a power sharing administration committed to a negotiated two-state settlement.
The deal was a victory for Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, in his attempt to establish a government committed to a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a means to force Israel to the negotiating table.Of course, all of this could come to naught if young Gilad Shalit is not released unharmed.Despite face-saving denials from Hamas over the extent of its political concessions, Mr Abbas yesterday secured an agreement that commits all parties in government to recognise Israel and authorises him to negotiate a final agreement to establish an independent Palestinian state on territories occupied in 1967.
After its unexpected landslide election victory in January, Hamas said it would not retreat from its goal of replacing the Jewish state with an Islamic one. It also resisted negotiations.
But the group backed down after a threat by Mr Abbas to hold a referendum on the issue as a means to end crippling economic sanctions imposed by foreign donors until Hamas recognises Israel, renounces violence and agrees to abide by agreements in which the Palestine Liberation Organisation accepts a two-state solution. Opinion polls suggested Hamas would lose a referendum, because most Palestinians support negotiations with Israel.
Mr Abbas's aides described Hamas's endorsement of the agreement, drawn up by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, as a "surrender to reality" and "showing the world that the Palestinians are partners for peace".
So far the Israeli incursion has caused no Palestinian to lose their life. For the sake of Mr Shalit we must hope that Israel continues to exercise restraint.
The surrender of Hamas to political reality, whilst holding the reins of political power, is potentially a moment of great breakthrough in the Middle East in terms of both sides reaching a viable peace agreement.
It now hangs on the fate of a 19 year old boy.
Israel, having entered Gaza and made her point, should go no further.
This is a time for diplomacy, not gunfire.
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6 comments:
There are reports that another Israeli, Oshri Eliahu, who was believed to be kidnapped by terrorists may already be dead. There are unconfirmed reports that an Israeli body was found dead on Tuesday in Ramallah.
If true, maybe the UN can issue a Strongly Worded Condemnation™ of the act. Clearly his rights, under the Geneva Convention, as a POW were violated and we all know what noble and righteous upholders of human rights the Palestinians are.
Surely, by applying a left-wing Kelian analysis to this situation, we can see that the Palestinians have lost all moral authority to condemn summary executions of civilians.
More seriously, intelligence reports are said to indicate that Syria and Iran have been pressuring Khaled Meshaal not to release Shalit.
There is also said to be intelligence indicating that the militants who carried out the abduction trained at a camp in the Sinai desert. If so, Egypt has been complicit in this.
It would be impossible to believe that terrorists could train freely in an area that has been the sight of massive government crackdowns against terrorists in recent years (due to the bombings that have taken place in Sinai) without Mubarak's regime knowing. Disgraceful. So much for Camp David. (Maybe Jimmuh Carter can intervene and make things right...)
This is also another example of how unsuccessful the pullout from the Gaza Strip has proven to be. The poorly secured Egypt-Gaza border has become a conduit for terrorists and their arms. Israel should take a lesson from this disaster before thinking of pulling out of any more territory.
Time to reoccupy Gaza militarily, dissolve the PLO in the area, seal that Egypt-Gaza border, and stop the rocket attacks on Israel once and for all.
Tactically, if the Palestinians were smart (which they have never been), they would have realized after the settlements were abandoned that further terrorist activities from Gaza were not going to achieve much. They should have declared Gaza off-limits to further terrorism since they had much more to gain materially from demonstrating that could remain peaceable once the settlements were gone. This would have a been a huge international PR boost for the Palestinian cause. They chose to use Gaza as a base for further terrorism when they should have been negotiating to open up Gaza to the rest of the world.
Of course, all that assumes that the goal of the Palestinians is a two-state solution where Jews and Palestinians will live peaceably side-by-side. The Palestinians have given no reason to believe that this is actually the case and this latest incident is further proof of that.
As for Khaled Meshaal: he won't be easy to get to, especially now that Syria will be making extra efforts to prevent his assassination but it is about time for him to join Yassin and Rantissi in hell. They don't have to get Meshaal right away since, as the Sicilians say, "revenge is a dish best served cold" but they need to start making plans to terminate him.
And where are these reports concerning Oshri Eliahu, as a Google search for his name produces no hits?
On your racist anti-Arab web sites again are you? By the way, speaking of which, why has no-one ran with your photo of the mine yet? Not even The Jerusalem Post have mentioned it. Maybe, as you think it's something the blogging community are solely aware of, you should email it to them. It seems selfish that you are sitting on such an exclusive.
And did your "reports" of Egyptian involvement come from the same source as your "mine" photograph?
If so, I refuse to even waste breath discussing it.
As for your wish that Israel should reoccupy the Gaza Strip, I can only thank you for your honesty.
You, and people who think like you do, are the problem here.
Thankfully the majority of Israelis and Palestinians - you know the people who die so that armchair generals like you can get your rocks off - have dismissed your viewpoint and both sides have realised that a two state solution is the only practical way this issue can be resolved.
Try looking around for a different rendition of his name that seems to be gaining more traction: Eliyahu Asheri. (Being Hebrew, names like this tend to get translated in different ways when rendered in the Latin alphabet.)
The story is beginning to get mainstream media attention.
And did your "reports" of Egyptian involvement come from the same source as your "mine" photograph?
No, they can from an English-language Israeli site. The same that initially reported the abduction of the man above (way ahead of the mass media, BTW). I had followed some links to the story, but no longer have them.
As for your wish that Israel should reoccupy the Gaza Strip, I can only thank you for your honesty.
I support a temporary military reoccupation, that is correct. I don't support restoring settlements.
You, and people who think like you do, are the problem here.
No, it is those want a negotiated solution that are the problem.
Here is an interesting article:
http://www.aijac.org.au/review/2002/278/occup278.html
As this article puts it:
In the entire two decades of Israeli occupation preceding the Oslo accords, some 400 Israelis were murdered; since the conclusion of that "peace" agreement, twice as many have lost their lives in terrorist attacks. If the occupation was the cause of terrorism, why was terrorism sparse during the years of actual occupation, why did it increase dramatically with the prospect of the end of the occupation, and why did it escalate into open war upon Israel’s most far-reaching concessions ever?
Oslo is a failure. Your negotiated approach has only resulted in more terrorism.
you know the people who die so that armchair generals like you can get your rocks off
Oh yes, as I mentioned about, we are living in the aftermath of the "armchair peace negotiator" approach you and your ilk have advocated for so long. In terms of Palestinian terrorism, the post-Oslo period has proved to be the worst phase in Israel's history.
Thank you Kel, thank you Oslo, and thank you Jimmuh Carter.
I think it's hysterical that you think negotiated solutions are the problem.
Oslo failed because the Israelis had no desire to make it work.
However, as I've pointed out before the mood is changing in both camps and a negotiated solution is going to have to be found.
You and Netanyahu are simply caught in a time warp.
Israel has moved on and you dinosaurs can keep yelping, but no-one is listening to you anymore.
The Israelis are the only ones that have made any concessions since also - like the abandonment of Gaza - and it has been a tremendous failure. The Palestinians were supposed to combat terrorism. Instead, they have given control over their society to the terrorists.
Israel would be wise at this point to snatch a portion of Gaza temporarily and militarize to prevent rocket attacks. When the Palestinians can learn to be mroe peaceful, it can be returned.
How wonderful that you choose to be on the wrong side of international law on so many different subjects.
Israel have not made a "concession" as you put it. She has taken a tiny baby step towards fulfilling her obligations under international law which has been calling for Israel to retreat to the 1967 border for the past forty years.
That's not a concession, that's desisting from a criminal act.
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