Israeli soldier's captors end talks as ultimatum expires
It is believed that Gilad Shalit, the young Israeli soldier taken prisoner by a group known as the Army Of Islam, is still alive; although negotiations between the group and the Egyptian negotiators appears to have been terminated.
Against this tense background, the Israeli army have taken the rather bizarre decision to step up the pressure by bombing a university in Gaza and other sites throughout the area.
Israel's behaviour is all the more strange because they actually know that the Hamas government, many of who's members Israel have arrested, don't actually have any power over the release of Mr Shalit.
Which makes the news reported in today's Ha'aretz newspaper even more depressing.According to Palestinian diplomats and negotiators, the fate of Cpl Shalit has become entwined with Palestinian power struggles and international rivalry in the Middle East.
Aides of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, believe that his destiny is in the hands of the Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who is based in Damascus and is sponsored by Iran and Syria. Mr Meshaal, whom Israel tried to assassinate in 1997, is using the crisis to assert his leadership of Hamas and promote his candidacy for the leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, of which Hamas is not yet a member.
A Palestinian diplomat said: "The problem is Meshaal, not Israel, at the moment. The issue is not whether the captors can trust Israel but the amount of pressure that is brought to bear in Damascus."
Both Israel and the office of Mr Abbas accept that the Hamas government led by Ismail Haniyeh has virtually no influence over the Hamas military wing. The military wing and Mr Meshaal insist they will not exchange Cpl Shalit without an official prisoner exchange of the kind spelt out in the demands of the captors.
The security cabinet, convened by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the wake of the Tuesday evening Qassam rocket strike on Ashkelon, approved Wednesday morning an expansion of the ongoing military operation in the Gaza Strip.Which means we can expect more of this madness, not less. Whether or not universities are regarded as "terror activity infrastructures" the article declines to say.
The strike on the southern coastal city was the furthest north that a Qassam fired from Gaza has reached. The rocket hit an empty parking lot of the ORT Ronson High School building, causing light damage but no injuries.
"In light of the abduction [of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit] and continued rocket fire, including the Qassam strike on Ashkelon, we must prepare in order to bring about a change in the rules of the game, and in our dealings with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, based on the parameters presented by the defense establishment," said an official statement from the Prime Minister's Office issued after the meeting.
Israel's objectives in the crisis were defined at the meeting as targeting Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, particularly by hitting its terror activity infrastructures.
There seems to be no method to this madness and no overall plan. Israel may jail every single member of the Hamas government but they are unlikely to bring them down. Indeed, the further they go down this suicidal path the more militant the moderate Palestinian will become and the more likely Hamas are to be re-elected in future.
And if the overall aim is to implement a unilateral solution on the West Bank it should be remembered that the European Union have already stated that they will not recognise the legitimacy of any border that Israel arrives at unilaterally.
Why at moments of such insanity do I always suspect that Bush's mishandling of the situation has encouraged Israel's worst excesses?
"We will move forward - but not alone," Olmert said citing US support for Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip last year.And there we have it, Olmert obviously feels that he can ignore the entire international community as long as he has the backing of Washington.
Bush should realise that sometimes a real friend, for your own sake, says no.
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