Israel will withdraw to its 2007 borders. That would be 40 years.

Will that be before or after hell freezes over?

Opening round of negotiations right now, and you don't lead with your compromise position.

This entire proposal is an EU scam.

What Hamas will offer is RINO (recognition in name only). Israel will not comply, and indeed would be foolish to do so. Hamas' offer will by itself, though, be deemed enough to trigger a full resumption of EU financial aid to the Palestinians. Hamas will already have received assurances to this effect, in fact the whole idea of this 'designed-to-be-rejected' offer was almost certainly cooked up by EU diplomats.

For verification, just watch how snappily this 'pre-pack' aid resumption deal is 'agreed to' by the EU and then implemented - much faster than the Europeans ever manage to agree on anything else. The Europeans will be desperate to have aid back in place before the next new Palestinian atrocity reveals that the whole idea is a complete sham. As soon as the aid is turned back on they can and will go back to ignoring Palestinian terrorism.

I think that ZF is correct. Withdrawing to it's 1967 borders would also require Israel to abandon sections of its wall. This is more of a ploy than a real offer.

Also note that it requires Israel to make a large concession before Hamas has to do anything. There's no reason to believe that Hamas would follow through after the Israeli concession and many reasons to not do so.

I concur that it's a ploy to give rhetorical cover to the EU and others to resume aid to Hamas without Hamas needing to do anything. OJ will refer to this purely rhetorical posturing that allows Hamas to continue its existing policies at no cost as "governing", but I don't see it that way.

there are reports out now about fatah and hamas setting up for a real old fashioned fight to the death civil war. so i don't think israel needs to move on this offer, they can just wait for the cleaning cycle to finish, and scrape the ashes out.

Toe is correct. In addition, the Palestinain pleas for financial help from the Arab world are going unheard. Payments for suicide bombings, however, continue.

Things are going to get very ugly in the West Bank and Gaza, and with Al Qaeda trying to establish some sort of ground there, it will probably be weirder than we can imagine. Breaking the death cult mentality is going to take a long, long time. And the only people who want it broken right now are the Israelis and the Americans.

Hamas has to put down the terrorist groups in order to establish full sovereignty. Israel is helping them to do so.

Israel already made the concession, at Oslo. Now Hamas has conceded. The borders are a mere detail.

All recognition is in name only.

OJ,

You may be willing to make light of the distinction but "We will recognize you if you do this" is different from "We will recognize you."

That said, I do think that Hamas will eventually recognize Israel's right to exist.

how is israel helping hamas ?

Brandon:

No, it isn't.

The Israelis are killing Hamas's enemies in the Civil War.

OJ,

And if Hamas is lying?

Israel has nuclear weapons.

reports today that israel is considering letting bazhri out of prison, to improve fatah's chances of taking back the government.