July 23, 2006
ALL ROADS LEAD TO DAMASCUS:
Seven Qassam rockets land in western Negev; no injuries (Mijal Grinberg and Avi Issacharoff, 7/23/06, Haaretz)
According to reports Sunday, the Hamas leadership in Gaza is ready to halt Qassam fire as part of a cease-fire deal that would involve an end to IDF action in the Gaza Strip. Senior members of Fatah made similar claims Saturday.The initiative, discussed by representatives of Palestinian organizations in Gaza over the past several days, also includes an agreement to set up a unity government.
The Egyptian-initiated plan consists of freeing abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, a joint cease-fire and the cessation of IDF assassinations in the Gaza Strip. The release of Palestinian prisoners would be part of the deal, but come at a later stage.
It is not clear, however, whether the Hamas political leader in Damascus, Khaled Meshal, would agree to such a deal.
Israel's war isn't in Palestine, where Hamas is just a normal political partty.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 23, 2006 9:32 AM
Right! A normal political party that has armed militias that toss rockets daily into civilian neighborhoods in Israel proper.
That's what the Jews get for handing Gaza back - an enemy that much closer to her population centers. Can you imagine what would occur if Olmert sticks to his plan of handing the West Bank to these "Palestinians"? Tel Aviv would be about 8 miles away from this new entity under terrorist control. Sheeesh!
We're not talking about normal people who have a neighborly dispute. They will never cease until their dream of a judenrein Middle East is achieved.
Posted by: obc at July 23, 2006 12:23 PMMark Steyn quotes Hussein Massawi, the Hezbollah leader behind the slaughter of U.S. and French forces 20 years ago, "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you."
Posted by: erp at July 23, 2006 1:20 PMOf course he'll stick to it--Israel's temporary survival depends on it.
The terrorists aren't in control anymore.
If course not - they've been out of control since 1948.
Posted by: obc at July 23, 2006 9:56 PMYet over those fifty years they've created a nation--a pretty remarkable achievement.
Posted by: oj at July 23, 2006 10:09 PMThey haven't created a nation or anything else. A nation was handed to them because of the incessant drum beat of criticism of Israel from every corner of the world including our own home-grown leftwing lunatics and probably 99.9% of American Jews.
No need here to recount the chronology of Israel's heroic attempts to satisfy the left's need to justify the Moslem world's aberrant behavior in the Middle East over the past fifty years.
Enough already. This isn't about race, religion or skin color, it's about using hatred of Jews yet another time as a cover for world leaders' inability to govern.
They demanded it and they got it. That's a W.
Posted by: oj at July 24, 2006 10:01 AMOf course, they could have been a nation any time that they wanted, from '48 on, so the current situation is analogous to stopping hitting yourself on the head with a hammer after 58 years of solid blows - it feels so good, but is it "success" ?
Posted by: Noam Chomsky at July 24, 2006 11:50 AMNo, they couldn't. They didn't even think of themselves as one until recently and Israel didn't give up its dream of greater Israel until Sharon jettisoned it.
Posted by: oj at July 24, 2006 10:34 PM