Thursday, August 7, 2014
The Palestinian People Must Decide for Themselves that their Future Does not Lie with Hamas and Other Terrorist Groups
With a Friday morning deadline looming, Hamas on Thursday rejected Israeli demands that it disarm and threatened to resume its rocket attacks if its demands for lifting a crippling blockade on Gaza were not met. The hard line, expressed by a Hamas official at the group's first - very poorly attended - public rally since a cease-fire in the Gaza war took effect on Tuesday, signaled that indirect negotiations in Cairo over a permanent truce in Gaza are not making headway, an ominous sign ahead of Friday's expiration of a three-day truce that provided a pause in the month-long fighting. A text message from Hamas' military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, warned there would be no extension of the cease-fire if there was no agreement to permanently lift the blockade enforced by Israel and Egypt since the militant group overran Gaza in 2007. A senior Hamas military spokesman also said Hamas was ready to return to war, starting a long-term war of attrition that would make life insupportable in Israel's large cities and stop air traffic at the international airport in Tel Aviv. He also appealed to Hamas negotiators in Egypt not to accept an extension of the cease-fire without an agreement on lifting the blockade. "The resistance is capable of imposing its conditions," he said. Egyptian sources say Hamas and other Gaza militants are refusing to compromise. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, have instructed the Israeli military "to be ready for anything." ~~~~~ Hamas is using the same "negotiating" tactic that has long been used by PLO leaders Yasser Arafat and, now, Mahmoud Abbas -- insist that Israel agree to all the Palestinian demands before they will agree to begin negotiations with Israel for a peace settlement. Palestine wants Israel to agree to accept the pre-1967 borders, release all Palestinian prisoners, grant right of return to Israel to Palestinian "refugees" (mostly their grandchildren because the refugee status started in 1949), and turn over East Jerusalem to Palestine as its capital. All that to be agreed by Israel before any negotiations begin. ~~~~~ Dear readers, it doesn't take a degree in rocket science to see that if Israel agreed to all the pre-negotiation demands of Palestine - both the PLO in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza - there would be very little left to discuss that is of major importance. If Israel were foolish enough to agree to these pre-conditions, it might as well begin preparation for the evacuation of the Jewish people from Israel, because that would be the ultimate result -- an end to Israel, the death of the only democracy in the Middle East, the next diaspora of Jews who would be scattered around the world with no homeland where they can preserve their ancestral culture, and with no hope of providing the economic muscle and technical expertize desperately needed by the Palestinians if they are ever to emerge from their self-inflicted ghetto and build their own nation based on their own culture, as Israelis have already done. Hate for Israel is not a basis for Palestinian nationhood, but enlightened self-interest would be, and it would take root and flourish rapidly if the fanatics who lead the PLO and Hamas could be silenced by the Palestinizn people, who surely must understand that they are now prisoners being mis-used by terrorists.
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Is Hamas and/ the PLO willing to do some serious Negotiating (“to attempt to come to an agreement on something through discussion and compromise.”) or do they just want Israel to serve themselves up on a silver platter, do not pass go & do not collect the $200.00 in Monopoly money.
ReplyDeleteWhere is a hint of compromise or even the resemblances of discussions? The demands of Hamas & PLO is directly from the Barrack Obama School of Foreign Affairs.
What Israel needs to tell the people of Palestine plain and simple … “Lead your people to peace and prosperity with us or follow Hamas to the depths of torment & bleakness? One way or another get out of our way for we are coming to rid the Gaza of Hamas and PLO.”
Whatever promises offered by Hamas and/or PLO in any negotiated settlement, no one should ever forget that they may promise anything to secure submission from their Israeli democratic opponents, and then brazenly violate those same agreements before the sun sets that negotiating day..
ReplyDelete"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
DeleteIsraeli General Moshe Dayan is quoted as once saying ... "If you want to make peace negotiate with your enemy, not your friend"
ReplyDeleteSo why doesn't Hamas sit down on the other side if the table, look the Israeli representative in the eye and negotiate honestly. Instead if this cat & mouse game of being in Egypt making demands that nit even the PLO believe are sincere or reasonable?
When it comes right down to it every people decides what they want for themselves. The decision is made by action or no action.
ReplyDeleteThe settlers, Pilgrims, Quakers that came to the new land decided what they wanted from life and took the chance. The German citizen made their decision and got Kaiser Wilhelm II and then Hitler. The French via the French underground made a choice to fight back, etc.
Tyrannical/Totalitarian leaders get control not by fooling ALL the people ALL the time. They have a core of citizens that go along and slowly bring more with them. In the end it’s the good citizens that are the small minority.
So it’s the case in Gaza/Palestine. Most of the citizenry have just what they are willing to accept or tolerate. The participant in this conflict that we must protect at all cost is Israel. Israel cannot be overturned. The Jewish people cannot again be spread by the 4 winds all over the globe to start all over again.
Profound indeed!
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