Gaza Strife Raises Urgency of Israeli Calls for Talks with Hamas
| Mon Mar. 3, 2008 8:28 AM PST
After a weekend ground operation in Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip that left more than 100 people dead, many of them civilians, Israeli Defense Forces pulled out of Gaza Monday. The withdrawal could be a gesture to placate an important visitor: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is due to arrive in Israel Tuesday to try to advance stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, and all out-warfare going on in the background to her peace mission would no doubt be an embarrassment to Washington.
But as former Israeli intelligence chief Efraim Halevy told me in a recent interview, Israel and Rice are not talking to a key player: Hamas. Halevy advocates that Israel and Washington back indirect proximity talks between Israel and Hamas, conducted by a trusted third party. He is not alone. News media report that Egypt is trying to broker a cease fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, an arrangement publicly supported by Israeli Labor minister Ami Ayalon, among others. If a cease fire is not able to be achieved and Hamas' Qhassam and Grad rockets continue to hit the Israeli towns of Sderot and Ashkelon, Israeli officials are warning that last weekend's incursion will be dwarfed by a full scale ground invasion of Gaza in coming weeks. "It makes sense to approach a possible initial understanding including Hamas—but not exclusively Hamas—at a time when they are still asking for one," Halevy told me. "No side will gain from a flare up leading to Israel re-entering the Gaza strip in strength to undo the ill-fated unilateral disengagement of 2005."
Here is the interview with Halevy.
Continues Below
Continued From Above
Comments
"The Colombian government has become the Israel of Latin America," an agitated Chavez said, reiterating his criticism of the Israel Defense Forces' strikes on Palestinian militants.
"We aren't going to permit Colombia to become the Israel of these lands. ... Uribe, we aren't going to permit you." "We don't want war, but we aren't going to permit the U.S. empire, which is the master [of Colombia] ... to come divide us," Chavez said on his weekly TV and radio program. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, said Colombia deliberately carried out the strike beyond its borders. There is no justification, Correa said Sunday night, snubbing an earlier annoucement from Colombia that it would apologize for the incursion.
Correa said the rebels were bombed and massacred as they slept, using
precision technology. He said Colombia violated Ecuador's airspace when it bombed the rebel camp, which the Colombian military said was located 1.8 kilometers from the border.
Now that the BUMBLING INCOMPETENT BUSH/Cheney/Rice regime has been exposed in April 2008 VANITY FAIR, any talk that is tossed at 'making nice' with Palestine will be seen exactly for what it is. Truth is that Rice/Bush attempted IRAN CONTRA 2.0 and FAILED. miserably..thank goodness..! here's the link to Vanity Fair..MUST READ..not that it was "classified"...FULL ARTICLE HERE):
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/04/gaza200804?printable=true¤tPage=all
"Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. And Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America's behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power. (The State Department declined to comment.)"
thanks!
I saw this coming all along, ever since Bush visited Israel recently. It was obvious that he and Olmert were cooking up something, obviously this hamhanded attempt to cripple Hamas by way of invading Gaza (Bush is the master of invading on false pretenses). It is so obvious that it's sickening, that massive air strikes in response to homemade rockets and wimp Kassems were, and are, overkill designed to smash the people of Gaza into betraying Hamas. The evil never stops.
