"In Cairo, Egyptian go-betweens laid out Israel’s terms for a ceasefire deal to the Hamas team from Damascus as presented by defense minister Ehud Barak Monday, May 19, to Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman at Sharm el-Sheik. Israel wants kidnapped soldier Gilead Shalit included in the ceasefire deal. It has offered to include 72 convicted murderers in the list of jailed terrorists for release. Hamas is demanding 350.
Prime minister Ehud Olmert and Barak, after opting for a truce in Gaza rather than an effective military operation against Hamas, are expected to compromise on this question too.
Olmert’s statement at the Sunday, May 18, government session in Jerusalem that the Gaza situation cannot go on and Israel “is very close to the point of a decision” on this issue, is seen by inside sources as an attempt to mislead the public which is demanding that the IDF give Hamas a real thrashing. He hopes the deal will go down more smoothly if Gilead Shalit is freed. " Debkafile
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Yes. Yes. I know it is Debkafile. Remember – Evaluate the information and the source separately.
I have been babbling about the need for an Israeli-HAMAS truce for several years. Can it be that someone is listening?
Everyone in Palestine/Israel needs some "time off" from their mutual hatred and despair. I was there in March. The mentality of both sides has become awful, just awful. The Israelis are filled (mostly) with a great complacency and sense of their superiority. This verges on contempt for the Palestinian and Arab untermenschen. The Palestinians are filled with self pity and a resignation to their fate which does not become this branch of the human tree of life.
Olmert and Barak want a truce? For God’s sake give them one, and then when this one expires give them another one, and another!
You would rather have no loaf than half a loaf? Well then to hell with you all! pl
I certainly support dealing with Hamas as a legitimate voice of the Palestinian people but I don’t see how the US government would possibly allow the Israelis to negotiate anything with the organization.
For one thing, doing so would undermine the effort to support the rotting carcass of the PLA – an organization that not only should die but which is only kept going by the Israelis and Buscho in order to provide Ms. Rice a chapter in her posterity papers. Besides, after all the nonsense about appeasement, etc. there is no way Bush pulls the rug out from under McCain in an election year.
The staggering amount of energy expended to maintain the status quo in the region also can’t go on forever. Keeping dictators like the Mubaraks in power while propping up Siniora and the Hashemite dumpling depends on de-legitimizing any opposition. Thus Bush’s hilarious comments about the ‘opposition’ in Egypt while thousands of MB rot in prison.
Hamas and Hizbollah are still in the early stages of what is certainly a rebirth of religious nationalism. The US will have to deal with them eventually – why not now?
colonel
if, as you report from personal observation on the ground, that the Israelis are “filled (mostly) with a great complacency and sense of their superiority. This verges on contempt for the Palestinian and Arab untermenschen. ”
and the Palestinians are “filled with self pity and a resignation to their fate which does not become this branch of the human tree of life.”
Then who is responsible for this?
You appear to distribute the blame equally.
I see something very different.
DaveGood
Whats with all the talking? The Lebanese talking with each other, the Israelis and Hamas, the Israelis and Syria (reportedly), the US and Iran (reportedly), Iran and Saudi.
Selfish sons of…. Dont they know we have blogs to keep?
“…demanding that the IDF give Hamas a real thrashing.” Like Brer Rabbit thrashed the Tar Baby in the Uncle Remus story? Nice to see that Olmert and Barak finally see that this will be the result and are recovering from Fetterman’s Disease*. Anyone could see that this would be the result when Sharon unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The line from one of “The Godfather” movies comes to mind: “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in.”
*Capt. William Fetterman boasted, “Give me eighty men and I’ll ride through the whole Sioux Nation.” On Dec. 21, 1866, he rode out of Fort Phil Kearny with 80 troopers to rescue a wagon train, went too far against too many Indians and lost his entire command at Massacre Hill.
This would be the first sensible thing to happen in the ME in many years. Follow up this truce with a new US administration that believes in diplomacy and we may actually get the Concert that PL has so well articulated.
Here’s another shocker: “If the Washington-based newsletter Counterpunch is to be believed, a pre-planned Israeli intervention (with US acquiescence) in Lebanon during the recent fighting had to be called off at the last minute on the basis of intelligence that Hezbollah would massively retaliate. In the view of the US intelligence community, Tel Aviv would have been subject to “approximately 600 Hezbollah rockets in the first 24 hours in retaliation”. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE21Ak02.html
Both were bound to happen. Despite Bush administration petulance, Israel had to negotiate with Hamas at some point. And their strategic military advantage was bound to be countered by their enemies’ improved missile technology. How long could it be before those rockets contain cluster bombs to return the favor to Israel for laying waste to South Lebanon?
It looks like the good old days are gone. Israel (like America) can no longer behave with impunity like the bull in the proverbial china shop. Maybe both will now become normal countries.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/985271.html
If Debka isn’t to one’s liking, here’s Haaretz on the subject of a potential truce. The Haaertz article differs slightly from Debkafile’s account however. Debka is presenting the release of Corporal Shalit as part of a package deal, while Haaertz is suggesting that neither side wants to discuss it until a ceasefire is in place.
While Israel negotiates and appeases, PM Olmert wants to force a confrontation with Iran even if small:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/985421.html
Interesting position…
Col.,
How can one separate the information from the source? If the source is biased or not credible, how can one trust the information?
Robert C
I have been over this many times here. Information (as opposed to opinion) exists independent of source. It is is up to you as an analyst to discover which information is true.
Dave Good
There is no good in the ME, only bad and there is enough bad for everyone. pl
Colonel,
This, and reports suggest it is very true, talks with Syria, the Lebanese agreement with the March 14th agreeing to just about all of the oppositions demands and Malikis relatively politically unopposed drive in Iraq
I cannot believe all this can be happening without the agreement and acquiescence of both the US and Iran.
Is there something they want to tell us?
More appeasements, may lose White House special admittance pass..lol
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/985721.html
Likud says it will not abide by Olmert’s diplomacy.
Given the Neocon-Likud linkage and the deep Neocon influence over McCain (who himself is a Neocon follower and self-described “Scoop” Jackson admirer) not to mention the hardline Zionist Lieberman faction of the Democrats …
“The Likud will not be obligated by any peace agreement reached between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government and Syria if party chairman Binyamin Netanyahu wins the next election and returns to the Prime Minister’s Office, Likud faction chairman Gideon Sa’ar said Thursday.”
“There is wide agreement from Right to Left that the diplomatic process cannot be used to shelter politicians in distress,” Netanyahu said. “Most of the public knows the prime minister expedited the talks with Syria and set the exact time for revealing them to distract the public from the investigations against him. Olmert, who is up to his neck in investigations, has no moral or public mandate to conduct fateful negotiations on Israel’s future.”
Netanyahu said Syria was “an inseparable part of the axis of evil” that would not disconnect from Iran. He warned that conceding the Golan would allow Iran to use it as a command post to endanger the entire country.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1211434083220&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
“Netanyahu said Syria was “an inseparable part of the axis of evil” that would not disconnect from Iran. He warned that conceding the Golan would allow Iran to use it as a command post to endanger the entire country.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?”
Colonel, what do you think of Netanyahu’s assessment?