Well, that's the best news I've heard in awhile. Lets hope both sides can agree and stick to the agreement.
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Israel attacks gaza strip
- Thread starter Heneni
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Let's see what the 'agreement,' as interpreted by Hamas, actually entails.
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To prove the point, when I posted the ynet article there was as yet nothing posted on either the Jerusalem Post or Haaretz.
Now, we read in the Post ...
Now, we read in the Post ...
JPost.com » Special Reports » Confronting Hamas » Article
Jan 14, 2009 18:37 | Updated Jan 14, 2009 19:18
Hamas accepts Egyptian proposal for Gaza cease-fire
Hamas has accepted the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, the group said Wednesday evening, after talks in Cairo
The Hamas delegation was making it way back to Damascus to brief the group's leaders.
Egyptian officials told the Middle East News Agency (MENA) that Hamas had responded positively to the country's efforts to mediate a Gaza cease-fire.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said he would relay Hamas's response to the Egyptian proposal to Israel.
However, Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, said that Hamas's position regarding the Egyptian initiative had not changed. He said that despite reports that Hamas had agreed to the cease-fire initiative, there were still a number of differences between Egypt and the Islamist movement that needed to be addressed.
... and so it goes. Jan 14, 2009 18:37 | Updated Jan 14, 2009 19:18
Hamas accepts Egyptian proposal for Gaza cease-fire
Hamas has accepted the Egyptian proposal for a cease-fire with Israel, the group said Wednesday evening, after talks in Cairo
The Hamas delegation was making it way back to Damascus to brief the group's leaders.
Egyptian officials told the Middle East News Agency (MENA) that Hamas had responded positively to the country's efforts to mediate a Gaza cease-fire.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said he would relay Hamas's response to the Egyptian proposal to Israel.
However, Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, said that Hamas's position regarding the Egyptian initiative had not changed. He said that despite reports that Hamas had agreed to the cease-fire initiative, there were still a number of differences between Egypt and the Islamist movement that needed to be addressed.
Elessar
Well-Known Member
Neturei Karta is a small sect, and extremist and "Ultra-orthodox" (though I will not use that term generally, as they themselves see it as an epithet; "Haredim/Hasidim" is the proper term). They are very small, within the community. There are very few of them. And they are extremist - very few Jews are, in fact, "Israel, always right", but they do exist, and they are also extremist. The Neturei Karta are the "Israel, always wrong." They are extremist. They are Haredi Jews, and thus, Haredim/Hasidim.
They have been removed from the Jewish community because they submit the Three Oaths are still in effect, when ALL other, let me repeat that, ALL other rabbinical authorities, that's thousands of different authorities in every part of the planet, from every movement and every region of the world, have ruled that the Three Oaths are voided.
The Three Oaths, as I have quoted previously (I believe in this very thread) are:
1. Jews will not attempt to end their exile and return to the Land of Israel.
2. Jews will not foment rebellion against the nations they live in.
3. Gentiles will not oppress or suppress the Jews too much.
In 1917, the Three Oaths were still in effect, so refusing a state within the Soviet Union was absolutely correct (though, a state in the Soviet Union would not be really violating the Oaths, since it would not be the Land of Israel). In 1945, they had been voided. In 1941-1945, one third of the world's Jews were massacred by gentiles. That is a violation of the third oath. With the third oath thus violated, Jews, according to THOUSANDS of different rabbinical authorities, were no longer held to the first two. The Haganah, previously a purely-secular movement, was now legal ground for the religious. Rebellion against the gentiles was now legal. Returning to the Land of Israel was now legal. From the little-known and little-recognized Ethiopian, Soviet and Indian minor rabbis to the great Lubavitcher Rebbe in Brooklyn, leader of Chabad worldwide, by far the single largest Hasidic sect, they all ruled that the Three Oaths were voided, by the gentiles through the Holocaust.
A few, minor Haredi rabbis in the United States ruled otherwise, and these are the Neturei Karta.
And now Haaretz clarifies ...
Meanwhile, a Hamas leader said that points of contention remained over the Egyptian proposal.
"There are still points of difference on the initiative and these points have not been resolved so far," Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, said in an interview broadcast on Al Jazeera television.
"The initiative in its present form does not realize the [Palestinian national] interest. Specific points in it have to be changed... We believe there is no initiative which cannot be modified or changed," he added.
The original proposal was for a temporary truce to allow for talks on long-term arrangements to secure the Egypt-Gaza border and end the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
But the proposal may have changed during secret negotiations mediated by Egypt over the past week.
Stay tuned ..."There are still points of difference on the initiative and these points have not been resolved so far," Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, said in an interview broadcast on Al Jazeera television.
"The initiative in its present form does not realize the [Palestinian national] interest. Specific points in it have to be changed... We believe there is no initiative which cannot be modified or changed," he added.
The original proposal was for a temporary truce to allow for talks on long-term arrangements to secure the Egypt-Gaza border and end the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
But the proposal may have changed during secret negotiations mediated by Egypt over the past week.
The comment
"The initiative in its present form does not realize the [Palestinian national] interest. Specific points in it have to be changed... We believe there is no initiative which cannot be modified or changed," he added.
is classic.
The Jerusalem Post as updated reads ...
Bardaweel added that the Hamas delegation made it clear to the Egyptians that Hamas won't accept anything less than a halt to the "Zionist aggression," the permanent reopening of all the border crossings and the lifting of the blockade on the Gaza Strip."
However, Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, said that the Egyptian initiative must be changed so as to serve the national interests of the Palestinians.
"There isn't a political initiative that can't be amended or changed," he said in response to reports that Hamas had accepted the ceasefire proposal made by the Egyptians.
"We welcome the Egyptian effort to end the Israeli aggression," he said. "But this initiative needs to be changed so that we could solve the points of differences between us and the Egyptian brothers. It must be changed for the interests of the Palestinians."
So we're left with, either, typical Middle East face-saving or typical Hamas deceit. The bottom line is this: if we're to take the highlighted portion seriously, there is little reason for Israel to halt its successful operation.However, Osama Hamdan, the Hamas representative in Lebanon, said that the Egyptian initiative must be changed so as to serve the national interests of the Palestinians.
"There isn't a political initiative that can't be amended or changed," he said in response to reports that Hamas had accepted the ceasefire proposal made by the Egyptians.
"We welcome the Egyptian effort to end the Israeli aggression," he said. "But this initiative needs to be changed so that we could solve the points of differences between us and the Egyptian brothers. It must be changed for the interests of the Palestinians."
Well i would'nt trust Hamas and there are other factions in Gaza that are fighting so there is no guarantee of a ceasefire anyway,and like you say there is little reason for Israel to halt
What medium did he do this through,i thought he was dead LOL
Luminous
non-existential luminary
"Bin Laden spoke in an audiotape posted Wednesday on Islamic militant Web sites where al-Qaida usually issues its messages. It was his first tape since May and came nearly three weeks after Israel started its campaign against Gaza's militant Hamas rulers."
http://www.wcbs880.com/pages/3657327.php?
http://www.wcbs880.com/pages/3657327.php?
Yes ,we've got it in the Osama bin Laden calls for new jihad over Israeli offensive in Gaza - Times Online funny how its always audio,in the link it has a superimposed photo of Bin laden on the Al Aqsa Mosque,i think he is among the departed in reality.
Worth reading: Proportionality and hypocrisy.
Caladan
Agnostic Pantheist
Allow me to post the article here.
Proportionality and hypocrisy
Why are military ops in Gaza, Kosovo judged by wildly disparate criteria? Martin Sherman Published: 01.14.09, 23:46 / Israel Opinion
"There is always a cost to defeat an evil. It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure to defeat a great evil is far higher."
Jamie Shea, NATO spokesman, BBC News, May 31, 1999
It was in these words that the official NATO representative chose to respond to criticism regarding the numerous civilian casualties incurred by the alliance's frequent air attacks during the war in Kosovo between March and June of 1999. He insisted NATO planes bombed only "legitimate designated military targets" and if civilians had died it was because NATO had been forced into military action. Adamant that "we try to do our utmost to ensure that if there are civilians around we do not attack," Shea emphasized that "NATO does not target civilians...let's be perfectly clear about that."
However, hundreds of civilians were killed by a NATO air campaign, code named "Operation Allied Force" - which hit residential neighborhoods, old-aged sanatoriums, hospitals, open markets, columns of fleeing refugees, civilian buses and trains on bridges, and even a foreign embassy.
Exact figures are difficult to come by, but the undisputed minimum is almost 500 civilians deaths (with some estimates putting the toll as high as 1500) - including women, children and the elderly, killed about in 90 documented attacks by an alliance that included the air forces of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Holland, Italy, Turkey, Spain, the UK, and the US. Up to 150 civilians deaths were reportedly caused by the use of cluster-bombs dropped on, or adjacent to, known civilian areas.
By contrast, the military losses inflicted by NATO on the Serbian forces during almost 80 days of aerial bombardment, unchallenged by any opposing air power, were remarkably low - with most estimates putting the figure at less than 170 killed.
Meanwhile, NATO forces suffered… no combat fatalities! This was mainly due to the decision to conduct high altitude aerial attacks which greatly reduced the danger to NATO military personnel in the air, but dramatically increased it for the Serbian (and Kosovar) civilians on the ground. Moreover, the civilian populations of the countries participating on Operation Allied Force were never attacked or - even threatened - in any way by Serbian forces.
The significance of all this for Israel, beset as it is by a maelstrom criticism and censure regarding its military campaign in Gaza, should be starkly apparent. It raises three trenchant issues which it would fail to address to its great detriment:
- The irrelevance of proportionality in military engagements
- The unlimited hypocrisy of international politics
- The disastrous incompetence of Israeli international diplomacy
The issue of proportionality, or rather, the alleged lack thereof, has been the basis for the fierce condemnation of Israel's conduct in its military operations in Gaza because the number of Palestinians casualties far outweighs that of Israeli ones. However, the conduct of military operations in Kosovo by many of Israel's present detractors shows that this was never a consideration or constraint which they felt bound by.
Quite the contrary, the very modus operandi they adopted - i.e. high altitude bombing - demonstrates that they deliberately aspired to disproportionality. As noted, this ensured an almost zero casualty rate among their own combatants but inevitably resulted in less accurate targeting of alleged military objectives on the ground, exposing a virtually defenseless civilian population to far greater danger and far higher casualties.
‘Put a sock in it’
All of this serves to underscore vividly the crass hypocrisy of Israel's critics. Indeed, in stark contrast to NATO's willful disregard for enemy civilians, the IDF has often placed Israeli soldiers in mortal peril to prevent Palestinian civilians from being harmed. Furthermore, Israel's use of military might has invariably been in response a tangible threat – or actual assault – on its citizens.
The blatant disregard for any semblance of proportionality by democratic belligerents and the shameless hypocrisy of their self-righteous and misplaced criticism of Israel highlight a crucial deficiency - often diagnosed and equally often neglected - in the overall structure of its international strategy: the incompetence - indeed impotence – of Israeli diplomacy. For the documented data on the conduct of the war in Kosovo by the world's leading democracies should provide ample material with which to resolutely rebuff much of the pompous tirade of condemnation being hurled at Israel today.
Sadly however, this has not happened. Although up to now Israel's media management during the Gaza operation has shown a marked improvement relative to the appalling performance during the 2006 Lebanon War, it still appears to be trapped in mindset of unbecoming apologetics and mired in a misplaced timidity which undermine its credibility and persuasiveness.
For Israel to prevail in the crucial battle for public opinion it must go on the offensive. It must convey confidence and conviction in the fundamental moral validity of the nation's actions. It must not shy away from resolutely repelling unjustified slander and from reprimanding malicious slanderers.
It should not shrink from convening all the NATO country ambassadors in a public forum, open to the international media, and sternly point out how unacceptable "stone throwing" is for residents of "glass houses," how inadvisable it is for "pots" to accuse "kettles" of being black, and to firmly demand - in appropriately discreet diplomatically terms - that they "put a sock in it."
It should not refrain from confronting unprincipled correspondents who concoct malevolent fabrications against Israel, and unambiguously convey to them that gross lack of professional integrity and balance will not be tolerated, and that excessive abuse of journalistic privilege will result in its withdrawal. It should be made clear to those in the international media who reside in Israel but insist on portraying it in an unfair and unfounded light that they will have to cover events in the region while residing in some Arab country – where they presumably will find society less objectionable and less
defective.
It should not hold back the resources required to assertively – even coercively - replace political correctness with political truth in the international discourse on the Middle East in general and on the Israel-Palestinian conflict in particular. It must bring these truths to the attention of political opinion-makers and of politically aware publics across the globe – if need be by circumventing hostile and obstructive editorial bias by means of prominent, paid infomercials in major media channels.
Only measures such as these will allow Israel to gain the upper hand in the battle for public opinion, to prevent it being the victim of unjust, unjustified and unjustifiable double standards, and to ensure that military operations in Gaza and Kosovo are not judged by wildly disparate criteria.
darkendless
Guardian of Asgaard
If Israel was to "be fair" we would get no where and Hamas would enjoy inflicting pain on civilians on both sides of the conflict with a severely reduced fear of retribution. Its not the fault of Israel that it has superior military might. Palestine shouldn't have chosen to engage in a lopsided fight.
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EiNsTeiN
Boo-h!
No it's not actually..It indicated he "understands" our nature, and nothing more..
Do you really think that it will be odd if the terrorism rate increased after what is happening in Gaza now?...I find it a very normal result, and if Israel is guessing otherwise, that will indicate a very serious shortage in understanding the human nature!
May be the NATO didn't, but Israel is..
The entire article is useless, because the IDF is randomly sticking Gaza which increases the probability of having more civilian casualities...
EiNsTeiN
Boo-h!
Well, so far Israel is the one breaking basic UN resolutions regarding wars, and is committed to various war crimes so far...This is not something related to Hamas..
If Israel knew this would happen, and decided to continue anyways, then that is bad!
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