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Apparently the Egyptian efforts to craft a ceasefire have run into a few roadblocks.

In talks with Egypt’s Head of Intelligence General Omar Suleiman Hamas leaders refused to commit to a number of points Egypt, the EU and Condi Rice were counting on.

First off, they said they would not commit to a long term because they wanted to “preserve the right to respond to Israeli violations and aggression.”

Second and more importantly, they refused an Egyptian demand that the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza be turned over to Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah.Suleiman reportedly told the Hamas delegation that Egypt would not reopen the Rafah border crossing unless Abbas’s forces were allowed to control the terminal.

The third point Suleiman wanted the Hamas delegation to agree to was international peacekeeping troops in some areas of the Gaza Strip. They turned him down flat. Osama Hamdan, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, said the idea of international peacekeepers was “aimed at protecting Israel” while Hamas’s armed wing, Izzadin Kassam stated they would consider such troops a hostile and occupying force and would therefore launch attacks against them.

This entire structure of Fatah controlling the Rafah crossing and international monitors is pretty much what Condi, Israel, the Palestinian Authroity and Egypt cobbled together as security ‘guarantees’ back when Israel left Gaza.

Hamas took over the terminal when they kicked Fatah out in the summer of 2007, and the international monitors fled into Israel shortly afterwards.

Hamas’ position is pretty simple; they want all the border crossings opened with them in control, and the Israeli military operations to stop…after which they’ll stop firing rockets into Israel.At least for now.

There’s a key here as to why Hamas decided to attack Israel and unleash the rockets just now…

(Read the rest at JoshuaPundit

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Five Katushya rockets fired were fired from Lebanon at Israel this morning, hitting Nahariya, a city to the north of Haifa and scoring a direct hit on an old age home, injuring three people moderately. Another rocket hit in the town of Shlomi.

Hezbollah’s al-Manur TV and and Lebanon’s al-Mustaqbal confirmed the missile firings and said they were fired from Wadi Hamoud south of the Litani River. They also showed Lebanese troops in the area supposedly trying to determine who might have fired the rockets.

Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora was quick to state that his government was obligated under UN resolution 1701 to prevent attacks on Israel and that his government would investigate….especially after Israel’s Northern command warned Lebanon that an attempt to open a second front in Northern Israel would lead to heavy retaliation.

Mohammed Fneish, a Hezbollah minister in Lebanon’s Cabinet, denied any Hezbollah involvement.

But absolutely nothing happens in Lebanon without Hezbollah’s OK, so at the very least, they had to have winked at it.

I seriously doubt Hezbollah would be silly enough to start something now. Israel’s reserves have already been called up and there are ample troops armor and planes available to deal with Hezbollah if that becomes necessary, and that should make Nasrallah think twice about it.

The rockets were likely fired off by Palestinian groups affiliated with Hezbollah at Nasrullah’s orders, so as to give Hezbollah plausible deniability while reminding Israel that he’s still around.

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Nicholas Kristof - I’ll call him “Ain’t Nick” - on the NYT, The Gaza Boomerang:

When Hamas was founded in 1987, Israel was mostly concerned with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement and figured that a religious Palestinian organization would help undermine Fatah. Israel calculated that all those Muslim fundamentalists would spend their time praying in the mosques, so it cracked down on Fatah and allowed Hamas to rise as a counterforce.

It’s a common talking point among Israel’s critics, that Israel had a hand in creating Hamas. But no one really has given a definitive account of how that happened….

(Read the rest at Soccer Dad)

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I like Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion for proportionality in dealing with Hamas:

The charge that Israel is using disproportionate force is equally baseless. Does proportionality demand that Israel fire 6,000 rockets indiscriminately back at Gaza?

That sounds like an excellent idea. Of course, being an Israeli, Netanyahu’s suggestion is tongue in cheek, but I think it makes the point, don’t you?

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“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.” - Teddy Roosevelt, 1906

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 Barack Obama says that he plans to get a handle on out of control spending in Social Security and Medicare. He claims that there is red ink as far as the eye can see. Well, Social Security is not bankrupt yet but it will be in the not too distant future. Social Security takes in more than it needs but the excess is used by the government to pay for other things. They just cannot keep their hands out of the till. When there is money, they spend it.

For the longest time Social Security has taken in much more than it pays out. Instead of being prudent and ensuring the excess money stayed dedicated to the program, Congress spent it. There are so many IOUs that they will never be paid back.

(Read the rest at Big Dog’s House)

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Jimmy Carter, during whose administration, Iran became and Islamist state and started to threaten the world, tells us that if only the parties had listened to him, war could have been avoided, in An Unnecessary War.

So much of the essay is self promotion, it’s hard to know to what to take seriously. Quoting Richard Falk - I’m sorry, the Rapparteur - on the subject of the Arab Israeli conflict is hardly convincing, as Falk is exceedingly anti-Israel. (Yes, he’s an antisemite too, even if he’s Jewish.) It’s appears that he got most of his information from Hamas, which he accepted uncritically.

(read the rest at Soccer Dad

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Last night, I was noticing Michael Savage’s observations about things, match my own, most closely when he says stuff that “everybody knows” is crazy.

Last night it was pot. Now, if I go only by what I’ve been hearing, just the opinions people have about things that they want to put out there whether they can explain ‘em or not — we have to legalize this stuff pronto. It is not, not, not, not, not, repeat not, a “gateway drug.” It’s cheap, it’s good for you, it makes wonderful rope and sweaters, and besides if we legalize it we can tax it; that’ll “pay off the deficit overnight,” they tell me. Besides, “contrary to popular belief,” smoking pot increases your powers of observation and concentration. You’d want your brain surgeon to smoke pot.

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The diplomats are scuttling..make no mistake. And they’ll do their best to save Hamas no matter what.

France, Egypt, the EU and the UN are hammering out a ceasefire that will supposedly end the weapons smuggling into Gaza while ending the blockade:

Mubarak made his ceasefire call at a joint news conference in Egypt with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He gave little detail, but diplomats have described a process that would focus on bringing in foreign forces to seal the Egypt-Gaza border against Hamas arms smugglers while easing other trade routes..

Sarkozy, winding up a two-day tour of the Middle East, said: “I am confident the Israeli authorities’ reaction will make it possible to consider putting an end to the operation in Gaza.”

With Washington in a transition period ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama, France and its European partners, with backing from U.S. allies in the Arab world, have been pushing hard for Israel to cease fire.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice endorsed the Mubarak proposal and said a “sustainable” ceasefire should involve both closing off Hamas’s ability to rearm through tunnels from Egypt and easing the lives of the 1.5 million people of Gaza by reopening trade routes.

“We need urgently to conclude a ceasefire that can endure and that can bring real security,” Rice told the Security Council

The problem is that according to the terms by which Israel left Gaza originally, this was supposed to have already been done. Did I miss something? Is there a single reason to believe that keeping missiles and heavy weapons out of Gaza is going to work better this time? Especially with those other ‘trade routes’ reopened?

And Hamas has made it clear that while it might allow a few observers on the Gaza-Egypt border, they’re not about to allow the deployment of any peacekeepers. In addition, not only do they want a full Israeli withdrawal, but they haven’t actually agreed to stop firing missiles at Israel yet!

Moussa Abu Marzouk, a Damascus-based Hamas official, told the Financial Times that his organisation, which has been under massive Israeli assault, was ready for a ceasefire as long as it involved an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the end of the blockade of the territory and some “arrangement” for the border crossing with Egypt..

Posting international observers, as some European officials have suggested, could be looked at, said the Hamas leader. But an international force similar to the UN peacekeeping mission that was deployed in Lebanon as part of the 2006 Israeli war against Hizbollah was “not acceptable”

If the Israelis accept the sort of ceasefire the Europeans,Egypt and Hamas are likely to cook up,they’re fools.

Lebanon may actually have taught them a lesson, however. Amid all the diplo-speak, Israel is still demanding a stop to all the rockets - over 30 hit Israel today and firm guarantees Hamas will not rearm. They’re not likely to get that.

Olmert, Livni, Barak and the rest of the Israeli security cabinet are supposed to meet tomorrow to decide whether to order a major assault in Gaza City proper to flush out the main Hamas forces and leadership. I doubt the Israelis would have gone this far unless they had a firm plan to do exactly that, and it may yet happen.I certainly don’t see them achieving their strategic goals any other way,and whatever deal they make with Hamas, the Europeans and the Egyptians will be broken almost as soon as the ink is dry on whatever worthless paper gets signed…..

Read the entire article at JoshuaPundit

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Gotta love this…Hizzoner absolutely evicerates a CNN bubblehead in this video.

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