Pressure Grows On Israel For A Ceasefire
Joshua Pundit on Jan 07 2009 at 6:18 pm | Filed under: Gaza
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…..
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