Is suicide an export commodity?

Dear Friends,

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu risked his position, bowed to American pressure, defied his coalition partners and many members of his own party, and announced that Israel would accept a demilitarized Palestinian state on its borders.  This was immediately rejected by the “moderate” Palestinian President Mahmoud (Abu Mazen) Abbbas and his chief negotiator Erekat.

Why does Netanyahu insist on demilitarization?  Simple.  Israel experimented with a Palestinian state by walking out of Gaza.  After kidnappings, border attacks, weapons smugglings, a war, a cease-fire, this morning’s IDF bulletin once again reported the results. 

“...continuous firing of rockets and mortar shells at Israeli Southern communities from the Gaza Strip… Last night, a Qassam rocket hit a field …Approximately 670 Qassam rockets, Mortar shells and Grad missiles were fired at Israel since the beginning of 2009.”

I guess that on behalf of Israel and its citizens, Netanyahu has decided to leave suicide to the Jihadists.

David

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Hamas Speaks

Dear Friends,

 

In line with my mail some months ago where I said I would try to bring shorter hard to find bits of information – here is something  from the government controlled Syrian Arab News Agency http://www.sana.sy/eng/22/2009/06/10/230527.htm

 

Khaled Meshall of Hamas tells us:

 

1.       Any intra-Palestinian peace must include an agreement allowing violence against Israel

2.       The Arabs have done so much for peace with Israel that it is now Israel’s turn.

 

Huh?

 

Comments as usual to http://dfrankfurter.livejournal.com/117569.html please

 

David

 

 

Israel to open Gaza border crossings?

Dear Friends,

The Israeli cabinet met today to discuss mounting US led international pressure for Israel to further open Gaza crossing points.

The discussion comes just a day after the IDF foiled a major border attack involving 10 Palestinian gunmen, mortars and booby-trapped horses. Apparently all part of a plan to breach the border, kill Israelis and hopefully (for them) kidnap another Israeli soldier. And it comes as we approach the 3 year anniversary of the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit - 3 years that the Palestinians have cruelly refused to meet their obligations under the Geneva Conventions to allow Red Cross access - let alone his release or even just a sign of life.

And what good would come of additional goods allowed through the border?  Just two days ago, Palestinian Media Watch published translations of May 20 2009 reports by the official Palestinian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida,  confirming that thousands of tons of medical equipment - including 46 ambulances stripped of their equipment and painted black to be used as military vehicles - have been hijacked by Hamas for direct military use or for re-sale to the population after confiscation.  So much for the humanitarian aid that Israel allows through the borders.  It just supports Hamas' nefarious activities.

So does this seem auspicious timing for the US to be pressuring Israel to lower its border defences?  Wouldn't the US be better off putting pressure on Hamas to conform to its obligations under international law, stop all violence against Israel and remove its jackboot from the necks of its own citizens?

What many Israelis find strange, though, is what seems to be US pressure for Israel to leave its settlements in Judea and Samaria.  The broad Israeli consensus is that it would turn into another Gaza, with a Hamas take-over just a matter of time. Aside from the inevitable rocket attacks on all of Israel's civilian population, they question what would be gained by allowing the destruction of the infant West Bank economy as happened in Gaza?

David

As usual, please post your comments here: http://dfrankfurter.livejournal.com/117370.html

 

Abbas meets Obama insult with silence

Dear Friends,

 

Visiting Buchenwald was President Obama’s way of avoiding criticism by the Jewish community of the increasing political pressure on Israel.  His speech at Buchenwald was clearly a jibe at Iran’s President Ahmadinejad – but at the same time it represented an indirect insult to the Palestinian Authority’s President,  Mahmoud Abbas.

 

"To this day, there are those who insist the Holocaust never happened – a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful," Obama said. "This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history."

 

Holocaust denial (and denial of the historical connection of Jews and Christians to the Holy Land) is widespread in the Palestinian Authority.   President Mahmoud Abbas’ doctoral thesis and subsequent book described the Holocaust as "The Zionist fantasy, the fantastic lie that six million Jews were killed," and claimed that the minimal number of Jews that were murdered to actually be the victims of a Zionist-Nazi plot.

 

Abbas seems to have lived up to his media reputation as “pragmatic”, and has not as yet publicly responded to being labeled “ignorant and hateful” by the American President.  He has presumably put it on the scales against Obama’s Cairo speech;  the undeniable suffering of the Palestinian people that resulted from their own warmongering, their rejection of every peace initiative and their terrorist murder of  innocent Israeli civilians was equated with the herding of innocent Jewish men women and children into extermination camps for wholesale slaughter by the Nazi regime and their assistants.  Keeping Palestinian silence also promotes the US abrogation of past agreements with Israel, and their demand that selective passages of certain abrogated agreements effectively be honored by Israel only.  With the US adopting not just the Palestinian line but even their negotiating tactics,  It is no wonder that the Israeli press are describing US and Israeli administrations to be on a collision path.

 

It will be interesting to see how the American Jewish community will respond to the equation.

 

David

 

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