Ted Belman
When Israel announced it was in negotiations with Syria, Abbas countered with his intended talks with Abbas. Neither the US or Israel objected.
A week ago, Israel agreed to a “lull” with Hamas for stated reasons which were incomprehensible. Perhaps the real reason was to enable the reconciliation between them.
Two days ago I reported that Shlomo Brom who is very connected to leftist government circles argued that because of the split, Israel must negotiate with Hamas. Even more telling, Peres recently said at an official dinner
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“”There is no chance of reaching an agreement between Israel and the PA,” He said Abbas had no support among his people, no power to carry out security agreements and that any agreement Israel and the PA made crumbled a day later due to the PA’s weakness. Therefore there is no chance of agreement, he summed.
It is clear to me that the government is laying the ground work to justify talks with Hamas because they are going nowhere with Abbas. (Not that they will go anywhere with Hamas either.)
Well here it is. Palestinian PM proposes detailed Fatah-Hamas reconciliation deal
- At the crux of the plan is an initiative to deploy an Egyptian security delegation to the Gaza Strip; it will act as an arbitrator between the opposing sides and supervise the disarmament of Palestinian groups and unification of security organizations.
A source privy to the details of the proposal said Fayyad believes the cease-fire in the Gaza Strip is the right time to push for such a move.
The same source added that Fayyad considers the cease-fire fragile; therefore the speedy adoption of a reconciliation plan is imperative.
[..] Under this deal, the Palestinian Authority will ask Egypt to dispatch a security delegation to the Strip, and possibly even a military force to oversee the implementation of the security.
This agreement will also include a process for disarming Palestinian groups. Initially there will be no attempt to require Hamas or the other factions to surrender their arms, but they will have to promise not to make use of them.
Secondly, a transition government will be set up, which will be responsible for both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and which will comprise officials unaffiliated with any party and acceptable to both Fatah and Hamas.
Third, Hamas and Fatah will agree on a date for presidential and parliamentary elections, in order to resolve the current political deadlock.
Presidential elections are currently scheduled to take place in January, and parliamentary elections are due in two years.
This deal has no chance of resulting in the being agreed to and even if it was of disarming Hamas. There is no chance that the Palestinians will stop the terror. Nevertheless, I believe Israel is working toward bringing Hamas in from the cold.
Actually Israel has maneuvered Egypt into a good position for us in that eventually they will have to start to kill the Palis in mass or allow them to break through the border barrier. Then their role as the Champion of the Palis will go up in smoke
Ted, you might be right, in the short run, but over time when the Egyptians start feeling the wrath of “palestinians” things might change.
I am certain that the Egyptians won’t just stay as “observers” and will end up taking a functional stance in Gaza. They will become targets of Islamic Jihad, Tanzim and the rest of the “gangs”. Their reply won’t be a wimpy one.
Hi Mike
Considering how Egypt stopped th smuggling, they will no stop Hamas.
Olmert should be arrested and thrown into a Hamas prison.
This doesn’t sound like a bad idea…..let Egypt have this hornets nest back, they have experience with “cleaning out” “palestinian” troublemakers. Their putting down the first intifada in Rafah was a stroke of genius and stopped the trouble on the first day.