PA offers new truce deal, Israel rejects the idea (Have they finally wised up?)

Jerusalem Post ^ | Sept. 16, 2003

[Alouette]

Yasser Arafat wants to reach a mutual truce with Israel, his national security adviser said Tuesday, but Israeli officials said the government would reject the offer outright.

Brig. Gen. Jibril Rajoub, Arafat's national security adviser, said under a ceasefire, the Palestinians would halt all acts of violence in return for an Israeli agreement to end its military operations, including lifting blockades on Palestinian towns and villages.

"We are ready to sit and we are ready to declare a general ceasefire, but there needs to be something mutual because without mutuality nothing will be achieved," Rajoub told Israel Radio.

Rajoub did not outline how the Palestinian Authority would reach a new ceasefire deal with Hamas and Islamic Jihad the two militant groups responsible for most attacks on Israelis in the past three years. He also did not say the Palestinian Authority would crack down on militant groups, a U.S. and Israeli demand.

Palestinian militant groups abandoned a truce last month after Israel killed a Hamas political leader in response to an Aug. 19 Hamas bus bombing that killed 22 people.

An Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several truces had not ended the fighting. The official quoted a security cabinet decision from last Thursday which says Israel will not agree to anymore ceasefires.

"The government of Israel rejects any idea of a ceasefire as a way of dealing with terrorism.

"Terrorism will stop only with the dismantlement and eradication of the terrorist organizations. This is the duty and the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority and it will be judged only according to deeds and results and not according to declarations and talk," the cabinet statement says.

Israel's security cabinet decided at the same meeting to "remove" Arafat, which appears to leave open three options: expelling, killing or further isolating the veteran Palestinian leader. The decision came after twin suicide bombings in which 15 people were killed.

Israel Radio quoted unnamed government officials as saying the truce offer was an attempt to bring Arafat back to center-stage and "rescue" him from the threat of expulsion.

"There is no need to give a chance to a ceasefire that does not include dismantling all the armed groups, all the terrorist groups," said Israeli lawmaker Yuval Steinitz, who is in Washington meeting with Bush administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

[Alouette]

FRmail me to be added or removed from this pro-Israel ping list.

[risk]

That's right, feint and kill, kill and feint. Then ask for "talks." Acquire consessions, then repeat.

[Diogenesis]

PLOwell: "It is an honor for me to actually meet the inventor, the father, of terrorism
and the actual murderer of that crippled Jew ... ah... you know ... Mr. Klinghoffer and
so many other Americans.
I will soon run the World Bank and we want your billions of stolen dollars there.
I am also excited by your murders worldwide. Wow.
Boy, do your people and mine think alike, or what. OK?
So how many millions do you need to continue your bombing and murdering of
useless .... ahh... you know ...?"

[Tom Bombadil]

, including lifting blockades on Palestinian towns and villages.

The Palestinians can see the fence going up and they also know what it means if it completed.....Israel knows too.

[samtheman]

The Palestinians are the most abysmally and persistently stupid group of people in the entire history of human life on planet earth.

Never has a single group of people worked with such commitment and obstinancy to destroy their own chances of having a decent life.

Never has a leadership so blundered and re-blundered in such a dazzling array of dizzying failures.

Because of their high birth-rate they are disqualified from acheiving a Darwin Award but for placing themselves in such a complete state of utter misery --- all by their own efforts --- they deserve some special recognition for astounding feeble-mindedness.

[Smile-n-Win]

Because of their high birth-rate they are disqualified from acheiving a Darwin Award but for placing themselves in such a complete state of utter misery --- all by their own efforts --- they deserve some special recognition for astounding feeble-mindedness.

I nominate them for the Breed Lemming Award.

[Principled]

The Palestinians can see the fence going up and they also know what it means if it completed.....Israel knows too

What does it mean, master of the garden?

[DonQ]

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, "new" about Arafat's alleged offer of a "truce". It is a repetition of previous PLO terms: We (Arabs) stop killing you ... but only after you Israelis yield to us everything we want.

The odd thing here is that Arafat is initiating talk about new terms. Previously - when the Arabs had the leverage with riots and bombings - Arafat was uncommunicative and, if approached by the Israelis, adamantly refused to negotiate or revise any previous terms. Only when Arafat himself is cornered does he show a willingness to talk with the Israelis.

[mewzilla]

Guess the PA's running low on ammo.

[agrace]

"The government of Israel rejects any idea of a ceasefire as a way of dealing with terrorism.

"Terrorism will stop only with the dismantlement and eradication of the terrorist organizations. This is the duty and the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority and it will be judged only according to deeds and results and not according to declarations and talk," the cabinet statement says.

GOOD.

[adam_az]

In other words:

"We are in favor of a ceasefire: it will come when all you stinking terrorists are dead."

[StolarStorm]

Too bad Arafat can't be destroyed on an ethics issue, so as not to make him a martyr. I doubt anything would force his own people to force him out. Their sense of "ethics" and morality seem to be non-existant. At least whacked him in an unflattering way. Drag him from his compound crying, exile him to france, and then stop his heart one sunny day.

[yonif]

Ping.

[Bobby777]

Dismantle and remove the Palestinian Authority. Period. Game over. No more freebies.

[LinuxRocks]

These Palis are just unbelievable. Same thing over and over again. Hey, sorry about all the murders. Let's make a deal! We will stop, I promise! Do we have a deal? Great...that means we can start killing again while Israel does nothing.

I salute Israel for actually having the balls to say no. I wish the Bush and his crew could muster up similar courage.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

"We are in favor of a ceasefire: it will come when all you stinking terrorists are dead."


I am sorry but I have a real problem with this kind of thinking. If you ever believe you will eliminate all of the terrorists by killing them, then you must be advocating killing all of the Palestinians. Otherwise, you are just going to get a cycle of violence that moves from one generation to the next.

This way of thinking is a perverse, cause-effect closed- mindness that has led to so many years of bloodshed.

I need to explain this a bit by talking about the concept of freedom. There are many different concepts of freedom, but that is for a different thread. However, freedom itself does not exist independently from limitations. In other words, it is a meaningless concept unless one is "free" of some sort of "constraint". The ultimate constraint that all humans face is death. Jesus on the cross saved humanity by freeing us from that constraint. However, we still must face death as a limitation to our time on earth. The Palestian suicide bombers have overcome this constraint in their struggle. Thus, but trying to kill them, you are trying to kill death. And that, my friend is a very pointless struggle indeed.

In order to achieve a victory and peace it is necessary to make their lives more worth living and less worth sacrificing. Some will have to be killed, but to kill all of them, means to kill everyone and that is an option that I certainly hope you would not advocate.

[adam_az]

"In order to achieve a victory and peace it is necessary to make their lives more worth living and less worth sacrificing."

When you manage to convert these mass murdering savages to christianity or some other benign religion en masse, let me know.

Until then, it's hot lead. We didn't make that choice, it was forced upon us by a people whose culture sees any concession as weakness and capitulation. When you are nice to them, they kill more of you. No more!

BTW Jesus didn't die for me, but thanks for the sentiment.

[Alouette]

If you ever believe you will eliminate all of the terrorists by killing them, then you must be advocating killing all of the Palestinians.

Somehow the U.S. managed to eliminate Nazism without killing all the citizens of the country in which you reside.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

And how many soldiers did we have here?

Something like 8 million including allies.

Not to mention a 6-year war, a completely destroyed nation, and a dead leader (now there`s a thought).

Poor analogy, because Nazis were not terrorists in the sense that we are now dealing with. They had a legitimate (albeit sick) utopian view of the world of the living.