Posted on 04/15/2007 6:02:06 PM PDT by Knitting A Conundrum
” I don’t kid about stuff like that. “
Well, dammit, son, get yer butt down there asap and get caught up!!
(I know — I tend to get over-protective and mother-hennish about my friends — but I don’t have all that many, and not willing to give up the few that I have....)
Selfish of me — but I’d much rather have you here and feeling rotten than not have ya here at all.....
;~)
Jun. 15, 2007 11:54 | Updated Jun. 15, 2007 12:06
Israel will try to stop Gaza aid crisis
By JPOST STAFF AND AP
Israel is looking into ways to aid civilians in the Gaza Strip and will do everything possible to prevent a humanitarian crisis there, senior Jerusalem officials said Friday.
Israel will continue to provide electricity and water to the Strip and is prepared to send food on condition that there is no one on the Palestinian sides of the crossings when the parcels are delivered, the officials told Israel Radio.
Israel watches as crisis remakes reality
Problems have already been reported in providing milk to Gaza residents.
Meanwhile, Construction and Housing Minister Meir Sheetrit said that Israel would not move in to confront Hamas.
“There is no intention to re-enter that swamp, Gaza, in this situation. At this point, Israel has no reason to intervene,” Sheetrit told Israel Radio.
Because Fatah has recognized Israel’s right to exist and signed on to past peace agreements, a boycott by Israel and the international community of the Palestinian territories in the wake of Hamas’ electoral successes may no longer apply to the West Bank - just to Gaza.
“The fact that President Abbas has fired the Hamas government is a very positive move in our opinion, and makes it easier to deal with and help the moderates,” Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said Friday.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181813039796&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
and with that, it’s time to get myself outta here and off to (ugh) work.....
Hiya, Bahbah!!
****trail of breadcrumbs******
ANALYSIS: The West Bank is not the Gaza Strip, Palestinians say
By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents
RAMALLAH - The telephone in the senior Fatah official’s office in Ramallah began ringing incessantly shortly after 1 P.M. Thursday. His people in Gaza wanted advice on what to do. Hamas gunmen were surrounding their headquarters, the gunfights were growing fiercer. Should they surrender to Hamas, they asked, or continue fighting to the death?
The senior official replied cautiously. “You’re in charge,” he said. “Do what you think is best.”
At one point, the Gazan commander wanted to talk to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and ask his permission to surrender, since they had run out of munitions. But Abbas was busy meeting with the PLO leadership in Ramallah.
A few minutes later, another phone call came from Gaza. This time, the official realized it was over. “If you give in, don’t let them take the weapons. Put all rockets and guns in the basement. Burn all the floors and then the basement and cars. When you surrender, don’t agree to undress,” he ordered his Gazan subordinate.
When his dead and wounded exceeded his remaining fighters, the Gazan commander surrendered.
The fate of Fatah’s other headquarters in the Strip was similar. At noon, Hamas conquered Gaza’s Preventive Security headquarters, which symbolized Fatah’s corruption. But the Hamas group that took it over is already making Gazans miss the days of the corrupt PA, and even the Israeli occupation.
“They’re using the same methods as the Israelis, and even worse,” a senior Palestinian source said. “They declare an area a closed military zone and shoot anyone who goes out into the street. Hamasniks strip Fatah men they capture, humiliate and beat them. They go from door to door with lists to hunt down Fatah people and execute them.”
Fatah’s military defeat was mainly caused by the split in the organization, he said: “All the forces are identified with Fatah, but each force fought independently against Hamas, which was united and better trained.”
Fatah officials in the West Bank spoke with contempt about Hamas in Gaza. “Let’s see how they manage now, after they’ve won, running things like water and power from Israel,” one official said. “How will they cooperate with Israel over the border crossings?”
Continued: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/871412.html
Don’t laugh at the headline.
Iran threatens to reduce nuclear cooperation
AFP via Jordan Times ^ | June 15, 2007 | Staff
VIENNA — Iran threatened Thursday to further reduce cooperation with the UN atomic agency if new sanctions are ordered and insisted its uranium enrichment programme had gone too far to turn back.
For “each action there is a reaction, prompt reaction by Iran and that will continue”,” Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told reporters at a meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors.
The UN Security Council has imposed two sets of sanctions since December in a bid to get Iran to halt uranium enrichment — which can make fuel for reactors or for a bomb — and to cooperate with an IAEA investigation over concerns Iran seeks nuclear weapons.
IAEA chief Mohammad Al Baradei reported Wednesday that the agency’s ability to monitor Iran’s nuclear work is “deteriorating” due to the reduced Iranian cooperation.
Baradei also told the board that Iran is still expanding uranium enrichment work, in defiance of the Security Council.
The IAEA board wrapped up its debate Thursday after both the United States and Europe warned that new UN sanctions against Iran loomed.
Continued: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1850619/posts
I'll be good and sick by lunch.
"Iran threatens to reduce nuclear cooperation"
Sorry BB, but just how does one go from "no nuclear cooporation" to "reduce nuclear cooperation"?
I know you have to do it, Workerbee, but I’m still sorry you won’t be feeling well. It was so good to read that you had slept well.
Captain Ed’s wrapup.
CNN is reporting now that the ruling factions in both areas have started political cleansing. Hamas has rounded up Fatah members in Gaza, executing some openly on the streets and taking others to an uncertain fate. Fatah, firmly entrenched in the West Bank, has started arresting and capturing Hamas members. Fratricide appears to be the order of the day in both territories.
The Palestinian Authority has also washed its hands of Gaza, for the moment. Spokesman Saeb Erekat announced that Gaza has no government at all, and is officially no longer part of the PA. He told CNN that the violence had set back the Palestinian cause “50 years,” and that may be an optimistic estimate.
The EU has cut off aid to Gaza. Israel will almost certainly close all of the entry points into Gaza, and Egypt might do the same. Hamas will plunge Gaza into total isolation. Within weeks, there will be massive starvation and disease, but no one will trust Hamas to act peacefully after this massive betrayal — and no one will bother liberating Gaza again.
The best chance for the Palestinians in Gaza is to have Egypt annex it once again. Clearly it cannot be ruled by the Palestinians, and the Israelis will not want another 40-year occupation. If Egypt refuses, the only option will be a massive military effort to drive out Hamas, or to simply seal off Gaza and have the Palestinians rise up against them. I’m betting Israel opts for the latter.
As for me, I think we’ll soon see pictures of dirty, hungry children and pleas for aid for the poor starving “victims” of their own feral hatred.
Thank you BahBah.
But I do need to start paying more attention to the date and the DAY. Unfortunately, as I wear down, this me become more of an issue.
And green helmet guy.
This is what I’ve been expecting for some time. Two Palestinian territories. Israel somewhat caught in the middle...
The Gaza Strip’s violent transformation this week from PA-controlled territory to gunmen-controlled Hamastan will not, according to the leftist Israeli daily, Haaretz, give Washington any pause in its pursuit of President George W. Bush’s two-state solution to the ‘Palestinian’-Israeli conflict.
On the contrary, reports the paper Friday, Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice now plan to try and “fast track” “peace talks” that will see Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) handed over to PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas in order to “boost” his battered standing among his people.
The US “aims to accelerate the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to allow Abbas to present some achievments,” Ha’aretz says.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is scheduled to visit the White House next week, “intends to tell Bush that Hamas’ coup d’etat must be contained in the Gaza Strip and not allowed to occur in [Judea and Samaria] as well.”
While many would argue that this is precisely why Israel should immediately shelve any further talk of giving land to the PLO, the US favors exactly the opposite tack.
Haaretz says Washington will urge Israel to reconsider loosening its military grip on the PA-occupied parts of Judea and Samaria, and to unfreeze tax funds being withheld from the PA.
These candies apparently will persuade the Palestinian Arabs that Abbas’ Fatah, and not Hamas, should really be in charge.
Such an approach, as anyone who understands Middle East realities knows, will backfire.
The increasingly popular Hamas is growing its support base precisely because Abbas and his Fatah are seen as stooges of the US.
Any US effort to push ahead with the land-for-peace process in the face of its implosion in Gaza will be looked upon as folly of the worst kind by many in Israel.
As hard as it is to admit the failure of its two-state plan, the mayhem in Gaza, under cover of which the “Palestinians” have successfully established an Islamist terror mini-state, should – observers believe – compel Washington to admit to the bankruptcy of its policy.
“Two Palestinian territories. Israel somewhat caught in the middle...”
Except that I wonder where Hezzy is going to wind up in this cluster****.
IMHO they’re just keeping their heads down and waiting to buddyup with the eventual winner between Hamas/Fatah.
Meanwhile, Iran just keeps supplying all sides and sorta keeps the pot boiling, maybe just to cut down on the attention they get from the DBM (at least)about their nukes.....
From the amount of crap the military has started to catch from our very own Traitorcrat party operatives, there are at least still SOME functional adults in the area who are taking names and kicking butt when required.
Where is Nasrallah anyway?
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