Posted on 01/02/2009 10:09:23 AM PST by ScaniaBoy
Depressing analysis but the fact that Olmert after declining the French cease-fire plan said that Israel had not definitely said no to a cease-fire shows the general intent of the government. Also, it was noted in the news stories that one of the demands from Israel that the EU couldn't meet was an international monitoring force.
The reason the EU had for not accepting this was that the "Palestinians" are divided.
The EU commission that will travel to the MidEast this Sunday will meet with Abbas and probably try to force him to accept an EU /Hamas run monitoring force.
We know how well a similar force worked before - ran off with the tail between its legs in 2007.
The ONE thing that may stop the idiots Livni/Olmert/Barak to agree to this national suicide is the fact that they would aslo commit electoral harikiri.
Ping to your lists!
I can’t wait until the Olmert gang his thrown out of office and Israel puts leaders interested in their survival back at helm.
If there's any of Hamas left to declare anything.
Here's hoping Israel kills them all
Let us hope so. But I’m afraid the operation will be over sometime middle of next week with the Israeli government agreeing to some kind of Euroweenie cease-fire.
Pray that I am wrong.
I hate to rain on the party, but this is what I thought from the start. This was nothing but an election ploy, pure and simple.
Hamas has been raining rockets on Israel ever since Sharon and his misbegotten Kadima Party gave Gaza to the terrorists. They have done virtually nothing, aside from using the IDF against Jewish settlers.
Now they are putting on a show before the election, and regretably the Conservative opposition is playing the McCain reach-across-the-aisle game. So Livni will be elected, and will go back to business as usual—atacking the settlers and the religious Jews while cozying up to the Palestinian terrorists. And Obama will be delighted to help her.
I'm not so sure about that. The one who has initially gained in the polls is Barak, although he and Labor started from a very low point. In the latest poll (JPost) Livni lost 4 and Likud gained 2 mandates giving Likud a lead by 6 and the Likud/Nationalist camp a lead by 8 votes (64 to 56).
As the rocket attacks spread across southern israel, including major cities, it will be more and more difficult for Kadima/Labor to both give up in front of international pressure and win the election. Unless Kadima can come up with something that really looks like a win against Hamas I expect (hope, pray?) that they will lose heavily.
I agree. Olmert and his gang have been a disaster at every turn, but lets hope this time the Israeli’s aren’t fooled.
These recent statements by by Livni tend to refute some of these assessments:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1051909.html
I am also skeptical of any international peacekeepers being deployed there. As the author correctly observed, the peacekeepers in practice serve to be a one-way permeable membrane that serves to protect terrorists while at the same time allowing them to continue perpetrating violence.
Thanks. I read that after I posted the article, but it only slightly relieved my feelings of doom. Let us look at what she said:
“Livni told her French counterpart Bernard Kouchner that Hamas must not be given the opportunity to gain any sort of legitimacy within a renewal of a truce. Under the current offensive, she said, Hamas understand that Israels will not tolerate Gaza rocket fire without response.”
OK, see it from the point of the French and the other meddlesome politicians.
1) Giving Hamas no legitimacy only means that either PA (ie Abbas) or Egypt will act as proxies for Hamas in any negotiations. (That’s why the EU was so disturbed by the fact that Fatah and Hamas at the moment does not even talk with each other. However, I assume there will be a lot of pressure on Abbas when he meets with the EU delegation.)
2) “No rockets” is something the EU/UN/StateDept/etc etc can sign on to, but in reality no response is allowed after one rocket, and if you can disregard one, then two rockets is just one more, and so on.....
(Basically, seen from the EU/UN etc etc side it will always be Israel that breaks a cease-fire even though they didn’t fire the first rocket.)
So, although, it appears at first glance that Livni by these statements scuppered any risk of a cease-fire where Hamas still holds on to power in Gaza, it may be that she is painting herself and Israel into a corner.
What she should have said is “Thanks, but no thanks”. We are not interested in any mediation. We are fighting for our lives and we are going to win. And when we have won we will be able to talk to our adversaries without any middlemen.”
But that would be the day.....
The one with the most bombs wins. :)
Hamas can spin it anyway they like. They are being decimated.
HAMAS has roughly 15,000 members in the Gaza Strip.
Current Palestinian death toll is little over 300.
Decimated? Really? I would view decimation as a death toll of 13-14,000... not 300.
Members can include families of HAMAS militants, women and children. Do you want to kill women and children? Does your revenge go that far? Sad if true.
Killing several hundred HAMAS is decimation when you get their top men and it will take years for them to recover.
In any war once you get the guys at the top you’ve won. You don’t have to target their wives and children unless you’re an animal. Just like once Hitler killed himself World War Two was essentially over in Europe.
you have the cart before the horse. The war was over for all practical purposes and THEN Hitler killed himself rather than be executed by the victors.
“In any war once you get the guys at the top you’ve won. “
No, you win when you destroy te enemies will to fight. This is not about the wives and kids, this is about the fact that Hamas continues to function if Israel stops now. Hamas still has the will to fight Israel. That’s why the Glick analysis is unfortunately correct.
This war looks like a repeat of the 2006 Lebanon War. Israel wins the battles but loses the war. It has to do with the Israeli govt’s unwillingness to take the war to its final logical conclusion. In this case, they have escalated to a point where in order to achieve their goals, they need to invade, capture/kill/destroy the entire Hamas infrastructure, and withdraw only with a promise of no hostile actions from Gaza to Israel. they are constrained by international approbation that doesnt mind a few israelis getting killed once in a while in preference to ending Hamas.
The Arabs have always been skillful about saying one thing to the world and doing another in secret, maybe the Israelis have finally learned this delicate art from them.
Livni has sounded tough lately. Unbelievably so. Proves one should never listen to what is said, but instead examine what has been done. Netanyahu must point that out.
15,000 is the number of armed ‘militants’.
The fact that you automatically assume HAMAS is like a country club, with free membership of a husband’s wife and children ... is the main reason why Islamic terrorism will continue. For you cannot even recognize the enemy until he is at your throat.
Sounds like numbers pulled out of your hat, or Hamas propaganda.
Of course I recognize the enemy and it’s NOT women and children. If you want to kill them because you think they are your enemy go over and join the Israeli army and start killing Palestinian women and children.
Otherwise armchair boasts are just empty rhetoric. There is a way to victory over Hamas that does NOT include targeting women and children, who are as much victims of Hamas as the Israelis are.
Then why do you insist that (currently) 400~ HAMAS dead is a decimation? Why do you insist that, when I state there are (by HAMAS's count) 15,000 militants... you trot out women and children as part of that number? Why do you recoil from killing the militants?
Why are you so deadset against harming HAMAS?
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