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| Israel-Palestine-Jordan |
| Hamas shuns bid to give Rafah to PA |
| 2009-01-08 |
| Hamas has rejected an Egyptian proposal to place the Rafah border crossing under forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas officials said Wednesday. Hamas also rejected an Egyptian proposal to deploy international troops in the Gaza Strip in the context of a new cease-fire agreement with Israel, the officials added. The Egyptian proposals are backed by a number of Arab and EU countries, they said. Hamas officials, meanwhile, continued to issue contradictory statements regarding their readiness to reach a new cease-fire with Israel. Hamas leaders in Syria and Lebanon said they would not agree to a long-term truce because they wanted to "preserve the right to respond to Israeli violations and aggression." But their colleagues in the Gaza Strip sounded more optimistic. Ahmed Yussef, an adviser to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said he did not rule out the possibility of reaching a cease-fire agreement "within 48 hours." He said Hamas would stop firing rockets at Israel once the IDF halted its military operation in the Gaza Strip. Yussef added that any cease-fire agreement should include the reopening of the border crossings and an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip. In Cairo, Egyptian Intelligence Chief Gen. Omar Suleiman met with Hamas representatives to discuss the latest proposals and ways of ending the violence in the Gaza Strip. Suleiman reportedly told the Hamas delegation - whose members included Imadal-Alami and Muhammad Nasser - that Egypt would not reopen the Rafah border crossing unless Abbas's forces were allowed to return to the terminal. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #13 If he hasnt stopped smuggling, its either cause he cant, or cause of some political game hes playing I would conjecture that permitting the smuggling is essentially a make-work programme for the Bedouin. It keeps them happy by earning a bit of money. The Egyptian economy, albeit underground to an extent, makes money. The goods and weapons are outbound for Gaza instead of into Egypt. The tourists are not being slain. It is nearly a win-win. |
| Posted by: Milton Fandango 2009-01-08 21:44 |
| #12 Egypt could close the tunnels in an afternoon with 200 troops. The fact they haven't is to allow Mubarack to claim he is doing all he can for the Gazans. The mystery is why he allows the free flow of weapons into Gaza. You can't exactly hide a Grad rocket in your sock when you go through customs. Arming Gaza means arming the Sinai bedouin and probably the Muslim Brotherhood as well. That is some extremly dangerous fire Mubarack is playing with. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2009-01-08 20:48 |
| #11 Im not convinced graft is a big issue. Are we talking about the same Palestinians? |
| Posted by: SteveS 2009-01-08 20:46 |
| #10 Im not convinced graft is a big issue. To be crude, why would Mubarak endanger his graft in Cairo and Alexandria and Suez (IE his RULE) for peanuts from the Gaza border? Hamas IS tied to the muslim brotherhood and it DOES endanger his rule. If he hasnt stopped smuggling, its either cause he cant, or cause of some political game hes playing. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2009-01-08 16:29 |
| #9 My solution was designed to give Egypt two borders regions close to each other which gives them double the opportunity for graft while minimizing the number of troops they have to use to keep the graft going. |
| Posted by: mhw 2009-01-08 14:23 |
| #8 heres the article, btw http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1053608.html |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2009-01-08 14:09 |
| #7 hmmm. Maybe. Would that be stable though? Would Hamas reconstituted not try to push out Fatah from anyplace where Egyptian/international troops didnt protect them? OTOH if Hamas is unable to reconstitute strongly wont Hamas fall - to a Fatah that craves the rest of the strip, but also to every from Islamic Jihad, to Al Qaeeda, to the Dogmush and other clans? IE chaos. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2009-01-08 14:08 |
| #6 How about letting Fatah have south Gaza, say, within 2 miles of Rafah which would include the Yasser Arafat International Airport, the rafah crossing and Kerem Shalom crossing. Let Hamas have the rest. |
| Posted by: mhw 2009-01-08 13:55 |
| #5 they can leave gAza - IE Tzahal can leave Gaza |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2009-01-08 13:40 |
| #4 right now Hamas' only strength is Fatahs weakness. If Israel presses Hamas too hard, Hamas falls. Who takes over the strip next? Israel doesnt want to. Egypt doesnt want to. Fatah DOES want to, but they didnt do such a great job before, and it could be a mess again. Barak apparently really DOES not want Hamas gone, he wants them to cry uncle and give Israel a win, after which they can leave Gaza showing themselves teh strong horse. Livni, often thought of as a dove, seems to be taking a harder line toward the ceasefire initiative (this per an oped in todays Haaretz) My read is thats cause she has closer ties to Abbas than Barak, and is more willing to make a bet on Fatah control of the Strip. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2009-01-08 13:39 |
| #3 So far they are failing on the latter two, and even the former isn't playing well enough to give them a win That is, if the Hamas objective is a 'win'. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2009-01-08 13:33 |
| #2 LH basically I agree but one other area of interest is the rocket attacks I think there were about 25-30 yesterday from Gaza which is down from the 70+ before the IAF air operation began and down from 50+ when the IDF ground ops began. If the IDF can knock out enough Hamas launch teams (or the teams run out of stuff or their stuff breaks down) to get that down below, say, five (with none of them Grads), Hamas will look like a loser to the faithful. |
| Posted by: mhw 2009-01-08 11:35 |
| #1 Hamas also rejected an Egyptian proposal to deploy international troops in the Gaza Strip in the context of a new cease-fire agreement with Israel, the officials added. The Egyptian proposals are backed by a number of Arab and EU countries, they said. I think Hamas boxed themselves into a corner. Egypt and the Euros have already put a reasonable offer on the table, Israel can now say they accept it fully. If Hamas continues to reject it, they justify the op continuing. If they accept it, they look like losers - not only have they done poorly on the ground, not only have the accepted Fatah back into the Strip, but they have accepted what they just rejected. If France and Egypt change their proposal, Israel can reject that with less opprobrium. It seems like Hamas still thinks it can win on the ground, by either a real big Qana type event, by a kidnapping event, or by big IDF casualties. So far they are failing on the latter two, and even the former isn't playing well enough to give them a win. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2009-01-08 11:19 |