[Jpost] Saudi Arabia may not publicly want Israel in Rafah, but Riyadh has been watching the war closely since October 7.
Israel faces several challenges almost seven months into the war in Gaza. Hamas is still not defeated, and international pressure on Israel is growing. A recent column at The New York Times suggested that “Israel has a choice to make: Rafah or Riyadh.” This is what columnist Thomas Friedman argues. “US officials tell me that if Israel does mount a major military operation in Rafah, over the administration’s objections, President Biden would consider restricting certain arms sales to Israel.”
The article also claims that Saudi Arabia and other Arab states could agree to an Arab peacekeeping force in Gaza. “Israel’s long-term interests are in Riyadh, not Rafah,” the article concludes.
Israel continues to fight Hamas almost seven months after one of the worst terror attacks in history which led to the largest mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust. However, the war in Gaza has not been fought with the urgency that one would expect a response to such mass murder would entail. Instead, Israel has approached the war against Hamas with slow, cautious operations of campaigns in Gaza, and the terrorist group continues to thrive in the Strip.
Now, most of the focus has moved to Rafah, the southern city in Gaza along the Egyptian border that is controlled by Hamas. It is believed Hamas has several “battalions” of fighters there and that it uses Rafah to control aid entering the embattled enclave and also uses it to smuggle weapons. Many Gazans who fled fighting in the north in October and November are now displaced in Rafah.Any Israeli operation in Rafah is now under the international spotlight and Israel has been encouraged to refrain from an operation there or to at least help the civilians move out of the way.
The assertion that Israel should end the war in Gaza, withdraw, and set its sights on normalization with Riyadh would appear to indicate that the Jewish state should basically give up on security for its citizens and its border in exchange for normalization with Saudi Arabia.
This is a strange theory. Most countries don’t sacrifice security for peace, and there is no evidence that giving up on security on the Gaza border will bring peace. If it was true that giving up on securing the Gaza border would bring peace, then how does one explain the lack of peace on October 6?
In October, Israel left the Gaza border relatively undefended and trusted that Hamas was deterred, a message conveyed to Israel repeatedly in recent years. Hamas is hosted by America’s major non-NATO ally Qatar and apparently Washington, Doha and others thought Hamas was not going to do anything against Israel.
This raises a key problem with the “Rafah or Riyadh” argument. On October 6 Hamas controlled all of Gaza, and Israel wasn’t contemplating any ground operation in Rafah, and yet there was no normalization with Riyadh. In fact, Hamas sought to sabotage any peace deal by launching its massive war. Now Israel is being told to leave Gaza and basically greet October 7 with a shrug to get normalization with Riyadh.
The fact is that if Israel sacrifices its security on the border for normalization deals, it will get more massacres and war, and the deals will be in jeopardy. This is because Hamas, backed by Iran, Russia, Turkey and other countries, are all seeking to sabotage the normalization agreements and Abraham Accords. It should be recalled that before the UAE agreed to the accords, Turkey threatened to break relations with Abu Dhabi if it proceeded.
In short, the pro-Iran axis in the region has systematically sought to prevent normalization between Israel and other states. October 7 was one of those attempts.
The Palestinian president has warned Israel against any attempt to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip or the occupied West Bank. pic.twitter.com/7iwfBUktWp
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[129 views]
Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority
#1
What are you going to do about it, raghead? Your people are gone. It's already happened, Isreal has destroyed all habitable structures. There's nowhere to live, even if you wanted. Don't worry, plenty of room in America for you. Nation of immigrants, you know. The humanitarian pier is your Arch of No Return. As in, you're never coming back after you get on that boat.
#2
Palestinian president has warned Israel against any attempt to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip or the occupied West Bank...cause nobody else will take us.
[GEO.TV] At least seven Paleostinians were killed in fresh Israeli forces’ assault on Gazoo
Islamic Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response. In October of 2023 Gazooks belonging to Hamas invaded Israel, killed over a thousand people, raped a bunch of women. Then they bitched and moaned about genocide when their butts handed to them in the entirely justified retaliation. , climbing the corpse count from another day of relentless bombings to 27, Al Jazeera reported. The publication said at least 10 of the victims were kids.
Meanwhile, ...back at the precinct house, Sergeant Maloney wasn't buying it. It was just too pat. The whole thing smelled phony, kind of like a dead mackeral but without the scales... Hamas ...always the voice of sweet reason... official Khalil al-Hayya has said the group was reviewing a new Israeli truce proposal, as Israel’s foreign minister said a planned incursion of Rafah would be "suspended" if a hostage deal is secured.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[137 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
[GEO.TV] A humanitarian aid flotilla destined for Gazoo
Islamic Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response. In October of 2023 Gazooks belonging to Hamas invaded Israel, killed over a thousand people, raped a bunch of women. Then they bitched and moaned about genocide when their butts handed to them in the entirely justified retaliation. was halted after Guinea Bissau decided to remove its flag from two vessels, activist group Freedom Flotilla Coalition said on Saturday.
"The Guinea-Bissau International Ships Registry (GBISR), in a blatantly political move, informed the Freedom Flotilla Coalition that it had withdrawn the Guinea Bissau flag from two of the Freedom Flotilla's ships, one of which is our cargo ship," the activists said.
The three-strong flotilla had been due to sail on Friday from ports in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire... with more than 5,000 tonnes of aid on board, the activists said, and described the inspection and request by Guinea Bissau authorities as unusual and political.
GBISR was not immediately available for comment. "I can say no more!"
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[150 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#2
^ That's the first estimate. Factor in the rebuild from suicide bombings and rocket/mortar attacks and you can add a digit
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/29/2024 10:40 Comments ||
Top||
#3
While the "humanitarian aid" pier will be what the lawyers call an attractive nuisance for Hamasnik snipers, mortars and missiles, the pier will make it easier to unload the army of Cat D9s needed to bulldoze the rubble into the Med.
[GEO.TV] Israel's foreign minister said on Saturday that a planned incursion into the southern Gazoo
Islamic Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response. In October of 2023 Gazooks belonging to Hamas invaded Israel, killed over a thousand people, raped a bunch of women. Then they bitched and moaned about genocide when their butts handed to them in the entirely justified retaliation. city of Rafah could be suspended should there be a deal to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas ...the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... .
"The release of the hostages is the top priority for us," said Foreign Minister Israel Katz during an interview with local Channel 12 television.
Asked if that included putting off a planned operation to eliminate Hamas battalions in the city of Rafah, Katz answered, "Yes."
He went on to say: "If there will be a deal, we will suspend the operation."
[GEO.TV] A Hamas ...the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... delegation will visit Cairo on Monday for talks aimed at securing a ceasefire, a Hamas official told Rooters on Sunday, as mediators stepped up efforts to reach a deal ahead of an Israeli assault on the southern city of Rafah.
The official, who asked not to be named, said the delegation will discuss a ceasefire proposal handed by Hamas to mediators Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... and Egypt, as well as Israel's response.
He did not disclose details of the latest proposals. Hoping for tips?
Posted by: Fred ||
04/29/2024 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[67 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...always the voice of sweet reason...
...the decaying remnant of the Ottoman Empire...
...the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
