Hamas's armed wing declared an end to a five-month-old Gaza ceasefire on Tuesday by firing rockets into Israel, but the Palestinian government led by the Islamist group called for the truce to be restored.Hamas's armed wing said it fired the rockets from the Gaza Strip in response to the killing of nine Palestinians over the weekend by Israeli forces.
Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz warned the Palestinian unity government, formed last month by Hamas Islamists and President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction, against allowing additional rocket attacks.
The rockets caused minor damage but no injuries as the Jewish state celebrated its Independence Day.
"The violation of the truce is an exceptional event that will not last," Abbas said at a news conference in Rome. "I take this opportunity to appeal to Israel to show the necessary self-control so that this will not happen again."[Reuters Canada]
The longer the politcal wing of Hamas is marginalized and ignored the more aggressive and politically viable the militant wing will become and the less likely any attempt to divide to the two will be. It's wakey-wakey time for both Israel and the western players involved in the Israeli/Palestinian peace efforts. Blind cessation of aid combined with a stubborn refusal to engage Haniyeh is proving to be the equivalent of plugging ones ears and yelling incoherently in an effort to drown out that which one doesn't wish to hear.
2 comments:
There won't be any political solution in the greater middle east without Russia.
- Russia wants to export natural gas to near east, via its gas pipeline 'Blue Stream', from Turkey. Such economic endevours have always been obstructed by the USA.
- The construction of nuclear power plants in Iran is part of a junktim that includes the exploitation of natural gas in the Kaspian Sea. This is also widely ignored in the west - just like the joint venture of both countries to build a trans-Afghan corridor from Iran to Tadshikistan, were another nuclear power plant will be built.
- Moscow has already established diplomatic ties to the militant wing of Hamas - and Russia is member of the Roadmap quartett.
The key for peace in the middle east is in Moscow, all the more as the USA has lost its role as a security factor in this region.
Thanks for the comment 2020.
In terms of the Road Map, I agree the Russian's (especially given their resource initiatives in the ME) are a key player.
However, the peace plan regarding the Palestinian/Israeli conflict seems more tilted to the Arab Peace initiative.
At any rate, any effort to obtain a two-state solution (which both accord attempt) will fail so long as the reality is a one state one politically conflicted territory approach. In effect the Palestinian territory needs to become an actual state with a cohesive government, political unity, and social structure beyond the Fatah corruption and terror driven Hamas grassroots effect.
As long as the major players (and, I disagree, America remains the largest major player as it is also the largest benefactor of Israel) are unwilling to recognize the political faction of Hamas as well as Fatah the militant element of the latter will continue it's "social Robin Hood" approach and it's aggression against Israel.
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