Ehud Olmert is presiding over Israel’s slow defeat by her enemies. What else can you call a situation when a country refuses to fight back when terrorists attack her? And not just refuses, but tells the enemy that she will not fight?
Israel promised Egypt that it would not attack the Gaza Strip even if one of the Palestinian terror organizations violate the ceasefire, the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Qabas reported Wednesday morning.
According to the report, which is based on details provided by Egyptian sources involved in the meeting conducted yesterday between Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Israel agreed to restrain itself if Hamas punishes the organizations violating the calm.
It was also reported that Israel fears that Hamas’ decisions are being made by Iran. Egypt tried calming Israel by saying that they themselves are responsible for Hamas’ commitment to the agreement. Egypt threatened that if Hamas violates the ceasefire, the government in Cairo will disassociate itself from the Islamist group.
Oh, that’s all right, then. If Hamas murders Israelis, Egypt will stop talking to it. Gee, you can’t beat an offer like that. And see what else is Egypt doing?
The newspaper also revealed that Egypt is attempting to increase the amount of Palestinians released in the prisoner exchange deal involving kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit from 450 to 600.
That’s right. Helping Hamas free more terrorists. And Hamas’ reaction? They’re not going to “police” other terrorist groups for violating the truce.
The militant group Hamas said it remains committed to a cease-fire with Israel, but will not act as Israel’s “police force” in confronting militants who breach the truce.
[…] Hamas said it was exerting pressure on Islamic Jihad, which claimed responsibility for the attack, to stop the rocket fire and demanded that Israel open the crossings. But al-Haya said its forces would not confront rocket launching squads on the ground.
“Even if there is a violation by some factions, Hamas emphasizes its commitment to the calm and is working to implement the calm,” al-Haya said.
“But Hamas is not going to be a police securing the border of the occupation,” he added. “No one will enjoy a happy moment seeing Hamas holding a rifle in the face of a resistance fighter.”
So rocket attacks aren’t considered a violation of the truce. But Hamas says there is a violation happening:
On Wednesday, all cargo crossings were closed, though a pedestrian passage was kept open.
Hamas government spokesman Taher Nunu said the closure was a “clear violation of the calm” and called on Egypt, which mediated the truce, to intervene.
Translation: Terrorists trying to kill Israelis is fine. Just don’t stop feeding us and supplying us with fuel for our rockets.
Meantime, Hezbullah senses the utter weakness and confusion of the Israeli administration.
Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah will not lower his demands in the framework of a prisoner exchange deal even if Israel declared captive soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev “killed in action”, an analyst with ties to the Shiite group said in a column published by the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar on Wednesday.
And the PRC is refusing to change its demands for Gilad Shalit.
Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) spokesman Abu Mujahid told Ynet Wednesday that the demands posed by the groups holding IDF soldier Gilad Shalit will not change and that “Israel must comply with our demands otherwise Shalit will not see the light of day.
This is because Israel is letting the fate of three soldiers dictate its behavior towards terrorist groups. I know I’m not related to one of the captives (or dead soldiers), so my view isn’t going to be theirs, but I can’t see allowing terrorists to hold an entire nation hostage over the fate of three men. It only strengthens your enemies, and encourages weak leaders like Olmert to make a deal at any cost—which he will do, seeing as he’s survived his latest challenge. Labor knuckled under, and refused to dissolve the government.
“On the public level, we have reiterated our norms and values,” Defense Minister and Labor chairman Ehud Barak said Wednesday, following the Labor faction’s approval of a deal between Labor and Kadima by which the two parties agreed to avoid a vote for the dissolution of the Knesset.
Yes, and on the private level, much bribery went on, I’m sure. Olmert survives. God help Israel. Because right now, it sure seems like the terrorists groups have the upper hand.
All this has happened before, and apparently will happen again. I swear, you could go back in my archives a few years and find almost exactly the same post as this one. Nothing has changed since Ariel Sharon’s stroke, and even before his stroke, he was refusing to go in and take care of the terrorists on a large scale. Israel needs a warrior like King David. But I don’t see one on the horizon.
Every morning when I check the news I’m always afraid to read that ‘something’ has happened in Israel. Not, G_d forbid, a bus bombing or the like but something bigger. The bad guys aren’t afraid anymore and think they can ride out any response. Its selfish but if I was living in Israel and had family I would seriously think about moving or at least moving them out.
I also think they only way you’re going to Olmert and the rest out of there anytime soon is for the IDF to roll the tanks up to the Knesset and demand clean elections. Yes its a coup but isn’t that what happened today?
I don’t understand how many times Lucy has to pull the football away before some of the Israeli pols learn.Ad meryl,how do you equate the disproportionate # of jewish Nobel prize winners and this kind of stupidity?
Olmert may be presiding over Israel’s slow defeat but he’s hardly the only one responsible. It started with the Camp David Accords which gave Egypt everything they asked and Israel nothing. Its just been speeding up lately.