Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘shudna’

This AP report of today’s cease-fire declaration between Israel and the Palestinians is, like most reporting on the issue, optimistic.

Reading between the lines, though, we see the telling of an entirely different story. For example, the article claims that the “sides are moving quickly”. Let’s see what each side has done so far:

“Today, in my meeting with chairman Abbas, we agreed that all Palestinians will stop all acts of violence against all Israelis everywhere, and, at the same time, Israel will cease all its military activity against all Palestinians everywhere,” he said.

Yay, no more violence. But…

But the Palestinian militant group Hamas immediately called the deal into question. The group’s representative in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, told The Associated Press it would not be bound by the Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire declarations.

So in other words, the terrorists will continue their attacks, and Abbas will continue Arafat’s tradition of claiming to have no control over them and nothing to do with them. Meanwhile, Israel will have tied its hands in being able to respond.

Moving on…

In signs the two sides are working quickly, Palestinian negotiator Hassan Abu Libdeh said the leaders agreed that 500 Palestinian prisoners would be freed immediately by Israel, to be followed by 400 more at a later stage.

So Israel is sending more terrorists back on the streets, freeing them to kill again. What are the Palestinians doing in return?

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, a key parliamentary committee narrowly approved a bill that would allow Mr. Sharon to carry out his planned pullout from the Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank in the summer. The vote passed 10-9 on a subject that has split the party and angered one of its main constituencies — settlers and their supporters.

Nope, that’s another move by Israel. A biggie. Still searching for a Palestinian concession here.

During the summit, Mr. Sharon also invited Mr. Abbas to visit him at his ranch in southern Israel and Abbas accepted, according to a senior Israeli Foreign Ministry official, Gideon Meir. Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said that meeting would take place soon.

Nice gesture. Maybe they can go snorkeling together. But I’m not sure how this amounts to any kind of Palestinian concession.

Gissin said that as part of Israel’s halting of military operations, it would stop its controversial assassinations of wanted Palestinians, as long as the Palestinians kept militants under control.

Another concession from Israel. Where are the Palestinian confidence-building moves?

Whoops, we’ve reached the end of the article. I haven’t seen any yet.

I suppose it’s that people are so sick of war, they’re grasping at straws for hopes for peace, even though they’ve all been down this road before and they know full well where it leads. Sad, but not really unpredictable.

The latest cease-fire announcement between Israel and the Palestinians should be good news. Right?

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas will declare a formal end to more than four years of fighting at a summit in Egypt on Tuesday, officials from both sides said Monday.

[ . . . ]

“The most important thing at the summit will be a mutual declaration of cessation of violence against each other,” said Palestinian Minister Saeb Erekat.

An Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the cease-fire agreement, adding that the deal would also include an end to Palestinian incitement against Israel.

So why am I skeptical here? Is it because previous cease-fire attempts have only led to more bloodshed? Is it because despite the signs of hope, the lessons learned the hard way from Oslo teach us that there are no easy answers? Or am I just too much of a pessimist? Nah… couldn’t be. Especially with news like this.

I hope that this is a step towards peace. Unfortunately, I fear that it’s just another futile effort.

Update: “You may say I’m a pessimist… but I’m not the only one”. Here’s Caroline Glick (via Lynn B.):

So, here we are again, at the dawn of a new peace process which will bring no peace; will legitimize terrorists and the authoritarian regimes that support them; will weaken Israel’s democratic institutions while endangering its citizenry; and will engender scorn for America and faith in Israel’s eventual destruction in the hearts of millions of people who today waver between support for freedom and support for terror.

I hope she’s wrong. But sadly, I know she’s probably right.

Check out this headline in the Globe and Mail (from AP): Hamas calls halt to attacks on Israelis.

Big news, right?

Excuse me if my skepticism causes me to read a little further:

A senior Hamas leader indicated Monday that the extremist group is halting attacks on Israelis while the Palestinians prepare to choose a new leader (emphasis mine).

So this isn’t a cease-fire, it’s a temporary ploy for Hamas to jockey for political power in the leadership struggle among the Palestinians.

Ok, reading on:

He also said that Hamas would consider a formal ceasefire if Israel reciprocated. He said Israel must be prepared to release Palestinian prisoners, withdraw from occupied land and stop assassinations of militants.

“The truce should have a price,” he said. “There is no truce from one side. The truce should be two-way. But “a truce with continued Israeli aggression is not acceptable to us.” (All emphasis, again, is mine).

In case you haven’t read Hamas’s charter lately, “withdraw from occupied land” is Hamas-speak for all Jews out of Israel, since Hamas considers all of Israel “occupied land”. When they say end the occupation, they don’t mean Gaza, they mean Tel Aviv.

Ok, so we’re back on familiar ground here. So much for the halting of attacks and talks of truce.

But being a curious type, I decided to check out what the Israeli press has to say on the subject. This from Ha’aretz:

Senior Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yusef told Israel Radio that the militant Islamic organization is interested in joining a national unity government with the Palestinian leadership, and to that end would agree to a hudna (ceasefire) that would last 10 years.

So now it’s not a halting, it’s a “hudna”. I should think that the last “hudna” should have taught everyone a lesson. This article from last year should quell any lingering notions anyone might still have about Hamas’s sincerity:

Has Hamas seen the light? Has this determined band of killers finally grasped that its suicide bombings and jihad rhetoric make its goal of a Palestinian state ever less likely to be realized?

[ . . . ]

Has Hamas renounced all this — suicide bombing, martyrdom, jihad, extinguishing Israel, spreading Islam to the four corners of the globe? No, it hasn’t. Its three-month cease-fire isn’t even in any meaningful way a first step to doing so. Consequently it is still dead set against the old Arab nationalism on which the Palestinian Authority is now ostensibly based. The successor of this nationalism, if Hamas remains true to its Charter and has its way, will be its intransigent and bloody form of Islamic radicalism. Nothing indicates that this is no longer its goal.

That’s why the Hamas truce is not worth the paper it’s printed on.

And that’s why any new truce wouldn’t be, either.

But let the spin continue.

Update: Damian Penny has the story of how Canadian taxpayers are funding Hamas.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad both announce that they are ending the cease-fire with Israel “in response” to Israeli actions against their leadership. Hamas has also called upon Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas to resign.

Point #1: You can’t “end” a cease-fire that never existed in the first place. Throughout the so-called hudna, both terrorist groups continued to carry out attacks against Israel civilians. This announcement only recognizes the actual state that has been in place all along.

Point #2: The statement that the ending of the cease-fire is “in response” to Israel’s assassinations of a Hamas leader is hypocricy at its core. Of course, the world has a short memory. The Palestinians know that they can murder 20 innocent Jews on a Jersualem bus one day, including small children, and the next day claim that they’re ending a cease-fire “in response” to Israel’s retaliation, and that the world will blame Israel. As usual.

Point #3: Anyone who thinks Hamas’s statement against Abbas will result in civil war is kidding themselves. Abbas won’t fight back against Hamas. He hasn’t shown the slighest bit of power or courage in taking on the terrorist groups since assuming his leadership role. He’s been propped up by the US and the international community until now, but he’s got no real power. And things can only get worse, as the inevitable showdown that Abbas has been avoiding is finally called by Hamas.

Sometimes I get so angry while writing this stuff up that I can barely find the right keys to type.

A pair of Palestinian suicide bombings killed two people, one in Rosh Ha’ayin, and one in Ariel. At least dozen other people were wounded.

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they still insist that the “truce is intact”.

Hah, right. This gives some excellent insight into their idea of a cease-fire. That’s when they go on killing innocent people, all the while insisting that Israel make concessions because, after all, it’s a truce.

Some truce.

Meryl Yourish isn’t impressed by the media’s double-standard about the “Hudna” and how it has treated the events of the last week:

Oh, there’s also this charming headline from Reuters:

Palestinians Offer Truce Extension, Israel Says No

Wow, tough crowd. Why would Israel refuse to extend a truce?

[ . . . ]

Oh, that’s why. The Israelis are asking the pals to actually stick to the terms of the agreement, not some lame “truce” that isn’t even holding. Because the pals are supposed to dismantle the terror groups as part of the road map, and nobody seems to be holding them to that. But hey, are the pals serious about that truce agreement?

I couldn’t agree more.

She also notes that Israel seems to be getting the blame for “derailing” the peace process, but there’s virtually no mention of the latest Palestinian shooting attack on a woman and her three children. Instead, Israel is being criticized for only releasing Palestinian prisoners that have not been directly responsible for murdering innocent Israelis.

See, what nobody seems to realize is that “cease-fire” is not the proper translation of “Hudna”. Firstly, with 170 attacks since the June 29th declaration, one would have to be blind, deaf, and just plain stupid to call this an actual cease-fire. It’s a media relations ploy, plain and simple. The Palestinians sensed that the Western world was getting tired of their violent tactics, so they decided to claim to have called a cease-fire while continuing attacks like normal, as this makes painfully clear. Secondly, the “hudna” isn’t a cease-fire with the aim of peace, but with the aim of re-armement and reorganization in order to carry out even deadlier attacks as soon as it expires.

Israel was supposed to begin dismantling settlements, release prisoners, ease checkpoints, and pull the IDF out of Palestinian-controlled zones. The Palestinians were supposed to stop violent attacks and work towards dismantling the terrorist organizations. With all the focus on Israel’s non-compliance, it at least has made steps. What steps have been made, exactly, on the Palestinian side?

Attacks by the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, which has rejected a cease-fire with Israel, has forced Israel to conduct a raid on Gaza, during which a terrorist was killed:

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian militant during a raid in the West Bank and temporarily blocked Gaza’s main road on Thursday, angering Palestinians who accused Israel of undermining U.S. peacemaking.

The killing in the West Bank town of Qalqilya and the almost six-hour road closure, three days after the long-blocked highway was reopened, followed attacks by militants, Israel said.

[ . . . ]

Israeli troops shot dead 30-year-old Mahmoud Shawar of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades during an overnight raid in Qalqilya. A second member of the Brigades was wounded and arrested, Palestinian security sources and the Israeli army said.

“We in the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades announce we are not complying with the cease-fire as long as the occupation continues raiding our lands and killing our people,” a local leader of the Brigades said through loudspeakers as Shawar was buried.

So the Palestinians continue to attack Israel on a daily basis after the declaration of the so-called “cease-fire”, and the world ignores it. The al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade never agreed to the cease-fire in the first place. And yet it’s Israel that’s accused of “undermining the peace process”.

How utterly predictable.

Update on the cease-fire: Meryl Yourish has been tracking the violations. So far, pretty much as expected.

Next we’ll see the different terrorist factions falling all over each other to get the prestigious claim of being the group to have destroyed this latest peace effort. They know they can do it. The world refuses to condemn them, and more than half their population supports them.

The ceasefire has been broken with Palestinian gunmen shooting at an IDF post today.

Frankly, I’m amazed it lasted as long as it did.

Hamas has called a cease-fire, claiming it will temporarily suspend attacks against Israel:

“Hamas has studied all the developments and has reached a decision to call a truce, or a suspension of fighting activities,” Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told Reuters.

He said the cease-fire carried conditions and a timeframe but declined to give details or indicate when a truce would be announced. Hamas, dedicated to Israel’s destruction, has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings.

For those hailing this as a breakthrough, it’s important to remember that optimism is usually misplaced when it comes to Mideast politics. Firstly, Hamas has not said it will accept Israel’s existence or that it will stop attacks for a long time. This is merely a tactical truce, giving Hamas time to reorganize and regroup. Secondly, if Israel is attacked and reacts, it will be Israel that is criticized internationally for “breaking the cease-fire”.

Hamas is still committed to Israel’s destruction. Israel’s foreign ministry called the cease-fire “poison covered in honey”, and there’s certainly something to that.

On the other hand, if even one innocent life is saved because of the cease-fire, then far be it for me to condemn it. And hey, maybe I’m being too cynical. Maybe this is a first and important step towards a strong and lasting peace.

Maybe pigs will fly, too.