Israel / Hamas ceasefire?

Partisan

Partisan

Active member
So could this be a reality?

Particularly interesting to my mind is that Abbas is looking to sideline Hamas, by sending reconstruction money direct to the people of Gaza. However I can't help feeling that it might be a bit too late in the day for Abbas to trying to push Hamas back into the shadows and will he get the support of Israel and the International community.

If so, then it looks like Israel did manage to set the conditions for their end objective.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians
 
So what should be done to get people around the table and talking?

I know the rockets have to stop, borders have to open, but who is going to make the first move and what do you think it should be?

Should a UN administered DMZ be set up? Ground sensors deployed to detect tunneling, borders opened to allow free flow of people & goods?

Whatever happens it will cost a lot of money, but I think in the long term it make work out cheaper for all concerned.
 
Partisan said:
So what should be done to get people around the table and talking?

I know the rockets have to stop, borders have to open, but who is going to make the first move and what do you think it should be?

Should a UN administered DMZ be set up? Ground sensors deployed to detect tunneling, borders opened to allow free flow of people & goods?

Whatever happens it will cost a lot of money, but I think in the long term it make work out cheaper for all concerned.
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Well first off you would have to find one of the combatants that actually wants peace and given that neither side have any interest in ending this thing you take your seat in the stands and watch the fireworks for another 2000 years.

Sorry but the middle east is much like a sizable chunk of Africa, the benefits gained from nuking the place out weigh the cost of fixing it.
 
seriously, though, an iranian journalist friend of mine says it is not about politics--it's about offshore gas. israel wants it, hamas wants it.
also, i would like to know what happened to israel--have they lost their minds? they have always been good at going in, doing the job and getting out. what's up with bombing the heck out of gaza while the entire world looks on in increasing dismay? aljazeera is having a field day.
 
Israel was never good at getting the job done and getting out. I wish we were. We always get caught up in trying to make order, like all western countries, and than we get screwed.
 
really, i've always thought your warriors were, well, warriors and successful. such a small country, such a big dream, so such a big heart.
and getting caught up in helping out is the name of the game for any country with a conscience, i think--or any person with a conscience, for that matter.
 
and while i'm on the subject, the last thing hamas wants is a cease fire. a cease fire will take them out of the limelight, and i can tell you that their support on my campus has grown exponentially because of the bombing.
 
Sharon said:
and while i'm on the subject, the last thing hamas wants is a cease fire. a cease fire will take them out of the limelight, and i can tell you that their support on my campus has grown exponentially because of the bombing.
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Sharon, since you're obviously in the thick og it, as it were, can answer the following questions, please.

1. Is Hamas still promoting itself to the general population through its own aid and assistance programme?
2. Does Fatah have any presence in Gaza? If so what and how strong is it?
3. What are the reasons for Hamas support growing exponentially, doesn't anyone lay blame at Hamas' door, for firing rockets at Israel?

Loads more questions, but this should do for now.

All the best.
 
Kuwait is hardly in the thick of it, but indeed an arab speaking prespective would be very intresting...
 
SHERMAN said:
Kuwait is hardly in the thick of it, but indeed an arab speaking prespective would be very intresting...
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True, not quite as close as you, but by the same token, Sharon is obviously exposed to some of the people involved, let's get the dialogue going.
 
Sherman is right, Kuwait is not in the thick of it, but that's my point. Kuwait is grateful to America for liberating them from Saddam (tomorrow is liberation day, as a matter of fact), and they don't directly address, as a general rule the fact that Israel is backed by America (at least not to my face). Regardless of who supports whom, the outpouring of sympathy, money, displays of fidelity toward Gaza was virtually unanimous everywhere on campus.
To answer Partisan's questions: (1) I am no expert, so I asked an expert, a colleague, and he said yes, absolutely. (2) He says yes, but not in the bombings (they say). (3)This one I can answer: no, no one that I have spoken with here blames Gaza; they say that the retaliation of Israel is absolutely out of proportion to the "few bombs" being lobbed by Hamas. Also, Al Jazeera does not blame Hamas (other than a token reference here or there to the bombs--you begin to feel that they are being lobbed, but not exactly exploded, somehow). One of my colleagues, a Palestinian, papered his entire door with photos of dead and dying children, so bloody that when i turned the corner to go into his office and faced the door in shock, tears sprang to my eyes. Apart from the blood, apart from the deaths, this is a world of images, and the images of blood and gore in Gaza are winning the world's support.
 
Apart from the blood, apart from the deaths, this is a world of images, and the images of blood and gore in Gaza are winning the world's support.
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I hope that Arabs like you, with an understanding of what Hamas is, what are the ideas behind a radical-fundamentalist Islamic ideology, can at least fight to keep these people away from power. I know its sometimes hard to see, but I honestly believe that militant islamists are more of a threat ot a country like Kuwait than Israel is. The fact that Hammas, a suni organization, is being fed money and weapons by Iran, a shiite theocracy, is alarming to me. This means that Hammas is becomming, like hezballah, a proxy of shiite and parsian bid for power in the middle east. I dont think small countries like kuwait(which is Arab and mostly Suni) would want to live in the shadow of a powerful Iran. The Palestinians are again siding with the extremists in the Muslim world(after they had a very good relationship with Saddam, also not a friend of Kuwait by the way).

On a side note I see no conflict of intrests that should keep Saudi-Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE from having peacefull diplomatic relations...Do you see one Sharon?
 
Sherman, I am not an Arab; I'm an American living and working in Kuwait.
And I think you're right about Iran--apart from the nuclear reactors, no one here wants to see the current regime become more powerful-the ancient rivalries and prejudices exist. with the nuclear reactors factored in, kuwait would be in the fallout zone in the event of any mishap.
 
Sharon said:
Sherman, I am not an Arab; I'm an American living and working in Kuwait.
And I think you're right about Iran--apart from the nuclear reactors, no one here wants to see the current regime become more powerful-the ancient rivalries and prejudices exist. with the nuclear reactors factored in, kuwait would be in the fallout zone in the event of any mishap.
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True, but the reality is that Iran is a major player in the region. Added to that it has immense oil reserves, which means that it does get a seat at the international table.

Somehow we in the West need to get past the religios aspect of its government and try to get some dialogue going and get Iran more fully invested in the West. Maybe the elections later this year will help?
 
Partisan, first I would like to direct you to http://www.iranian.com/main/member/hossein-shahidi. Shahidi is an experienced journalist and his comments are always balanced and, dare I say, sane. He is a true expert and very approachable.
Second, with regard to your comment about getting past the religious factors of the government of Iran (or any of the Islamic regimes, for that matter): it isn't possible, because the religious aspect is the run away horse in these countries that is increasingly impossible to rein in. In Kuwait, for example, the fundamentalists are making real headway, which is readily identifiable by the number of covered women in Kuwait now as opposed to just 10 years ago (which, by the way, is their choice, at least it is supposed to be). What makes sense politically may be diametrically opposed to what the hardliners think makes religious sense. In Kuwait, that sometimes makes for a governmental split personality, and the same is true of other countries in the region--Saudi for example. Honestly, I think that much of the problem the West has with this region is an inability to think in terms of no separation of church and state. And when a leader wants to enact reforms in his country for, say, women's rights, that is diametrically opposed to the ideas of the Islamacists regarding the place of women in society, it is not just a political disagreement, but runs as deep as a martyr's blood.
 
Sharon, great link, thanks for that.

I should've been clearer, about getting past the religious aspect of the Islamic countries, I meant that we in the West need to get to get past the stereotyping and writing some of the regimes of as 'religious nuts'. The fact that religion is central to the way that some of these countries are ruled should be neither here nor there. That is the choice of the country, we need to accept that & try to deal with them so that we can be a positive influence, not a confrontational foe.
 
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