Hamas and Fatah become followers of Gandhi and Martin Luther King?
The 'Palestinians' have decided that the 'flotilla of fools' is a tactic they ought to repeat. In fact, they are now depicting themselves as the heirs to Mehatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. "When we use violence, we help Israel win international support," said Aziz Dweik, a leading Hamas lawmaker in the West Bank. "The Gaza flotilla has done more for Gaza than 10,000 rockets."The first mistake we made was letting all those people go. The violent ones (and we have video so we know who they are) should have been tried, convicted and sentenced to long jail terms.
Hamas and Hezbollah, the Islamist movement in Lebanon that has been fighting Israel since the early 1980s, haven't renounced violence and both groups continue to amass arms. Hamas still abides by a charter that calls for Israel's destruction; Palestinian youths still hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers across the West Bank separation barrier. And the flotilla incident didn't fall into conventional standards of peaceful protest: While most activists passively resisted Israeli soldiers, some on the boat where protesters were killed attacked commandos as they boarded, according to video footage released by Israel and soldiers' accounts.
The incident triggered international condemnation and plunged Israel into one of its worst diplomatic crises in years. In response, Israel said it would take some steps to ease its blockade on the Gaza Strip.
After the incident, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah called on supporters to participate in the next flotilla bound for Gaza. Ghaleb Abu Zeinab, a member of the Hezbollah politburo in Beirut, said it was the first time Mr. Nasrallah had forcefully and publicly embraced such tactics against Israel.
"We saw that this kind of resistance has driven the Israelis into a big plight," he said. Organizers in Lebanon say they have two ships ready to sail, but no departure date has been set.
A senior Israeli foreign ministry official said Israel recognizes "changes in the tactical thinking of Hamas and other resistance movements." The official said the groups are no less committed to Israel's destruction, but have simply concluded they are more likely to defeat Israel by encouraging its international isolation instead of through military force.
"People who are provoking violence are using peaceful protest as a cover," said Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev.
But more importantly, we have to keep reminding the world who the 'Palestinians' are and what they represent. Sunday's JPost in the print edition reports that has offered to 'give' Israel parts of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria in a 'land swap' (the report has been denied). That's also a bid to shift the pressure to Israel. I'll have more on that later, but we have to recognize it for what it is. Abu Mazen cannot make an agreement on behalf of the 'Palestinians' and the 'Palestinians' are not going to turn into non-violent passive resisters overnight. Any claims that the 'Palestinians' are suddenly becoming non-violent need to be backed up by facts. Israel's security cannot be made to depend on a claim that the 'Palestinians' have changed overnight.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:27 AM
2 Comments:
Just posted a long reply in another thread about Abu Mazen's supposed willingness to do a "land swap" as a trade for settlement blocs.
It's a scam. When pinned down, Abu Mazen has admitted that he's only willing to trade empty land for empty land with Israel.
In his view, he sees nothing fair about allowing Israel to keep billions and billions worth of Israeli developed real estate while he would only get empty land in exchange.
His implications about allowing Israel to retain settlements in a deal are lies.
I'm waiting for Fatah and Hamas to say they recognize the legitimacy of Zionism and proclaim they love the Jews! Cue the crickets, please!
Heh
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