Did the Palestinian push for peace force Israel to go to war?

[Karmadillo]

In May of this year, Ha'aretz published an article noting the reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah. The terms of the agreement included recognition of the 1967 borders. The article further noted Hamas was willing to embrace the Arab peace initiative of 2002. During this same time period, the Jerusalem Post quoted an Israeli Brigadier General as saying Hamas was working to stop missile attacks. And the result of this push for peace? Increasing assaults on Gaza and the death of six members of Hamas on July 7th. Only then did Hamas resume missile attacks. As Netanyahu and his allies prepared to unleash the forces currently killing Palestinian women and children by the hundreds, one wonders whether they breathed a sigh of relief at having dodged a peace bullet?

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.589343

United, the Palestinians have endorsed 1967 borders for peace. Will Israel?

<edit>

But the logic that was behind Arafat’s peace with Rabin is as sound today as it was in 1993. Israelis and Palestinians have no choice but to find a way to share the Holy Land, and this will happen only when our two nations are prepared once and for all to set to once side their maximalist claims. Israelis have to learn to live within their 78%, just as we must use our talents to transform our 22% into a unified and productive democracy.

For us Palestinians, the reconciliation agreement concluded between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza two weeks ago was a necessary condition for moving on from the past. The agreement brings our main political players to the same side, namely to the side of a historic agreement with Israel. The terms of agreement includes recognition of the 1967 borders. Hamas's political leaders, moreover, are willing to back the Arab peace initiative of 2002, which is the clearest sign I know that their readiness to sign off on the 1967 border is not a mere tactical move but reflects deeper strategic calculations.

The new technocratic government that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will form over the coming weeks will abide by all the terms of the Oslo Accords and the Middle East Quartet. It will be as well a government willing to use the Arab peace initiative as a framework for a negotiated peace agreement that, once signed, will offer the Israelis full diplomatic and commercial relations with fifty-seven Arab and Islamic states.

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/IDF-source-Hamas-working-to-stop-rockets-from-Gaza-311977

IDF source: Hamas working to stop Gaza rockets

<edit>

There is “some degree of dialogue” between Israel and parties in Gaza to prevent rocket fire into southern Israel, Brig.-Gen. Micky Edelstein, commander of the army’s Gaza Division, said on Friday.

Speaking at an IDF event in Sderot, Edelstein said that Hamas was working to thwart rocket attacks from the Strip.

“Today Hamas and other actors in Gaza are acting to stop the rocket fire. They don’t always succeed, and where they fail, the IDF acts,” the general said.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/07/24/why-did-bernie-sanders-get-gaza-so-wrong/

Why Did Bernie Sanders Get Gaza So Wrong?
by JAMES MARC LEAS

<edit>

A report issued by the authoritative the “Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center” (ITIC), a private Israeli think tank that “has close ties with the country’s military leadership,” unintentionally debunked the Senate resolution more than a week before its unanimous consent vote in the Senate. The weekly ITIC reports regarding rocket fire are frequently quoted on the Israeli government’s own web site.

The ITIC July 8, 2014 report,“News of Terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (July 2 – 8, 2014),” states: “For the first time sinceOperation Pillar of Defense [November 2012], Hamas participated in and claimed responsibility for rocket fire [on July 7, 2014].”

<edit>

The July 8 ITIC report also divulged why Hamas launched its first rocket fire at Israel in more than 19 months on July 7: On that night Israeli forces had bombed and killed 6 Hamas members in Gaza. The ITIC report includes a picture of the six Hamas members. Thus, a report from an authoritative Israeli source described the provocation for the resumption of rocket fire: Hamas rocket fire began only after Israeli forces had engaged in nearly a month of military operations in violation of the ceasefire agreement and had killed 6 Hamas members in Gaza.

more...

[Loudly]

1. Isn't the so-called 1967 border actually the 1949 armistice Green Line?

Wouldn't it take Jerusalem out of Israeli control?

Pretty unproductive to support something so clearly Not Gonna Happen.

[Karmadillo]

2. East Jerusalem would be the Palestinian capital. If 78-22 is a non-starter,

it makes one wonder what kind of ultimate division Israel has in mind.

[Karmadillo]

6. Here's an article on the 1967 borders written when Obama said they should be the

basis for the settlement between Israel and Palestine.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/understanding-obamas-shift-on-israel-and-the-1967-lines/2011/05/19/AFPRaT7G_blog.html

Understanding Obama’s shift on Israel and the ‘1967 lines’
Posted by Glenn Kessler at 06:00 AM ET, 05/20/2011

“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states.”
— President Obama, May 19, 2011

This sentence in President Obama’s much-anticipated speech on the Middle East caused much consternation Thursday among supporters of the Jewish state. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who will meet with Obama on Friday, adamantly rejected it.

For people not trained in the nuances of Middle East diplomacy, the sentence might appear unremarkable. However, many experts say it represents a significant shift in U.S. policy, and it is certainly a change for the Obama administration.

As is often the case with diplomacy, the context and the speaker are nearly as important as the words. Ever since the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors, it has been clear that peace with the Palestinians would be achieved through some exchange of land for security.

Indeed, Israelis and Palestinians have held several intensive negotiations that involved swapping lands along the Arab-Israeli dividing line that existed before the 1967 war — technically known as the Green Line, or the boundaries established by the 1949 Armistice agreements. (Click here for a visual description of the swaps discussed between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008.)

more...

[Hippo_Tron]

13. I'd make East Jerusalem an international city under UN control

Everyone gets access to their holy sites, end of story.

[seveneyes]

3. No

[RobertEarl]

4. Yes, IDF wants no peace, it is quite evident

The July 8 ITIC report also divulged why Hamas launched its first rocket fire at Israel in more than 19 months on July 7: On that night Israeli forces had bombed and killed 6 Hamas members in Gaza. The ITIC report includes a picture of the six Hamas members. Thus, a report from an authoritative Israeli source described the provocation for the resumption of rocket fire: Hamas rocket fire began only after Israeli forces had engaged in nearly a month of military operations in violation of the ceasefire agreement and had killed 6 Hamas members in Gaza.

[malaise]

5. Interesting

Rec

[RobertEarl]

7. Kick

The new technocratic government that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will form over the coming weeks will abide by all the terms of the Oslo Accords and the Middle East Quartet. It will be as well a government willing to use the Arab peace initiative as a framework for a negotiated peace agreement that, once signed, will offer the Israelis full diplomatic and commercial relations with fifty-seven Arab and Islamic states.

[eridani]

8. Probably. The Likud goal is not peace--it is total ethnic cleansing and land grabbing n/t

[Karmadillo]

9. It's sad that someone who listened to CNN or FOX would assume you were an extremist

of the worst sort because the facts mentioned in the OP that tend to suggest you are very possibly right are completely ignored for a substitute world where none of those facts are allowed to exist. I don't know how a country can have an intelligent foreign policy when its more prominent sources of news are devoted to misleading rather than enlightening.

[Karmadillo]

10. And to top it off: It Turns Out Hamas Didn’t Kidnap and Kill the 3 Israeli Teens After All

So given all of these facts, it really is nothing short of monstrous for the corporate media to pretend Israel is the wronged party.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/hamas-didnt-kidnap-the-israeli-teens-after-all.html?mid=twitter_nymag

When the bodies of three Israeli teenagers, kidnapped in the West Bank, were found late last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not mince words. "Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay," he said, initiating a campaign that eventually escalated into the present conflict in the region.

But now, officials admit the kidnappings were not Hamas's handiwork after all.

Non-plagiarizing BuzzFeed writer Sheera Frenkel was among the first to suggest that it was unlikely that Hamas was behind the deaths of Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrach. Citing Palestinian sources and experts the field, Frenkel reported that kidnapping three Israeli teens would be a foolish move for Hamas. International experts told her it was likely the work of a local group, acting without concern for the repercussions:

[Gershon Baskin] pointed out that Hamas has earlier this month signed an agreement to form a unity government with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, bridging, for the first time in seven years, the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza.

more...

[RobertEarl]

11. Good work Karmadillo

Have the pro war right wingers missed this?

Or are they just afraid to post in your thread knowing they will look like fools?

[Karmadillo]

14. Thanks. It's amazing how the internet gives us access to facts that show

Israel is not even remotely justified in what it's doing. It's even more amazing how the pro-war advocates and the corporate media can successfully impose a justifying narrative that ignores those facts. Given the suffering that has resulted, it's pretty depressing, but maybe people's growing awareness we're being lied to will lead to something positive at some point.

Not sure why the pro war right wingers haven't debunked the OP. Maybe they're hesitant to take on the IDF and the ITIC.

[azurnoir]

15. but wait there's more

The first to claim responsibility also claimed to be a branch of ISIS

Has ISIS infiltrated the West Bank?

The pamphlet claiming responsibility for the kidnappings doesn't seem to have come from the Salafi group now terrorizing Iraq and Syria. But maybe a local cell decided to claim affiliation with ISIS to inspire fear.

A pamphlet supposedly issued by the Islamist State in Iraq and Syria and circulated around Hebron, claiming responsibility for the kidnapping of three Israelis in the West Bank, raises some doubts.

That the group has a branch in Gaza was suspected two years ago, when one of the Salafi-jihadi groups there presented itself as an ISIS. More suspicions arose when in November 2013 three ISIS agents were killed in the Hebron area. The three were mentioned by name in Friday's pamphlet, which said the kidnapping was to avenge their deaths.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.598648

but that just seemed too fantastic especially considering what ISIS is doing elsewhere

Israel kept saying Hamas Hamas Hamas and then on June 26 Israel named 2 suspects whom Israel claims to this day to be at large or to have disappeared and said they had detained his wife for questioning however and this is where is goes from weird to twilight zone, a June 14 edition of PNN a Palestinian site named those who Israel arrested in the West Bank and low and behold

The Israeli Occupation Forces arrested this Saturday 12 citizens of the city of Hebron, in southern West Bank.

According to Palestinian security sources and local news agencies, the Israeli army raided Hebron and arrested the two brothers Shadi and Alaa Zakaria Abu Zina, Ammar Abu Eisha and his wife Ikram Abu Aisha, Iyad Shabana al-Tamimi, Yasser Jamal, Dirar Abu Saw, and the brothers Marwan, Sharif, Bilal and Ayman Osman Qawasmeh. They were all arrested after the IOF broke into their homes and searched them, and they were taken to unknown locations.

The sources added that the Israeli army raided several neighborhoods in the towns of the Hebron province: Dura, Yatta, Beit Kahil, and Tarqumiya, and broke into dozens of homes and inspected and confiscated recordings of surveillance cameras, under the pretext of searching for 3 settlers that disappeared on Thursday night near an Israeli illegal settlement, north of Hebron.

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php/human-rights/7701-the-israeli-army-wages-a-campaign-of-mass-arrests-in-hebron

the 2 suspects and the wife of one Israel claimed to detained on June 26 are named so what's up has Israel had them all along or did Israel arrest them on June 14 and then release them?

[Karmadillo]

16. Wow. Twilight Zone, indeed. Given Hamas' efforts to stop missile attacks and their acceptance

of the 1967 borders and the 2002 initiative, this makes sense. It would be interesting to know what happened to the named suspects. Of course, for Netanyahu and others who prefer war to peace, there would be no incentive to solve the mystery since it gave them cover for undermining the peace efforts and striking at Gaza. What a world.

[azurnoir]

18. IDF destroyed their family homes as retribution even though no arrest(we're told) no trial

The IDF demolished overnight Monday the homes of the two main suspects in the kidnapping and killing of three young Israelis, witnesses told AFP. It appears, however, that the explosions were only directed at parts of the homes, where the IDF suspected that explosives may be held.

The witnesses said the houses of Marwan Kawasmeh and Amar Abu-Eisha in Hevron were blown up, in what a human rights group said was the first punitive demolition since Israel halted the practice in 2005.

Kawasmeh and Abu-Eisha were identified by Israel last week as the two terrorists who kidnapped Eyal Yifrah, Gilad Sha’ar and Naftali Frenkel, whose bodies were discovered earlier on Monday.

Both Kawasmeh and Abu-Eisha have been arrested numerous times and are well known Hamas terrorists in the Hevron area.

The two terrorists remain at large but, according to media reports, security forces believe they likely could not have gotten far and could be located within days.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/182374#.U9QV0mOmW0g

[Uncle Joe]

12. I believe that's a strong probability.

Thanks for the thread, Karmadillo.

[countryjake]

17. kickety