The Jewish Press » » Wanted: Ally for Israel in Cairo Talks.

Israel needs an ally as it faces an array of representatives who hope to bring about a premature cease fire with Hamas terrorists intent on wiping out the Jewish State.

Hamas has no qualms about using any form of human or other innnocent creature as a shield for its weapons in attacking Israeli civilians and soldiers. Nor has its ability to launch a constant barrage of short and medium-range rocket and missile fire been significantly impaired thus far — a lethal threat to the millions of Israeli men, women and children who are spending more time in their bomb shelters than outside of them this summer.

Nevertheless, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived Monday in Cairo with the announced intent to help world leaders re-establish the November 2012 truce between Israel and Hamas terrorists.

Noah Pollack’s Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) explained the issue: “Israel does not need a mediator. Israel needs an ally. Pressuring Israel to agree to a cease fire that rescues Hamas from defeat and leaves it in possession of its missiles, tunnels, and terror infrastructure is foolish and wrong. If President [Barack] Obama and Secretary [John} Kerry want to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East, they should support Israel and its campaign to end the terror threat from Gaza.”

But instead, shortly after heading into a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Kerry announced the U.S. will send $47 million in ‘humanitarian aid’ to Gaza.

Kerry’s aides added a statement warning that it would be “difficult” to achieve an immediate and lasting cease fire – but that he hopes to make progress in the next few days to reach a temporary pause.

Israel agreed to two humanitarian cease fires since the start of Operation Protective Edge, including one requested by the International Committee for the Red Cross on behalf of Hamas itself. Hamas violated them both, firing mortar shells and rockets at Israeli civilians during the “pause” each time. Israel held its fire nevertheless; but should it now?

What kind of ally aids an enemy to reach a cease fire in which it can attack a friend?

Meanwhile, Hamas is insisting that Qatar and Turkey be allowed at the table to represent its interests in talks with Egypt, which is mediating the negotiations.

Qatar – a generous fiscal patron of Hamas — recently purchased $11 billion in military weapons and hardware from the Obama administration. In whose hands will those weapons eventually land?

In the first week of June, Qatar pledged $60 million to help pay the salaries of Gaza workers in the Palestinian Authority unity government. The money was to be transferred to the PUG offices in Ramallah in three monthly payments of $20 million each, according to Qatari government spokesperson Ihab Bseiso. The Qatari government has sent funds to Hamas before, even via charitable organizations in the United States. The Al Jazeera television network has also been described in a February 2006 State Department cable leaked by Wiki Leaks as a “big friend of Hamas.” Hamas political chief Khaled Mashaal maintains an office in Doha, the capital of Qatar.

Turkey is also no friend of Israel at this point and appears to be coordinating its moves with Qatar, and possibly with Iran as well, with whom it has strong ties.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, himself a sympathizer with radical Islamists, is closely linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and a longtime supporter of Hamas in Gaza. He has brought Turkey much closer to Tehran and successfully sabotaged diplomatic ties with Israel in the years he has served as prime minister, but now faces a fight to stay in his job. Turkey goes to the polls on August 10 to elect a president who will lead the nation alone, instead of the current dual ‘prime minister-president’ system. Erdogan needs a reason to ‘wow’ his constituents and firm up his AKP electoral base, comprised of Islamist voters. There are two competitors for the presidency; one a secularist, the other a moderate Muslim.

Livni: ‘No real option for cease-fire now’ | JPost | Israel News.

By JPOST.COM STAFF, LAHAV HARKOV, REUTERS

07/22/2014 13:10

Left-wing justice minister says IDF operation in Gaza is “unavoidable”; Kerry meets Egyptian leaders in Cairo in attempt to forge resolution to conflict between Israel, Hamas.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni dismissed on Tuesday the possibility of an imminent halt in fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, adding that the IDF ground incursion in the Strip was impossible to avoid.

“There is no real option for a cease-fire now. This operation is unavoidable,” the left-wing minister told Army Radio.

“Hamas is not close to a cease-fire in terms of its conditions,” she added. “Its [Hamas’s] conditions are not conditions that are accepted – not by us, not by the Egyptians, not by the Americans, not by the Palestinian Authority and I’m certain that Israel will not agree.”

Palestinian media earlier on Tuesday reported on a rumored five-hour humanitarian cease-fire to take effect in the morning that apparently held no ground as rocket fire from Gaza continued to target Israel after a purported 10 a.m. start time.

Israeli officials rejected reports of the temporary halt in fighting, while the radio station reported that Israel, due to security considerations, rejected a UN request for a temporary, humanitarian halt in fighting.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri in Cairo for talks aimed at ending the 15-day-old Gaza crisis.

Dispatched by US President Barack Obama to the Middle East to seek a cease-fire, Kerry thanked Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Shukri for an Egyptian truce proposal between Israel and Hamas.

“And I look forward to a good conversation to talk about how we can build on it and hopefully find, not only a way to a cease-fire, but a way to deal with the underlying issues which are very complicated, so I’m very grateful to my friend for his efforts,” Kerry said on Tuesday.

Shukri said that he appreciated the efforts of the United States and its decision to send Kerry to Cairo to try and help resolve the crisis.

“We are hopeful that this visit will result in a cease-fire that provides the necessary security for the Palestinian people and we can commence to address the medium and long-term issues related to Gaza,” the Egyptian FM added.

Egypt was key to securing an end to a previous bout of Gaza fighting in 2012, but the country’s new leadership is openly hostile to Hamas, potentially complicating the negotiations.

According to Gaza health officials almost 550 Palestinians have died in Gaza fighting, including nearly 100 children and many other civilians, as Israel has pursued an air and ground operation to stop rocket attacks on its territory from the Hamas-dominated Gaza Strip.

Israel’s casualties also mounted, with the military announcing the deaths of two more soldiers, bringing the number of army fatalities to 27 – almost three times as many as were killed in the last ground invasion of Gaza in a 2008-2009 war.

Two Israeli civilians have also been killed by Palestinian rocket fire into Israel.

Kerry arrived in Cairo on Monday and, during talks with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, said the United States would provide $47 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza.

20,000 Israelis attend lone soldier’s funeral – Israel News, Ynetnews.

( This is what I try to explain to people who ask why I choose to live here.  Israel is the only country in the world that feels like it’s one big family.   Where else would an ordinary soldier merit 20,000 “strangers” showing their love and respect?  Here those 20,000 are all “family.”  Sean died protecting his family.  May his memory be blessed. – JW )

Many arrive with flags of Israel to pay their last respects to Golani fighter Sgt. Sean Carmeli from the United States, who was killed in the Gaza Strip.
Ahiya Raved

Police estimate that more than 20,000 people on Monday attended the funeral of Sgt. Sean Carmeli from the United States, a Golani fighter who was killed in the Gaza Strip earlier this week.

Many of those who came to pay their last respects to the lone soldier arrived at the Haifa military cemetery with flags of Israel. The thousands of Israelis who accepted the call to escort Carmeli to his final resting place created heavy traffic jams in the area leading to the cemetery.

The American killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip, followed in the footsteps of scores of Jews from around the world who have volunteered to fight for Israel.

Israel calls them the lone soldiers: They are men and women in the prime of their lives who have left their parents and often comfortable lives behind in places like Sydney, London, Los Angeles and elsewhere to join the Israel Defense Forces, marching in the desert and taking up arms to defend the Jewish state.

There are about 2,000 lone soldiers currently serving in the military, said Marina Rozhansky, spokeswoman at the Israel Consul General in Los Angeles. Groups for families of lone soldiers have recently started in Los Angeles and other cities, providing a support network as the fighting intensifies.

Carmeli had been a fan of the Maccabi Haifa soccer club, and the team’s Internet forums issued an emotional call to all fans to attend the funeral. “This is a huge request from us to you, Maccabi Haifa fans, and this is your opportunity to make a big mitzvah,” the statement read.

“Sean Carmeli was a lone soldier and we don’t want his funeral to be empty. Come and pay your last respects to a hero who was killed so that we could live. This is the least we can do for him and for our nation.”

Crowd gathered outside Sean Carmeli’s funeral (Photo: Oz Mualem)

Photo: Oz Mualem

Sgt. Sean Carmeli

Sgt. Sean Carmeli

Raphael Kabessa, one of the team’s supporters, said the call to the fan’s was made after the Carmeli family had expressed its concern that only few people would attend the funeral.

“I knew him as a fan. In the morning I posted the obituary with his picture. It’s very painful and sad to lose such a guy. Several hours later, distant relatives contacted me and said they were afraid that because he had served as a lone soldier, not many people would come to the funeral and it would be disrespectful.”

That did not happen. The fans, and many others, accepted the call and flocked to the funeral. The Scout Movement also sent 200 members from the Haifa leadership to express its solidarity with the soldier’s family.

“It was very crowded,” says Shlomi Feder, a volunteer in the United Hatzalah emergency organization. “We treated several people who began feeling unwell and weak and some who fainted. It was an impressive sight, seeing masses of the people of Israel paying their last respects to a hero fighter.”

‘Our national pride’

Haifa police chief Avi Edri estimated that there were close to 20,000 people at the cemetery and its surroundings during the funeral.

“The public was very patient and behaved remarkably during the arrival and departure and at the cemetery itself. I felt very proud and grateful to see the number of people who arrived to pay their last respects,” he said, adding that he didn’t think so many citizens would come.

Sean Carmeli divided his life between Texas and the Israeli city of Ra’anana, where he studied at an immigrants’ class at a local high school. The family members spend most of the year in Israel apart from the spring and summer months, during which the parents travel to the US to promote their business.

“Sean was a gentle kind boy,” says Rabbi Asher Hecht, co-director of Chabad of the Rio Grande Valley. “We are very sad. We lost a dear boy.”

Three days before he was killed fighting for Israel in Gaza, Carmeli sprained his ankle, and a doctor asked the Texan if he wanted to heal before going into action. He refused, according to Maya Kadosh, Israel’s deputy consul for the US Southwest.

“He said no. He said he wanted to go into combat with his friends,” Kadosh told Reuters on Monday.

Sapir Hillel of Kibbutz Neve Yam arrived at the funeral with a friend. His wife, Ayelet, who stayed home with their children, said she had also wanted to come.

“We were very moved by his story, and we wanted to contribute wherever we could, because in our daily life we can only follow stories and identify with them, but here we actually had the opportunity to do something,” she said.

Adam, one of the funeral goers who arrived with a flag of Israel, explained that “it’s our national pride to come and support a family and a lone soldier. A person who made a decision, against all conventions and with Zionist motives, to join the best combat unit although he could have chosen a more comfortable life. I am here to salute him.”

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Israeli forces are fighting hard to win their first battle against Hamas, a savage and tenacious enemy.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis July 22, 2014, 12:34 PM (IDT)

The battle for Shejaiya, the Hamas stronghold on Gaza City’s outskirts, was still unresolved Tuesday, July 22, indicating that the Islamists were not giving up. Indeed, fresh Hamas reinforcements appeared to have taken up new positions in the battle zone during the night. They may have arrived through Hamas’ many-branched tunnel system.

Every few hours, the IDF spokesman releases two sets of figures: Israeli casualty statistics and the number of IDF strikes against Hamas. He has little to say about Israel’s military movements. Neither Israeli nor foreign correspondents have been permitted to accompany IDF troops fighting in the Gaza Strip – a policy the IDF has pursued since the second Lebanon war of 2006. Military leaders are therefore free to manage the data, human and electronic, coming out of the war, including images from the various fronts, without independent coverage. The public sees the same IDF surveillance footage day after day.

This policy reduces the hazards faced by Israeli forces and keeps their scale and identities secret from the enemy – and that is good for Israel’s war effort.
On the other hand, it creates a widening gap between the “official version” and the real state of affairs on the battlefield. Since most people have access to relatives on the front – not to mention prolific rumor mills powered by the social media – the credibility of national war leaders suffers.

Official communiqués are studded with impressive figures. Tuesday morning, the IDF was reported to have struck 3,200 Hamas targets since the start of the operation. In the last four days, the soldiers located 23 secret tunnels and 36 shafts leading into Hamas’ subterranean complex, and killed 186 Hamas operatives in combat. Israel lost 27 officers and men in the same period.

Those figures are telling in that they illustrate the hardships confronting the IDF from a ferocious enemy which refuses to crack under air or ground assault.

Because the Golani Brigades’ losses in Shejaiya were so heavy, IDF chiefs had no choice but to disclose information about the combatants on this front. But no one, aside from the combatants and their officers, knows what is going on in the other arenas to which the five special IDF task forces have been assigned. There is no news for instance from the southern sector of Rafah and Khan Younes. or the northern towns of Shati and Zeitun. No one knows how many Hamas tunnels are left to be destroyed – and where – before the IDF claims to have completed this critical part of its counter-terror mission

By any military standard, the IDF has the edge over Hamas. But the battle still needs to be won.

This situation has stiffened Hamas’ resistance to any of the ceasefire proposals taking shape in various parts of the region in the last couple of days. Its leaders feel strong enough to carry on fighting and holding out for better terms than those on offer at present.

Hostilities are therefore likely to drag out for an indeterminate period.
For Israel, the diplomatic clock is ticking too fast. As the warfare stretches out without a decisive battle on at least one Gaza front, the rising casualty toll threatens to undermine Israel’s ability to stand up to the pressures of international truce diplomacy.

Americans Fight for Israel as ‘Lone Soldiers’ in Gaza Strip – NBC News.com.

Joseph Wouk – “Lone Soldier” – 1983

First published July 22nd 2014, 5:59 am

Erin McClam

Erin McClam is a senior writer for NBC News, responsible for reporting, writing and editing general news… Expand Bio

Nine IDF soldiers killed in battles with Hamas Monday | The Times of Israel.

Two more soldiers killed in afternoon in addition to seven early Monday as IDF toll rises to 27; four were hit by Hamas terrorists who tunneled into Israel with plan to attack kibbutz; 10 Hamas gunmen killed

Hamas, Israel signal unwillingness to compromise – The Washington Post.

By William Booth, Sudarsan Raghavan and Ruth Eglash July 22 at 12:50 AM

GAZA CITY — The Islamist militant organization Hamas said Monday that it would not agree to a cease-fire with Israel until its demands were met, as Israel warned that its incursion into the Gaza Strip could continue for days or even weeks.

The stark assessments offered little hope for quick progress toward ending a 14-day-old conflict that has inflicted heavy costs on each side.

Seven more Israeli soldiers were killed in fierce fighting Monday, bringing the Israeli military toll to 27 dead, more than twice as many as in Israel’s last Gaza ground incursion in 2009 and the highest toll since Israel’s war with Lebanon in 2006. Two Israeli civilians have died in the conflict.

More than 560 people in Gaza, many of them women and children, have been killed since Israel’s Operation Protective Edge began.

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said the Gaza military operation, which is now focused on finding and destroying underground tunnels, would continue “as long as necessary until the completion of the task and the return of the quiet in the whole of Israel.”

But the most senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniyeh, warned that “invaders” would find a graveyard awaiting them in Gaza. In a televised broadcast, Haniyeh said Hamas fighters would not put down their weapons until Israel and Egypt agree to open border crossings, ease travel and the flow of goods, and free Hamas members who were jailed after the killing of three Jewish teenagers in the West Bank last month.

“We’ll never go back to the slow death,” Haniyeh said. “Our demands are fair and they are humane. Our people have decided.”

The Israeli military said that at least four of its soldiers were killed in a firefight with Hamas militants who sneaked into Israel through a tunnel from northern Gaza. Ten Gaza militants died in the exchange, a military spokesman said, and another underground infiltration attempt by Hamas was repelled by an Israeli airstrike.

The fresh casualties came a day after 13 Israeli troops were killed in combat in the east Gaza neighborhood of Shijaiyah on Sunday, the bloodiest day of the conflict.

Israeli airstrikes and artillery fired over the past 24 hours hit the al-Aqsa Hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah, which Israel said was being used to hide antitank missiles, killing four, and a house in Khan Younis where a midlevel Hamas leader was believed to be. Gaza Health Ministry officials said 28 Palestinians were buried in the debris, including women and children.

With violence and the death toll rising, and as Israeli troops moved from the margins to the population centers in Gaza, diplomatic efforts to secure a truce intensified.

At the White House, President Obama said, “We don’t want to see any more civilians killed.” He instructed Secretary of State John F. Kerry to seek “an immediate cease-fire” between Hamas and Israel. Kerry arrived in Cairo on Monday night.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met Monday with his political rival, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, in Qatar. According to aides traveling with Abbas, the Palestinian leader from Ramallah in the West Bank is looking for a cease-fire brokered by Egypt based on a return to the November 2012 agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

“Everyone is supporting the Egyptian initiative for a cease-fire — the Palestinian Authority, the Arab League, the Americans, Israel,” said Tzipi Livni, Israel’s justice minister and the country’s top peace negotiator.

Livni said the only opponent to a truce was Hamas leader Meshal, who, she said, “is not even living in Gaza and who has a good life in a nice hotel somewhere but wants to continue putting his people under stress.”

But any mediation effort could run into an obstacle. If Israel agrees to a cease-fire, it would have to abandon its core objective in Gaza of destroying Hamas tunnel networks. But Israeli military officials say that they believe the tunnels are more extensive than previously thought and that it will take more time to demolish them, raising a dilemma.

“We have a mission, and we are going to fulfill it. Israel is not going to leave the threats of tunnels beneath the border between Gaza Strip and Israel,” a senior Israeli military official told reporters Sunday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of military guidelines. But he also acknowledged that with the growing casualties on both sides, “it’s the right time for all sides to stop.”

Palestinian fighters in Gaza continued to offer stiff resistance. The number of rockets fired into Israel by Palestinian militants rebounded from a brief lull, with the Israeli military saying that more than 100 rockets struck the Jewish state Monday, mostly in southern areas close to the Gaza border.

Three rockets were fired into Tel Aviv, Israel’s second-most populated city. One struck the metropolitan area but did not inflict any casualties, the military said, while Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted the other two.

The number of Palestinians seeking refuge with the United Nations also rose overnight, growing to at least 85,000 people now living in 67 shelters, mostly at schools, the U.N. Relief and Works Agency said Monday. U.N. agencies report that more than 100,000 Gazans have been displaced from their homes.

The United Nations also said a preliminary review in Gaza found that more than 72 percent of those killed were civilians, not militants, and include large numbers of women and children. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the high numbers of children and noncombatants raise “concern about respect for the principle of distinction and proportionality under international humanitarian law.”

Two of the Israeli soldiers killed were American citizens who had come to Israel, like many Jewish Americans, to volunteer in Israel’s army. One, Max Steinberg, was from Woodland Hills, Calif., while the other, Nissim Sean Carmeli, was from South Padre Island, Tex., Israel’s military said.

The State Department recommended Monday that U.S. citizens consider deferring non­essential travel to Israel and the West Bank, a possible economic blow to both during the peak summer tourist season.

Raghavan and Eglash reported from Jerusalem. Islam Abdul Kareem in Gaza City contributed to this report.

Richard Cohen: A fight for Israel’s existence – The Washington Post.

Israel fought its first war, in 1948, against five Arab nations — Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan — as well as the Palestinians. In the prediction of the fairly new CIA, the outcome was never in doubt: “Without substantial outside aid in terms of manpower and material, they [the Jews] will be able to hold out no longer than two years.” It has now been 66 years, but I fear that sooner or later, the CIA’s conclusion could turn out to be right.

It does not seem that way at the moment. The five Arab armies of 1948 are now down to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This is a struggle whose end cannot be in doubt. The Israelis will degrade Hamas’s military capabilities — its rocket-launching sites and its tunnels — and end for a time its ability to attack Israel. Every rocket, no matter how primitive and wobbly, is an act of war.

Since 1948, nation after nation has retired to the sidelines. Egypt and Jordan have made peace with Israel. Saudi Arabia, which stayed out of the first war, has little desire for any subsequent one. Lebanon has been battered too often by Israel to still have a taste for war. Iraq is coming apart at the seams and can fight no one. Syria, too, is a chaotic mess, no longer really a nation and now more of a geographic designation. With the exception of Hezbollah and Hamas, no one much wants to fight. Happy days should be here . . . again.

But they are not. In my estimation, Israel now fights not just to clear out the tunnels and rid Gaza of its rockets but for its very existence. This war that Israel will, of course, win has seen its once hapless enemy, Hamas, launch hundreds of rockets a day, some of them landing in the Tel Aviv area, a few going as far as Haifa. The Iron Dome anti-missile system has reportedly done wonders, but the law of averages insists that a rocket will get through and Tel Aviv will be hit — and then hit again.

The nations that once went to war vowing to push Israel into the sea are unstable, rickety creations. They are under siege not from Israel but from their own religious zealots. Whatever emerges is going to be either less accepting of Israel or manically intent on annihilating it. Even Egypt, which is now under military dictatorship, could revert once again to a government of the Muslim Brotherhood, the ideological parent of Hamas, and deeply anti-Semitic. In time, Israel could be surrounded by states that would make Hamas seem the soul of moderation. It does not, after all, go in for beheadings and such.

There is a sad, metronomic rhythm to Israel’s wars with Hamas and Hezbollah. Israel wins every time, but every war is incrementally existential. Israelis are increasingly looking over their shoulder. About 60 percent of them either have or wish they had a second passport (often from an ancestral European country) and a large number of them — an estimated 500,000 or more — already live in the United States. The wayward Hamas rocket, so idiotically trivialized by Israel’s critics, doesn’t have to kill anyone to take a toll. People will seek safety as surely as water seeks its own level.

Hamas thinks it is winning the current war — which is why it rejected the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire proposal. Not a single major Hamas leader has been killed. Sooner or later an intermediary will insist on a peace agreement. That intermediary should be Secretary of State John Kerry. He must demand no more tunnels and no more rockets. Hamas can stay in Gaza, and Israel seems willing to ease its blockade. But both goods and funds have to be used to benefit the Palestinian people — not to build (or import) rockets or resume the tunneling.

A deal is there to be made but the United States has to either make it or determine its outcome. The effort cannot be left to countries that are hostile to Israel — Turkey and Qatar come to mind — or the Middle East will once again wind up with a peace that is just a prelude to more war.

Israel is the legal creation of the United Nations. It has an absolute right not merely to exist but to do so safe from rockets or incursions by tunneling terrorists. In 1948, Harry Truman swiftly recognized Israel. The United States took the lead. It is time for it to do so again.

Kerry and Ban in truce bid to save Hamas from defeat. Israel holds reply. Cairo won’t amend truce proposal.

DEBKAfile Special Report July 21, 2014, 11:59 PM (IDT)

Three rival groups are in a tug-o’-war over a ceasefire initiative for the Gaza conflict: The US and UN are pulling one way; Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the other; and Qatar, Turkey, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, are trying to manipulate the others.

Monday night, July 21, US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Cairo to press their case with Egyptian President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi: Kerry’s directive was outlined by President Barack Obama a few hours earlier, “to focus on bringing about a ceasefire than ends the fighting and can stop the death of innocent civilians.”
Ban came from Doha, Qatar, as part of a whistle stop tour of Kuwait City, Jerusalem, Cairo, Ramallah and Amman. Upon landing in Cairo, he told reporters: “The violence must stop, it must stop now. I urge all parties to stop violence unconditionally and return to dialogue.”

Reported to be pushing for a long-term ceasefire, the UN Secretary went on to comment that it was impossible to go back to the situation that caused the conflict. He ruled out the “status quo ante” for the Gaza Strip as untenable.

This was an indirect vote of support for Hamas’s terms for a ceasefire, such as ending the blockade on the Gaza Strip and reopening all the crossings.

The UN Secretary had nary a word to say about the Palestinian Islamists’ long record of terrorism, culminating last month in the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenagers, the shooting of 1,850 rockets at the Israeli population in less than a month and the network of secret tunnels dug especially to burrow under the Israeli border for attacks and kidnappings.
After hearing the two comments, Hamas’ political leader Meshaal Hamas called off the statement he had planned to issue Monday night from his base in Qatar. He saw he had no need to push any further to win the support of the UN and US officials. They were already on his side and he could count on them both to twist Israel’s arm for an early ceasefire to rescue Hamas from defeat before its terrorist machine was completely ravaged by Israeli troops.

Hamas officials also rejected suggestions floated for a long-term humanitarian ceasefire.
Following reports that Cairo had agreed to give in to Hamas demands, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shokri said firmly that Cairo is not willing to amend its former truce initiative.

The Egyptian president Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi had won Saudi endorsement for this proposal in two conversations they held in the last few days. It is based essentially on a ceasefire which, if it holds, would be followed by separate Egyptian talks with Israel and Hamas on future arrangements.
This proposal was accepted by Israel and snubbed by Hamas, which continued to shoot rockets instead. Israel reacted four days ago, by sending ground troops into the Gaza Strip to finally dismantle Hamas’ long-running terror machine.

That Hamas stands by its negative response to the Egyptian ceasefire initiative was underscored by Gaza Prime Minster Ismail Haniya in a pre-recorded statement Monday from his hideout: “Hamas will fight with blood before giving up its terms,” he said. “Their [Israel’s] air strikes did not break us, and neither will their ground attacks.”

Hama leaders have grasped that the truce initiatives promoted by Kerry and Ban will essentially allow them to carry on as before with certain benefits thrown in.

As of writing this report, the Netanyahu government has not reacted to the web of ceasefire diplomacy being woven. His silence can be interpreted in three ways:

1. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has been running Israel’s campaign against Hamas in close rapport with Saudi King Abdullah and President El-Sisi, is saving his biggest gun – flat rejection of their truce proposals – for use in direct encounters with Kerry and Ban when they arrive in Jerusalem Tuesday, July 22.

2. The IDF needs more time to complete its missions, which are to destroy Hamas’ network of terror tunnels and disarm, or at least degrade, its rocket and military infrastructure.

3.  Netanyahu is keeping his cards close to his chest for a reckoning with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, touted as go-between in the ceasefire bid, over his threat Monday to bring charges of war crimes against Israel before the international court in The Hague and UN institutions, as well as accusations of apartheid.
The prime minister may well stipulate that Kerry and Ban rein in the Palestinian leader before Israel gives its attention to any requests for joining a ceasefire.

Israel’s cerebral war in Gaza, and its risks | The Times of Israel.

Israel has proceeded logically, each escalation equipped with an exit ramp. But Hamas, pleased with its bloody accomplishments, may be in no mood to stop

Tunnel opening discovered by IDF in Gaza, July 20, 2014. (Photo credit: IDF)

The Israeli army is fighting a war in the service of a ceasefire. It is, like its leaders, very cerebral. But is it getting the job done?

The rationale, at the onset, was this: If the aerial strikes do not prevail, as they did last time, Israel will address the threat of tunnels, unearthing the strategic channels dug by Hamas. As the organization sees its labor demolished, as the rocket stores are depleted, as the troops draw closer to the heart of Gaza, Hamas will wait until the PR conditions are ripe and, as is its custom, dress defeat in the gowns of victory.

Understanding the risks of each further escalation, though, the IDF and the government built an exit ramp into each stage of the operation.

Stage One: the aerial campaign. The thinking was as follows: The bombing will be dreadful. It may not get too many operatives, and certainly not many senior ones, and it will not address the threat of the tunnels, but it will deplete some of the Hamas rocket stores and, when this terrible season of killing is over, it will leave a mark on the landscape and the psyche of the people, who will not again soon allow their leaders to invite such destruction.

The army thinks of this as the Dahiyeh doctrine on account of the Hezbollah neighborhood in Beirut that was pounded [and promptly re-built with Iranian cash] during [and directly after] the Second Lebanon War in 2006. Since then, Hezbollah has been largely deterred from acting along the Lebanon border.

An F-16 pilot and squadron commander who has flown many sorties over Gaza during this conflict said in a phone interview, during the aerial stage of the war, that he did not envy Hamas leaders when they emerged from their bunkers and had to explain to their people what has transpired.

In November 2012 this sufficed. The sight of thousands of troops amassed on the border, along with the heavy losses already inflicted, along with other regional geo-political considerations, brought Hamas to the table after eight days of violence.

This time, though, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intimated on Sunday, Israel’s leadership accepted an Egyptian ceasefire proposal with the understanding that Hamas would likely not use the first exit ramp.

Stage two: the tunnels. These underground passages across the border and into Israel are a strategic threat. Each one carries with it the potential for a mega-attack. Israel has spent the past five days, ever since the ground stage began, trying to eradicate that threat. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Sunday that “the lion’s share” of cross-border tunnels would be detected and demolished within the coming two to three days.

Which is to say, there is another exit ramp in the not-too-distant future.

If Hamas opts to take it, and a deal is reached – one that keeps terrorists and operatives away from the fence; makes it impossible to tunnel into Israel again; and offers some carrots in the form of civilian aid, greater access to Egypt through Rafah and increased flow of goods into the Strip, alongside a ceasefire agreement; — then the operational action, despite the loss of 25 Israeli soldiers’ lives at time of writing, will have been a success.

Of course, there will be some questions asked. For instance about the wisdom of sending troops into battle – seven of whom were killed – in an M-113 armed personnel carrier, which was made in the 60s and already debuted with the IDF during the Yom Kippur War. Even the M-113 Wikipedia page in Hebrew notes, straight off, that “today the APC is considered to have insufficient protection: its hull is made of aluminum…”

When the dust settles over Shejaiya, Israel will also have to make sure the civilian death toll is in line with its values, on the one hand [there is currently not information to know], and that the approach into the Hamas stronghold in the Gaza City neighborhood, on the other, was not too telegraphed, too obvious to the heavily armed Hamas operatives.

But what if Hamas, pleased with its bloody accomplishments, speeds past the next exit ramp as well? What if it believes that Israel has no intention of toppling its rule and that, as Udi Dekel and Shlomo Brom wrote for the INSS think tank on Monday, “the only advantage Hamas has over Israel is patience and endurance.”

In that case, which still seems unlikely, Israel will advance, somewhat fatigued, deeper into Gaza, and it will have to project that it has cast aside the cerebral approach.

As former general and national security adviser Uzi Dayan said early in this conflict, when advocating for a two-division push deep into Gaza at the onset, “I don’t dictate who will replace Hamas and I don’t care. It’s not strategically important.”

Instead, he said, while speaking to a group of journalists in a safe room in Sderot, “what’s important is that he knows that whoever will mess with Israel will pay for it.”