Secret Cairo message: Hamas won’t bend because it wasn’t beaten. IDF: Beware of waiting game
Secret Cairo message: Hamas won’t bend because it wasn’t beaten. IDF: Beware of waiting game.
DEBKA – August 10, 2014, 11:08 AM (IDT)
Cairo sent a secret message to Jerusalem Saturday night, Aug. 9, saying that Egypt had been unable to bring Hamas around to any compromise because “you [Israel and the IDF] haven’t hit them hard enough.” This is revealed by DEBKAfile’s exclusive military and intelligence sources. Therefore, there was no point in sending Israel’s envoys back to the Egyptian capital for negotiations on a durable ceasefire, because they would be coming on a fool’s errand.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cancelled their departure, after understanding the import of the message: The Egyptian ceasefire initiative proposed by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi had nowhere to go, until Israel’s armed forces clobbered Hamas’ military wing, Ezz e-Din Al-Qassam, into submission.
After their price for a ceasefire was rejected, Hamas and Islamic Jihad considered dropping out of the negotiating track. But meanwhile, on Friday, Aug. 8, they went back at their old practice of shooting rockets at the Israeli population, while also reserving the option to ramp the barrage up or down as it suited their plans.
By Sunday morning, Aug. 10, the short 72-hour respite for southern Israeli was over and the diplomatic impasse in Cairo had evolved into a diplomatic void.
From the first week of the IDF ground operation in the Gaza Strip, Israel’s leaders had been groping for a way out of the hostilities. Half a dozen ceasefires were declared – and violated by Hamas, who viewed the effort as a sign of Israeli weakness.
The prime minister and defense minister Moshe Ya’alon had counted on the 72-hour ceasefire, which expired Friday morning, providing Hamas commanders with a chance to come out of their bunker hidey-holes and view the devastation on the Gaza Strip surface. They would then be shocked into throwing in the towel – or so it was hoped.
But instead, Hamas commanders immediately seized on the ruins as an opportunity to parade the Palestinians of Gaza to the world as victims of “Zionist” inhumanity, of which they hands were entirely clean.
By now, Netanyahu and Ya’alon appear to be stumped for a policy.
All their military and political maneuvers, including their decision to limit the IDF ground incursion in the Gaza Strip last month to a depth of no more than one kilometer, failed to wrest the tactical initiative of the war from Hamas or bring harm to its military wing.
Friday, when Hamas resumed its rocket barrage Friday, it was in good shape, unlike the Gazan population, to embark on a war of attrition and keep it going for weeks, if not months.
The inhabitants of the communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip were cast into a depressing uncertainty. After living under rocket attacks of varying intensity for 14 years, many decided to finally pull up roots, when promises by the prime minister and army leaders, that the bane was finally over and they could live in peace and safety, went out the window.
IDF generals warned Sunday morning of the dangers to the Gaza communities of a protracted period of indecision. They recalled the situation on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War, when the army stood ready, day after day, to rebuff Arab aggressors around its borders, while the late Prime Minister Levi Eshkol dithered and the Chief of Staff, the late Yitzhak Rabin, couldn’t take the suspense.
Today, too, IDF divisions stand at their staging posts, ready and willing – just as soon as they get the order – to drive deep into the Gaza Strip and finally dislodge the fundamentalist Palestinian orchestrators of the senseless violence emanating for so many years from this sliver of territory.
If this order goes out, then, perhaps, Egypt may find Hamas more amenable to negotiating some sort of durable cessation of hostilities and an end to the destruction.
WarSclerotic 
August 10, 2014 at 11:56 AM
Article Thirteen: Peaceful Solutions, [Peace] Initiatives and International Conferences
[Peace] initiatives, the so-called peaceful solutions, and the international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion; the nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its faith, the movement educates its members to adhere to its principles and to raise the banner of Allah over their homeland as they fight their Jihad: “Allah is the all-powerful, but most people are not aware.” From time to time a clamoring is voiced, to hold an International Conference in search for a solution to the problem. Some accept the idea, others reject it, for one reason or another, demanding the implementation of this or that condition, as a prerequisite for agreeing to convene the Conference or for participating in it. But the Islamic Resistance Movement, which is aware of the [prospective] parties to this conference, and of their past and present positions towards the problems of the Muslims, does not believe that those conferences are capable of responding to demands, or of restoring rights or doing justice to the oppressed. Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the nonbelievers as arbitrators in the lands of Islam. Since when did the Unbelievers do justice to the Believers? “And the Jews will not be pleased with thee, nor will the Christians, till thou follow their creed. Say: Lo! the guidance of Allah [himself] is the Guidance. And if you should follow their desires after the knowledge which has come unto thee, then you would have from Allah no protecting friend nor helper.” Sura 2 (the Cow), verse 120 There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility. The Palestinian people are too noble to have their future, their right and their destiny submitted to a vain game. As the hadith has it: “The people of Syria are Allah’s whip on this land; He takes revenge by their intermediary from whoever he wished among his worshipers. The Hypocrites among them are forbidden from vanquishing the true believers, and they will die in anxiety and sorrow.” (Told by Tabarani, who is traceable in ascending order of traditionaries to Muhammad, and by Ahmed whose chain of transmission is incomplete. But it is bound to be a true hadith, for both story tellers are reliable. Allah knows best.)
August 10, 2014 at 12:04 PM
Still believing in a negotiated long term peace ?
You still not believe them if they tell you the world belongs to the islaam ?
August 10, 2014 at 12:19 PM
H . Clinton
She also stressed that she “would not put Hamas in the category of people we could work with. I don’t think that is realistic because its whole reason for being is resistance against Israel, destruction of Israel, and it is married to very nasty tactics and ideologies, including virulent anti-Semitism. I do not think they should be in any way treated as a legitimate interlocutor, especially because if you do that, it redounds to the disadvantage of the Palestinian Authority, which has a lot of problems, but historically has changed its charter, moved away from the kind of guerrilla resistance movement of previous decades.
August 10, 2014 at 1:29 PM
Before Israel destroys Hamas it must take their trump card away. Therefore, a major effort must be made by Israel and Egypt to move all civilian men, women and children who desire to leave the combat zone, which is urban areas of Gaza. Anyone who wishes to stay near a Hamas fighter is a target. Israel has excellent communication with the people of Gaza, use these channels to get them out of the combat zone. Isolate the Hamas military wing and then destroy them.
The enemy and their western useful idiot allies are running an effective public relations campaign based on the damage to the Gazan civilian population. Take this away from them.
Despite the fact that we have soldiers standing around, time is on our side. Equipment must be replenished and maintained,meanwhile the Gazan morale drops because of their living conditions.
After Hamas is destroyed Egypt will have the opportunity to form a Gazan government that will have a different attitude towards Israel.
August 10, 2014 at 2:35 PM
Perfect but realize 50 % at minimum will stay !
August 10, 2014 at 3:34 PM
The case will be made that those who stay behind are combatants. Those men that still keep their women and children in a combat zone after the evacuation are criminals.
August 10, 2014 at 3:58 PM
Hamas must be beaten to bend…..you mean Israel would actually have to fight this war the old fashioned way?
August 10, 2014 at 4:46 PM
Well, uhmmm, YEP, with a post modern approach you will accomplish nothing !
It shows of no intellect to keep speaking a language that the other do not understand while you are able to speak his languages !
August 10, 2014 at 6:36 PM
I’m afraid I once again wanted to believe that Israel’s Churchill had arrived. Once again however, Netanyahu proved he was not.
Hamas and Hezbollah have superior tactics than Israel.
1. Hiding behind people works for them. If they were to meet Israel in traditional warfare they’d be destroyed. Israel holds back every time fearing international condemnation for killing to many civilians.
Unlike Israel, Hamas get precious little condemnation for their tactics.
Israel can never win and radical Islam will never compromise.
2. Israel can no longer exist hiding behind walls, their enemies will simply come over and under them,
Times of quiet for Israel is simply time for perpetration for its enemies. Their strategy, make life so uncomfortable for Israel that Israel’s will fear to go back to their homes. Already happening.
All of Hamas and Hezbollah’s preparations happened under Netanyahu’s watch. All the while Iran is moving head long for nukes.
This current trend ends in Israel’s destruction.
If the Israel government does not have the stomach to do what must be done, I strongly suggest that Israel’s begin the movement back to Europe or the States.
August 10, 2014 at 6:56 PM
I understand you completely , but perhaps there will be some surprises in the next coming days and weeks !
August 10, 2014 at 7:11 PM
Unless Israel can change the direction of events (drain the swamps) I see only a bad outcome for Israel.
August 10, 2014 at 7:18 PM
Me to !