Thank you for your thoughts ! They made me think.
Day 16: Israel ready for third phase of offensive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLnH1-ODkG0 Peace and best wishes. Xi On Jan 12, 12:55 am, sifors <[email protected]> wrote: > The declaration today by President-elect Obama that the Palestinian > issue would be his top foreign policy priority must have had Israeli > strategists wondering just who is calling the shots in this current > Middle East conflict. Consider the timing of events. The ceasefire > comes to and end and neither side is interested in renewing it. > Israeli politicians know that with an election looming any > conciliatory gesture towards Hamas is political suicide. As for Hamas, > the ceasefire delivered nothing but siege suffering. Both sides are > feeling decidedly confrontational. Moreover, Israel know that the few > weeks before Mr Obama’s inauguration might be their last chance to > strike at Hamas with US support. > > The question is, did Hamas start the conflict as a result of Israel > pushing them to the absolute limits or did they have a longer-term > strategy in mind? Three statements made today suggest the latter. > > Firstly, Mr Obama made a clear reference to ‘breaking the deadlock’ in > the Middle East. Everyone knows that the only way the deadlock can be > broken is if the US take a strong line with Israel and threaten to > curtail military support. Whilst this has been unthinkable in the > past, Israel have just provided Mr Obama with all the moral > justification for taking that hard line. Who said all those > Palestinian children died in vain? > > Secondly, the leader of Hamas declared today that all future > negotiations were off. He even went as far as saying that even peace > offers presented by fellow Arab leaders would not be considered. I > suggest that he was addressing one man only – Mr Obama, and what he > was really saying was unless the US bring Israel firmly to heal and > offer substantive concessions, then peace talks would not begin. Given > that he occupies the moral high ground and currently enjoys popular > international support, he clearly feels entitled to adopt such a hard > line stance. > > Thirdly, the Israeli’s announced today that their military objectives > had almost been achieved and that they were entering the ‘end-game’. > What utter nonsense! Killing 300 easily replaceable Hamas ‘fighters’ > and twice as many civilians cannot be considered a military object of > any worth whatsoever. Israel needed to capture a significant number > (probably in the thousands) of rockets and the means with which to > launch them, to be able to demonstrate to the voting Israeli public > that the campaign has been worthwhile. I suspect the Israel are > resigned to the fact that they are not going to get those rockets in > sufficient numbers before Mr Obama takes office. I further suspect > that Israel may even be realising that by prolonging the campaign, > they are in fact digging their own grave. > > So did Hamas plan it this way? If they did they are pretty smart. If > not, well things may well work out for them in the long run. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "World-thread" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/world-thread?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
