The coward is taking off on monday. Do not expect any response this coming weekend, nor the next or the week after. hamas is the player dictating the rules. I suspect this government stole the petty cash and left the army short of bullets. Good Shabbat all.

Neither side really wants the truce to end, so they should stop the nonsense and start negotiating. Hamas acceptance of '67 borders is a de facto recognition of Israel. If Israel and Hamas could get over their egos and work on opening the borders and prisoner release and free shalit I have a feeling that "calm" would prevail over more killing. Israel does not want to do that because it will give legitimacy to Hamas and they are still stuck into thinking that Hamas can be weakened or destroyed. Hamas talks tought but they havent really done much to help gaza since the takeover. If Israel invades Gaza, it will lose a few soldiers, Hamas will lose a few hundred of its fighters, maybe a few of its leaders and the people of Gaza will suffer the most. But it wont change the status quo-shalit wont be freed, and Israel/Hamas will be back to square one. Rockets will still rain down on Sderot and Askelon, and the siege wont be lifted. If Hamas is defeated and Fatah is re-installed it will lose more credibility with its people. So rather than playing a deadly game of chicken-the two sides should cut through the chase and sit down and talk peace.

What you describe is the sheer madness of restarting this cycle of violence. It satisfies the blood lust of those criminal morons in Gaza and perpetuates the stranglehold of Gaza by Israel. And the majority of Palestinians and Israelis who demand a peaceful coexistence of two nation states are the very people who are sidelined and who suffer. The tragedy Ali is that most Gazans will tell you that this return to violence is not instigated by Haniyeh who sees the suffering of ordinary Gazans everyday. To some extent he is impotent. Its Mashaal and Ahmadinejad who control our futures in Gaza. Its a situation thats absolutely intolerable.

Hamas has omitted any reference to the destruction of Israel in its election manifesto ( January 2006), calling for "the establishment of an independent state whose capital is Jerusalem". Furthermore , Hamas leader Khaled Mashal reaffirmed this stance ( 2006 & 2008 ) by declaring that Hamas would stop armed struggle against Israel if it recognised the 1967 borders , and the Palestinians' "right of return" to the land from which they were dispossessed by Israel in 1948. The Israeli Government ,however, declined any offer of negotiations by Hamas, and broke the holding truce in Gaza Strip by assassinating recently ten Hamas members , while tightening further its blockade of Gaza Strip. In his latest statement, the UN human Rights Special Rapporteur - Robert Falk- called on the United Nations to make an "urgent effort to implement the agreed norm of a responsibility to protect a civilian population being collectively punished by policies that amount to a crime Against humanity"

Richard ' Hamas has omitted any reference to the destruction of Israel in its election manifesto ( January 2006), calling for "the establishment of an independent state whose capital is Jerusalem". ' Sammy 'And the majority of Palestinians and Israelis who demand a peaceful coexistence of two nation states are the very people who are sidelined and who suffer. ' Ali 'Hamas acceptance of '67 borders is a de facto recognition of Israel. If Israel and Hamas could get over their egos and work on opening the borders and prisoner release and free shalit I have a feeling that "calm" would prevail over more killing. ' All total idiots and liars. The vast majority of Arabs want to kill all the Jews and have said so repeatedly. Hamas has changed not one iota. There never was a lull or cease-fire, because the Arabs violated hundreds of times. And there never will be one because they have never fulfilled a single obligation nor will they.

First, the mission of the Free Gaza Movement to break the Israeli siege proved a success beyond all expectations. By reaching Gaza and leaving it has created a free and regular channel between Gaza and the outside world. It has done so because it has forced the Israeli government to make a clear policy declaration: that it is not occupying Gaza and therefore will not prevent the free movement of Palestinians in and out (at least by sea). (Israel’s security concerns can easily be accommodated by instituting a technical system of checks similar to those of other ports.) Any attempt on the part of Israel to backtrack on this – by preventing ships in the future from entering or leaving Gaza with goods and passengers, including Palestinians – may be immediately interpreted as an assertion of control, and therefore of Occupation, opening Israel to accountability for war crimes before international law, something Israel tries to avoid at all costs. Gone is the obfuscation that has allowed Israel to maintain its control of the Occupied Territories without assuming any responsibility: from now on, Israel is either an Occupying Power accountable for its actions and policies, or Palestinians have every right to enjoy their human right of travelling freely in and out of their country. Israel can no longer have it both ways. Not only did the two little boats force the Israel military and government to give way, then, they also changed fundamentally the status of Israel’s control of Gaza.

Nowhere in the many interviews and articles and TBs is there a genuine curiosity about what life is like in Gaza. No one is interested in a different perspective, especially if it challenges their cherished slogans. No one going beyond the old, tired slogans. Plenty of reference, though, to terrorism, Qassam missiles and Palestinian snubbing our valiant efforts to make peace; none whatsoever to occupation, house demolitions, siege, land expropriation or settlement expansion, not to mention the killing, imprisoning and impoverishment of their civilian population. As if Israel had nothing to do with the conflict, as if Israel were just living a normal, innocent life and bad people decided to throw Qassam rockets. Above all, no sense of Israel's responsibility, or any willingness to accept responsibility for the ongoing violence and conflict. Instead just a thoughtless, automatic appeal to an image of Gaza and “Arabs” (you don't generally use the term “Palestinians”) that is diametrically opposed to what is seen and experienced, a slavish repeating of mindless (and wrong) slogans which serve only to eliminate any possibility of truly grasping the situation. In short, a fantasy Gaza as perceived from within a bubble carefully constructed so as to deflect any uncomfortable reality.