Who does Isreal negotiate a ceasfire with? Hezzbollah, Hamas, Fatah or other?

"Senior Fatah sources said at the weekend that Hamas and other militant Palestinian factions had agreed to unilaterally stop firing rockets into Israel as the first stage of a process leading to the release of prisoners by both sides and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. The ceasefire was to have gone into effect at midnight on Saturday but three rockets were fired into Israel yesterday morning after several militant factions said they did not accept a ceasefire."
and

"The head of the Hamas faction in the Palestinian parliament, Salah al-Bardiwil, said yesterday that Hamas had no intention of linking negotiations for the release of Corporal Shalit with the release by Hezbollah of the two Israeli soldiers it is holding."

http://weekbyweek7.blogspot.com/

Yes, the similarities are somewhat eerie are they not?

It is interesting to note however the effect that the 1967 engagement had on the region. It led directly to the 1973 yom kippur war, but more than that, it in turn led to peace. The reason for which was the acceptance, by both Egypt & Jordan that the race wasn't worth the carrot. In the predominantly militant, overtly masculine dominated society that exists in the region, common sense regularly takes a backseat to rhetoric and the desire to demonstrate martial prowess.

Consequently, many Arabs/Persians find it particularly difficult to accept that they (& their nation) are incapable of defeating Israel militarily. However, the benefit of 1967 (& the consequential 1973) fiasco, which demonstrated only too well Arab military prowess, was to force Egypt & Jordan to come to terms with this unpalatable realisation. This is the only platform upon which a meaningful peace has been built in the region, and there is no good reason to believe that any other approach will work.

Fortunately, Israel can and will defeat both Hizbollah and HAMAS, and has also demonstrated their willingness to play 'hard-ball' in order to do so. Perhaps this current crisis may also lead to peace, god knows that unilateral disengagement did not.

Inshallah

2bob

Another propaganda piece recycled from that Zionist propaganda sheet, The Australian.

"The hostilities in Lebanon and Israel": Note the absence of Israeli agency here- half a million Lebanese displaced, 400 killed & climbing, Lebanon shredded etc etc and its all just "hostilities in Lebanon."

"Watershed moment...shape regional relationships...transform global politics": The Israeli agenda coming through: First Lebanon, then on to Syria & Iran. Imperial Israel on the march to establish regional hegemony.

Note the use of Nasser, the 50s-60s version of Osama bin Laden, to suggest non-existant threat to Israel ("In June 1967 we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." Begin, NYT 21/9/82)

Note how in Zionist propaganda Nasser/Egypt morphs into Ahmedinajad/Iran, another non-existant threat to Israel. In this paranoid perspective Arab/Muslim leaders, one after another, become reincarnations of Hitler just itching to carry out Holocaust Mark 2. And all that the historical record shows us is that Israel gets bigger and bigger, and more and more aggressive.

Iran is about to "develop a nuclear weapons capability": no proof, just more Israeli/US WMD propaganda. "Iran's defiance of its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations to submit to...the monitoring...requirements of the IAEA": as Conrad might have said if he were writing an Israeli version of the Heart of Darkness - The hypocrisy, the hypocrisy! Israel, with 200-400 nukes, recognises no such constraints.

Here's a question...

Would Israel invade or build settlements in neighbouring countries if Iran had nuclear weapons?

What a well written expose - a pity some like Strewth comes forward with hollow recycled rhetoric. Whatever way one looks at the situation, Israel has played a tough but fair game. The rules were declared and the players (Hezbollah and Hamas) knew what the outcomes would be.

This is a powerplay and should be seen as the old guard in Iran attempting to reestablish a hegemony in the region against a tide for reform and liberation. I have recently been to Iran and one comes back with a clear picture of an oppressed people suffering from the legacy of welcoming Khomenei to replace the Pahlavis back in 1979. Their Guardian Council and controlled media ("your have freedom of speech here until you speak" said one Iranian), retains the mullahs against the wishes of the wider population.

With Lebanon, Israel is simply fighting the hopefully dying gasps of the Shiite regime in Tehran. People like Strewth using labels of "Zionism" or "nazism" are the latter day Quixotes - out of touch tilting at their windmills.

Remco, Are you perhaps too embarrassed to admit you're a Zionist? I must say I'm immensely encouraged by the fact that most of the Zionist cheersquad that flock to post on OLO shy away from the word. Now why might that be?

Hezboi (aka Strewth),

The race is run, although you fought valiantly the Fates were not with you this time. Events have moved on and you have lost.

They pay no heed to the obvious correctness of your positions anymore, the filthy Zionist swines and ingrates. A minor quibble, that exclamation key is to be avoided (like the plague) if you wish to maintain your position among the cognoscenti. Surely you can appreciate this, labouring as you do under the weight of that superior intellect? However, even the rubes can tell that this is not the reason for the bedraggled stoop and ambling gait. No, the unmistakable stench of defeat hangs about you now. It is too late. The time to strap on that suicide vest and finish the battle honourably is upon you old boy.

Face it like a man! Wont you?

This messy argument rides on the back of a colonial attitude, whose caveat of respecting existing people was ignored, the boundaries expanded and the refugees ignored.
Israel in an area not easily defended, claimed the need for security such to be achieved by territorial expansion and acceptance of the Palestinians by the Arab nations. Needless to say the Palestinians were peeved and then as now various important people started playing geopolitics. This for the good of the people for democracy one might say.

Similarly the present dispute seems likely to be ‘resolved’ ignoring this fact.

As with Iraq the fear is edged up by the proposition Iran has or wants nuclear weapons. Maybe some one has definite information or maybe the litany of deceit simply extends.
Foreign policies? The rule of might?

Meanwhile Iran must desist from nuclear efforts even if directed at energy production contrary to NFP treaty, must not supply arms or help to Lebanon. The Israeli make their own!
Not so when the Shah reigned, even help freely offered for nuclear ambitions, but like Sddam once was he was ours!.
The new Colonial world meanwhile can ignore non proliferation proceed with development of smaller Nuclear battle field weapons, rearrange the Middle East to its own honest, as honest as many Governments of the area our foreign policy progeny, likings and pretend moral certainty.
Even go to Church on Sunday, cognitive dissonance fuelled by dishonest ignorant self serving definition of terrorism.

Why should The Lebanon be forced to harbour a private army of thugs like hezbollah? These maniacs haven't crawled down from the trees yet but they really should choose something other than the Cedars to hide in.

In an ideal world, no one would ever stoop to mimic terrorists by bombing but instead arrest them, place them before a court and imprison them. But these are pathological religious bigots that hide amongst families, set off bombs and invent obscene mythologies of "martyrdom". If you did it over here you'd be a coward, a racist, a sexist, a religious loonie and, best of all, an inmate. If you do it there you're a 'hero'. We have distance from damaged goods like hezbollah, the Israelis have bomb shelters.

Iran's administration is also appalling. It's president says (shia) muslims are "persecuted" yet he also wants to wipe israel "off the map" because it's a "tumour". What rubbish. He says that america shows no respect for other nations, yet he advocates another holocaust, and funds homicide in foreign countries every day.

Ahmedinejad couldn't recognise hypocrisy if it headbutted him. He certainly couldn't care less about the Palestinians. If he nukes Israel(he has recently said "a big storm" is coming to the region) he KNOWS that it would destroy the palestinian territories. But he and his mullahs don't care, palestinians are still handy little "martyrs" to his bizarre genocidal cause.

And nuclear Iranians aside, it is rude enough that the Syrian government today still does not officially recognise Lebanon's government, it is utterly disgusting that it actively plots against it. Thanks to crusaders like the dreadful and illegitimate hezbollah, the region is the Sadr not the wiser.

Strewth

Why do you assume that everyone who supports Israel is a Zionist?

Perhaps suicide bombing of 3000 New Yorkers 100 Australians in Bali and huge numbers blown up trains in London Madrid and now Mumbai has made just a few people distrustful of some Islamic groups.

You cannot blame Israel or Zionists for any of the above, although I suspect that you will try.

Strewth,

Thank god not everyone is fooled by the Israeli media machine.

keith,

I couldn't agree more. Even though I agree with Strewth and think the whole Iran nuclear issue is more Israeli hysteria, if the Iranians did ever declare they had a nuclear bomb it would be a great day for peace in the Middle East.

After all those years of Israel being asked to make concessions that were 'too painful', 'too hard' and completely 'impossible', suddenly they would be possible and there would be peace.

I guess in a way the best result for the region and the world would be if the usual Israeli hysteria actually turned out to be true. But unfortunately for us (and the hundreds of Arab civilians destined to be slaughtered by Israeli 'precision' bombs) it's just hard to believe anything the Israelis say.

To Strewth and those blind to the fact that behind it all are the mullahs and clerics under pressure from a more liberal world. Israel is hardly exclusivist, with mosques operating in the cities (with speakers blairing the call to prayer at 5am). Arabs are in government and are even exempted from military service if they choose. But Israel feels lonely and justifiably so....

At the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem there are extracts of official responses to the refugee (and extermination camps) problem of WWII that underpins the Israeli perception. Reflect on this before commenting on Australia’s response to taking in Jewish refugees .
At an international conference to consider refugees, Australia’s response to taking in Jewish refugees (to save them from the Holocaust) was: “We don’t have a racial problem and we don’t want to import one.” Hmmm, no wonder the Israelis feel and act isolated.

Nietzsche, the philosopher summed it up nicely....

”The whole problem of the Jews exists only in nation states, for here their energy and higher intelligence, their accumulated capital of spirit and will, gathered from generation though long schooling in suffering, much become so preponderant as to arouse mass envy and hatred. In all contemporary nations, therefore – in direct proportion to the degree to which they act up nationalistically – the literary obscenity is spreading of leading the Jews to slaughter of every conceivable public and internal misfortune

I wonder if would be possible to reinstate Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He had a lot of failings and not a nice regular sort of guy but he was able to keep the lid in Iran and the Shiites. The Bath party and the Sunni’s were not great but they were a hell of an improvement of what we seem to have now; a nuclear armed Iran and a host of wild eyed Shiites with frothing mouths intent on cleansing the world with a nuclear firestick.
The prospect of Hezbollah, Hamas and all the other crazed groups being issued with nuclear weapons and nuclear material is scary.

Strewth and Eel

You didn't blame Israel or Zionists after all for the suicide bombing of 3000 New Yorkers, 100 Australians in Bali, and huge numbers blown up trains in London Madrid and now Mumbai after all. You seem to claim that it was all an invention of the Israeli media machine. Are you saying that it never happened that the photographs were all fake, or that somenone else did it? If so who?

And what makes the Israeli media machine so powerful? Has Rupert Murdoch suddenty become Jewish?

I have come to the view that Gods curious experiment with us has run its race - he or she should put us out of our misery -

the joke's over Jesus - you've had your chuckles - you've got the whole world trying to scratch each other eyes out over you and your message and that of your prophets.

The cruelest joke is being played out around your old 'hood - and no one is laughing any more.

I for one would not notice or care any longer if the warring factions in the middle east simply disappeared in a collective puff of pink mist.

As I said God should intervene and say -

you've had nearly sixty years to work out a way to live in peace - you've got a one more year to lift your collective game or you forfeit your life to live at all - then make it rain - I mean he's done it before -

Sodom and Gomorrah has nothing on what the Israelis and the Arabs have been doing with equal alacrity for the best part of six decades - that is a really long time to behave like dick heads and some one needs to put a stop to it

davros? Does this mean you're crossing me off your Xmas card list?

Remco: "behind it all are the mullahs and clerics": Conspiracy fashions - Chic new Muslim conspiracy replaces fusty old Jewish conspiracy. Be sure to check under your bed before turning out the light, now.

SILLE: Love the name, but isn't it spelt 'silly'?

Dear old illogic: Bali/Madrid/Mumbai/Hamas/Osama/Hezbollah/Ahmedinijad/Arafat/Nasser etc etc It's all just one amorphous mega conspiracy, isn't it? Praise Jehovah and pass the cluster bomb.

It a competition of mythologies - who's myth is superior to the other; tied up with powerplays with people disguised as acting for their god.

I urge anyone who is against Israel to go there. To feel the place, the people and get a perspective from a land surrounded by enemies and the sea with a history of victimisation.

I was a sympathetic to the arabs, but now see only islamic power plays - mullahs and clerics struggling to legitimise themselves among beautiful people who go to their mosques to be fed politics.

• Sly Logic ..."Has Rupert Murdoch suddenty become Jewish"? Well, he actually never ceased to be Jew, in the first place! However a vision impaired dill-flock, seems to be lacking the common-sense-logic in addition to the tendency to shoot themselves in the foot. Was it due to the deep rooted malignancy afflicted minds or the enslaved by own intellect of ignorance consequences? Pertaining to people who know not what they are unable to know, yet toying at collecting items of the ignorant intellect. Ever expanding the darkness of their cave!

For an eye opener proceed to ... http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4632#46251

All of these "Al Quaeda" and "Islamo-fascist" attacks need to be seriously re-examined because Israel seems to have a history of staging terrorism and then blaming it on other parties. (Mossad's motto: "By the way of deception thou shalt do war")
Christopher Bollyn, a reporter of the American Free Press is certainly among those who have been doing a deep investigation into 9/11, and he -like many others- has found strong connections between this attack and zionists like Larry Silverstein (WTC landlord) and Ehud Olmert, to menction a few. Interestingly enough, just two days ago, Bollyn was ABUSED by cops in his Chicago neigborhood in front of his family for no reason. He believes this has to do with his reports on 9-11. Source: http://www.iamthewitness.com/Bollyn_abused_by_Zionist_Gang.html