US, Israel sign anti-smuggling deal

The United States and Israel signed an agreement Friday intended to assure that Hamas militants will not be able to rearm if the Jewish state agrees to a Gaza cease-fire.

In front of an array of reporters and camera crews, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and visiting Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni signed the “memorandum of understanding” at the State Department.

Livni said it could advance Israeli decision-making on the future of its offensive operations in Gaza. She added that it was meant “to complement Egyptian actions and to end of the flow of weapons to Gaza.”

Under an Egyptian cease-fire proposal, fighting would stop immediately for 10 days, but Israeli forces would remain in place in Gaza and the border crossings into the territory would remain closed until security arrangements are made for the crossings.

Rice said Israel couldn’t be expected to live under such dangerous conditions. The secretary of state added that Hamas was also responsible for the deterioration in Gazans’ living situation, referring to the organization’s hostile takeover of the Strip in 2007.

In her earlier remarks, Rice said the deal “should be thought of as one of the elements of trying to bring into being a durable cease-fire, a cease-fire that can actually hold.”

“As you know, there are a number of conditions that need to be obtained if a cease-fire is to be durable. … And among them is to do something about the weapons smuggling and the potential for resupply of Hamas from other places, including from Iran,” Rice said before the signing ceremony.

“This we see as part of a broader international effort on the information sharing” on how to deal with weapons shipments,” she said.

Rice’s chief spokesman, Sean McCormack, said the memorandum is about two and a half pages and is “a very general framework, underpinned by a number of understandings.”

Among the understandings, he said, is a US commitment of “resources, wherewithal and technology necessary in order to fulfill our part of the bargain. The essential element of this is to inhibit the ability of Hamas to rearm. This is an enabling condition to get to a cease-fire.”

Source: YnetNews

Filed under: MidEast, Condoleezza Rice, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, IAF, IDF, Iran, Israel, Kassam Rockets, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal, Tzipi Livni

Who are Hamas

Hamas takes its name from the Arabic initials for the Islamic Resistance Movement.

Branded a terrorist organisation by Israel, the US and the EU, it is seen by its supporters as a legitimate fighting force defending Palestinians from a brutal military occupation.

It is the largest Palestinian militant Islamist organisation, formed in 1987 at the beginning of the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israel’s occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.

The group’s short-term aim has been to drive Israeli forces from the occupied territories. To achieve this it has launched attacks on Israeli troops and settlers in the Palestinian territories and against civilians in Israel.

It also has a long-term aim of establishing an Islamic state on all of historic Palestine – most of which has been contained within Israel’s borders since its creation in 1948.

For years the organisation was divided into two main spheres of operation:

* social programmes like building schools, hospitals and religious institutions
* militant operations carried out by Hamas’ underground Iss al-Din Qassam Brigades.

But it became increasingly involved in Palestinian factional politics, both in the occupied territories and with a political branch in exile.

One of its leaders-in-exile, Khalid Meshaal, was the target of a bungled Israeli assassination attempt in Jordan in 1997.

King Hussein was outraged by Israel’s action and was only placated when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu released Hamas’s jailed spiritual leader and founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

While King Hussein tolerated Hamas’s presence, his successor King Abdullah II had the group’s headquarters closed down and senior figures expelled to Qatar.

Hamas has remained outside the main Palestinian political structure of the PLO, but it took part in – and won – Palestinian Authority (PA) legislative elections in the occupied territories in 2006.

Source: BBC News

Filed under: Think Tank, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, IAF, IDF, Iran, Israel, Kassam Rockets, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal

Israel’s Stunning Geopolitical Victory in Gaza

Eighteen days and a thousand Palestinian deaths into its massive Gaza campaign, Israel has yet to suffer a single significant geopolitical casualty.

In fact, despite the international outcry in the press and in the streets against its military offensive, Israel has scored a stunning geopolitical victory in Gaza.

The reaction of world governments (as distinct from world media and public opinion) has been surprisingly supportive (albeit mostly tacitly) of Israel and its aim of destroying Hamas, even at the cost of hundreds (or more) of innocent Palestinian lives.

To no one’s surprise, the United States Congress, the Bush administration, and the incoming Obama administration have all gone on the record in support of Israel’s war in Gaza and continue to green light its escalation.

More surprising is the position of the European states and Russia, which have endorsed a United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolution and a joint French-Egyptian mediation effort whose terms would meet Israel’s goal of disarming Hamas and crippling its ability to rule Gaza.

Venezuela, the one country that responded to Israel’s actions in Gaza by expelling the Israeli ambassador, has now told Israel that it did not intend to break off diplomatic relations with Israel and asked that Israel reopen its embassy.

Most surprising is the position of the majority of the Arab states, which have also endorsed the U.N. cease-fire resolution and the French-Egyptian mediation effort.

Even Iran and Syria – the two countries that have been Israel’s fiercest opponents and the strongest and most crucial supporters of Hamas – have toned down their rhetoric and taken actions that at least tacitly accept Israel’s Gaza campaign.

Iran has publicly announced that it will not permit suicide bombers to attack Israeli targets from Iran and less publicly, but more significantly, told Hezbollah to stop its missile attacks on Israel from Lebanon.

Source: The Moving Target

Filed under: Analysis, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, IAF, IDF, Iran, Israel, Kassam Rockets, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal

Key to Israeli exit from Gaza

A meeting of the “troika” on Wednesday dealt with preparations for a visit to Cairo by senior Defense Ministry official Amos Gilad, as well as formulating a position that he will present to his Egyptian interlocutors. Upon his return from Cairo, the troika will reconvene to hear his report and to decide whether Israel will accept the Egyptian initiative for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, thus concluding Operation Cast Lead. Israel refrained from issuing a direct response to Hamas’ announcement on Wednesday that it is accepting the initiative. However, implicit in the decision to dispatch Gilad to Cairo is Israel’s approval of the Egyptian proposal, even if that approval is conditional.

The dissension among the leadership in Jerusalem burst to the fore after Wednesday editions of Haaretz hit newstands with its lead story detailing Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s initiative for a cease-fire. The article predictably aroused the fury of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni are adhering to their view that the operation has continued for too long. Olmert, meanwhile, remains steadfast. He believes the operation mustn’t be stopped before the objectives have been realized. Faced with assessments offered by Barak and the army which state that the objectives have already been achieved, Olmert is leaning on the head of the Shin Bet security service, Yuval Diskin, and Mossad chief Meir Dagan, both of whom gave backing to the prime minister in his decision to continue.

On Wednesday, Olmert, Livni, and Barak presented a united front in declaring that they are eagerly awaiting the explanations Gilad is to receive from Egyptian officials. Meanwhile, Livni is negotiating with the American administration via the foreign ministry director-general, Aharon Abramowitz, on an agreement that would tighten intelligence cooperation aimed at stifling weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip.

Source: Haaretz

Filed under: Analysis, Egypt, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, IAF, IDF, Israel, Kassam Rockets, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal, U.S.A

Israel generals on scope of war

Even as the United Nations secretary general sets off on a tour of the region, the Israeli military has been launching raids ever deeper into Gaza City.

But is this gradual expansion of the ground operation merely intended to speed the work of the diplomats, or is there a precise military goal in mind?

Yaakov Amidror, a former major general in military intelligence, believes Israel should go into Gaza as decisively as it went into the West Bank during the second intifada.

“To conquer Gaza,” he says, “to clean it of military capabilities of Hamas, to put Hamas in a situation where even if they want to attack Israel, they can’t: this is the situation in the West Bank.”

Mr Amidror concedes that few people inside Israel want to put the 1.5 million Palestinians inside Gaza back under full Israeli control.

But he says it would be a feasible and convincing military answer to the question of how to stop the rockets.

Forcing Egypt

Maj Gen Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council, disagrees.

He concedes that a wide military re-occupation of Gaza is certainly an option. But he favours halting operations now, and instead turning the screw on Egypt.

The ideal, he says, would be to stop arms smuggling by forcing Egypt to police a buffer zone five to 10 kilometres (three to seven miles) around Gaza’s south-western border.

And you can get Egypt to act, he says, by squeezing everyone in Gaza even tighter.

His ultimatum would be simple: “We will be ready to open these passages and re-supply all the needs of Gaza only when we see a reasonable solution to the security on the border between Egypt and Gaza.”

Most of the talk so far, particularly among Israel’s politicians, has been about ending the rocket attacks and preventing arms smuggling.

Source: BBC News

Filed under: Analysis, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, IAF, IDF, Iran, Israel, Kassam Rockets, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal

It is not feasible for Israel to live – Iran

Ahmadinejad says Gaza op ‘has been great lesson for all, showing absolute defeat of Zionist regime’

Iran’s president says the fighting in Gaza between Hamas and Israel has shown that it is “not feasible” for what he calls Israel’s “Zionist regime” to continue to live in the region.

During a press conference Thursday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the fighting in Gaza has been “a great lesson for all,” and that it shows “the absolute defeat and desperation of this (Israeli) regime.”

He added that “even for the supporters of the occupying regime and its leaders, it has become clear that the continuation of the Zionist regime’s life in the region is not feasible.”

Ahmadinejad also spoke regarding the new US administration, and said it must change Washington’s approach to the Islamic Republic, which is embroiled in a row with the United States over its nuclear program.

Asked about President-elect Barack Obama, who has promised to engage more with Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told reporters: “Any administration in America that takes office should at least make two changes in its behavior, the first change is in the field of America’s interference … The circle of interference should be limited to within American borders.”

“The second change is the approach of the American government towards Iran,” he said. “If there are real and fundamental changes I think it would be welcomed by nations.”

“But, if the previous behavior continues with a change of tactic and in a new package, the trend of the world’s affairs will stay on the past trend,” Ahmadinejad added.

Obama, who takes office on January 20, has said he views Iran as a “genuine threat” but still favors initiating a dialogue.

Ahmadinejad said Iran would wait and see what the new administration’s approach would be. “We do not want to have a prejudgment. We will wait and we have a lot of patience,” he said.

Source: YnetNews

Filed under: MidEast, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, IAF, IDF, Iran, Israel, Kassam Rockets, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal

Hamas resistance goes on – Mashaal

Hamas politburo chief speaks before Arab leaders in Qatar, says organization will continue resistance until Israel withdraws troops, opens crossings, and ‘stops its aggression’; Assad calls Arab peace initiative with Israel ‘dead’

Hamas’s top political chief rejected Israel’s conditions for a Gaza cease-fire and demanded an immediate opening of the besieged territory’s borders, taking a tough line Friday as he asked Arab countries to back him by cutting off any ties with Israel.

Mashaal sought Arab support in a strongly worded address to the summit, insisting Hamas cannot stop fighting until border crossings into the Gaza Strip are opened.

“We will not accept Israel’s conditions for a cease-fire,” Mashaal told the summit. He said Hamas demands that “the aggression stop,” Israeli troops withdraw and crossings into Gaza be opened immediately.

Mashaal insisted that Israel was to blame for the offensive in Gaza, and said that “the enemy turned to the murder of civilians and the destruction after it failed before the resistance.”

He promised residents of the Strip that “the Israeli aggression” would collapse before their “will and determination.”

Mashaal said Hamas refused to renew a 6-month-old truce with Israel that ran out in December because the period of relative calm had not led to an end to the blockade of Gaza.

“Did we do wrong, by rejecting a truce that let the blockade continue?” Mashaal said. “Don’t the people of Gaza deserve to live free? … They want to live free without blockade or occupation, just like all the Palestinian people do.”

He said Israel wanted to impose their policies in the Strip and that the “resistance organizations” were the only barrier between these policies and the residents.

“Please listen to the voice of the resistance,” he said. “Don’t think that Hamas wants an open war. We are defending our people.” Mashaal asked Arab countries to boycott Israel and cut off any ties with it.

Source: YnetNews

Filed under: MidEast, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, IAF, IDF, Iran, Israel, Kassam Rockets, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal

Mumbai accused can be tried in Pakistan – India

The accused in the Mumbai attacks could be tried and punished in Pakistan, India’s foreign minister has told a news channel, marking a climbdown in New Delhi’s demand that Islamabad hand over the militants.

“Yes, this can happen,” Pranab Mukherjee told the India Today group in a television interview when asked if India would agree to a trial of the accused in Pakistan, according to a transcript released by the group.

“The authorities there should not let them go scot-free. A fair trial should be held, not mock ones. The prosecution should be done properly. They should be caught and tried there.”

Mukherjee’s comments came earlier this week, after Britain’s Foreign Secretary said the Pakistani state was not linked to the Mumbai attacks and he showed no support for India’s demand for extradition of the accused.

Tensions have flared between the nuclear-armed neighbors since the attacks, which India blamed on Pakistani militants backed by some official agencies there.

India went into diplomatic overdrive to gain support for its case after the November attacks that killed 179 people, but some of its western allies such as the United States and Britain expressed doubts New Delhi had enough evidence to implicate the Pakistani state.

“We will be glad if they hand them over to us,” Mukherjee said, referring to the accused in the Mumbai raids.

“But if they don’t, at least they should hand over those other criminals who have committed offences here and escaped the law and taken shelter there,” he said, referring to 40 people India wants extradited from Pakistan.

“They are obliged to hand over those criminals to us.”

Besides demanding extradition of the accused, India also wants Pakistan to destroy what it says are militant camps.

Source: Reuters

Filed under: Asia, India, ISI, Mumbai, Mumbai 26/11, Mumbai Terror Attacks, Pakistan, Terrorism, The Terror Journal

‘Iran unit’ of Hamas has been destroyed

Palestinian sources reported Thursday that the “Iranian Unit” of Hamas, members of the group’s military wing trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, had been destroyed.

According to the sources, most of the unit’s members were killed in fighting in the Zeytun neighborhood, where they had been deployed by the military leadership of Hamas.

The unit numbered approximately 100 men who had traveled to Iran and Hezbollah camps, mostly in the Beka’a Valley, where they were trained in infantry fighting tactics. The militants were also trained in the use of anti-tank missiles, the detonation of explosives, among other skills.

They managed to return to the Gaza Strip through tunnels in the Rafah border area, although a few also crossed during one of the few times that Egypt agreed to open the border crossing as a gesture of good will to Hamas.

The same sources also noted that Iran is preparing for an end to the fighting, at which point they want to send money to the Gaza Strip in order to assist Hamas in rebuilding destroyed homes – but also restore its military capabilities.

Meanwhile, IDF ground forces began operating Thursday inside Gaza City. The IDF took control of one of the large residential neighborhoods of the city, Tel al-Hawa, that borders the center of the city.

Palestinian sources also reported that IDF forces were operating close to the Hamas “security quarter,” in southwestern Gaza.

The Southern Command has stepped up the offensive operations of the ground forces in anticipation of a cease-fire being declared in the near future.

Senior officers said Thursday that there are probably no more than a few days until the end of the fighting.

Palestinians reported more than 50 dead Thursday during the fighting in the city. The estimated total of Palestinian casualties since the start of the fighting 20 days ago has climbed to 1095 dead and about 5000 wounded.

Source: Haaretz

Filed under: MidEast, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, IAF, IDF, Iran, Israel, Jew, Kassam Rockets, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal

Israel should be barred from UN – Turkish PM

Turkey’s prime minister on Friday said Israel should be barred from the United Nations while it ignores the body’s calls to stop fighting in Gaza.

“How is such a country, which does not implement resolutions of the UN Security Council, allowed to enter through the gates of the UN (headquarters)?” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

Erdogan spoke before UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was set to arrive in Ankara to discuss the conflict.

Erdogan accused Israel of attacking civilians under the pretext of targeting Hamas.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Friday renewed calls for an immediate cease-fire and also urged US President-elect Barack Obama to focus on a comprehensive, long-lasting and fair solution once in office.

Meanwhile, Ban urged Israel to immediately stop the Gaza operation.

“I strongly urge Israeli leadership and government to declare a ceasefire unilaterally,” Ban said in Ramallah. “It’s time to think about a unilateral cease-fire from the Israeli government.”

An Israeli government response was not immediately available.

Source: Jerusalem Post

Filed under: MidEast, Gaza, Gaza strip, Hamas, IAF, IDF, Israel, Jew, Kassam Rockets, Lebanon, Middle East, Operation Cast Lead, Palestine, Palestinian Authority, Qassam Rockets, Terror, Terrorism, The Terror Journal