War in Gaza 'entering final act' ahead of Obama inauguration

[tekisui]

Source: Times Online

An end to the war in Gaza appeared close tonight as Israel sought to convert its three-week offensive Hamas into a diplomatic victory that would halt the fighting before Barak Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday as President of the United States.

Two top Israeli negotiators were in Cairo today, hammering out the details of an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement. In Washington. Tzipi Livni, the Israeli Foreign Minister, and Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, signed a separate agreement on ways to stop Hamas re-arming.

“Hopefully we’re in the final act,” said Mark Regev, the Israeli government spokesman. “Diplomacy now is in high gear. We want this to be over as soon as possible.”

After a week of escalating force designed to pile pressure on Hamas, the Israeli military pulled back today. “We have given Hamas a day of quiet to think things over, but if they don’t accept our ceasefire terms our troops are still there,” said a defence official.

more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5532407.ece

[DogPoundPup]

1. Final act: just looking for anything left to kill or destroy...take a walk thru Gaza

http://youngfoxredux.blogspot.com/2009/01/take-walk-through-gaza.html

[tekisui]

2. What US resources did Rice commit to Livni?

I have read technical and intelligence support. What exactly does that mean? How does a deal that should be between Israel, Gaza and Egypt require only Israel and US to sign?

[DogPoundPup]

6. Haaretz yesterday had an outline of the MoU:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055592.html

Israel is asking for a number of guarantees from the Americans:

* A U.S. declaration calling on the international community to deal with the smuggling of arms from Iran to terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip.
* Intelligence cooperation between Israel and the U.S. for identifying the sources of weapons, with focus on the network linking Iran, the Persian Gulf and Sudan.
* An international maritime effort along the smuggling routes to find ships carrying weapons to the Gaza Strip, possibly with the involvement of NATO.
* An American and European commitment for the transfer of technologies to Egypt that will help it uncover tunnels.
* Plans for the economic development of Rafah, with particular emphasis on the Bedouin to undercut the financial motivation for building and operating tunnels.

=============================================================================================
Isn't that funny.

The first point is to assert that Iran is guilty, while the second point is to find out who is guilty.

Acting on the third point would be against the law of the sea unless there is a U.N. Security Council resolution on the issue which will never come.

The fourth point is a request for ground penetrating radar to detect tunnels. Commercial GPR works up to 15m deep from the surface under optimal conditions. Tunnels dug deeper will not be detected by them.

The fifth point may bring additional income to the tunnel diggers. It will not replace their current trade.

In all, this sounds a bit of a stunt and I wonder what Livni really wants in DC.

Also on the Gaza rockets. Two weeks ago the Jerusalem Post reported that the longer range Hamas rockets are from China. ( http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230733119975&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull )

The Grad-model Katyusha rockets that were fired into Beersheba on Wednesday were manufactured in China and smuggled into Gaza after the Sinai border wall was blown up by Hamas in January, defense officials said.
...
The three countries that manufacture Grad-model Katyushas are China, Russia and Bulgaria.
...
From China, the rockets make several stops before reaching Gaza. In many cases, officials said, they are bought by Iran or Hizbullah and then transferred to Sinai.

In some instances, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) has learned of weapons that came from Yemen and Eritrea, were moved to Sudan, then north to Egypt, and finally smuggled into Gaza.

===============================================================================================

According to those defense officials the rockets are not made in Iran and never seem never to touch Iran or Lebanese ground. They do not know who pays for them ('bought by Iran or Hizbullah') but assert they take about the longest possible smuggling route touching all countries that are on Israel's current enemy list.

So how does that fit with the first MoU assertion?

Also...Aluf Benn wrote in Haaretz yesterday that the timing for signing this is tight because Condi & Co will be out of office in a few days, and this represents Bush giving Israel a "foot in the door" with the incoming Obama administration.

Meanwhile... Israel is thinking of a unilateral ceasefire which would of course leave all issues unresolved:

The cabinet will hold on vote on Saturday over whether to enact a unilateral cease-fire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The decision would mean Israel has decided to end the operation without an agreement with Hamas, relying instead on the support of the United States and Egypt in battling arms smuggling.

A government source emphasized that there has been great progress with Egypt in reaching an agreement on fighting arms smuggling. The deal would require the combined use of technological measures to fight smuggling on the border between Gaza and Egypt, operations against smugglers in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, and the use of international experts to identify smuggling tunnels on the border.

The deal would also call for cooperation between Israel and Egypt on matters relating to the Gaza Strip in which they have shared interests, without the interference of Hamas.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056178.html

[Chulanowa]

3. Translation from Bullshitese:

"We're piss-scared that the new guy might not give us free reign to do whatever we want in Gaza"

[babylonsister]

4. All going according to plan...

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/12/29/bush-vaca-middle-east/

One senior Bush administration official told the Washington Post that he thinks the Israelis acted in Gaza “because they want it to be over before the next administration comes in” and because “they can’t predict how the next administration will handle it.” Indeed, Bush has become fairly predictable in how he manages these sorts of crises.

[panader0]

5. I'm so happy that Sleazy Rice is on this!

If anyone can get this done it's her! <sarcasm>

[cali]

7. Cowardly and contemptible

they're afraid of the new admins position and words.