Is Hamas Planning a Holiday Surprise for Israel? - By Daniel Gordis - http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-09/is-hamas-planning-a-holiday-surprise-for-israel
Is a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict suddenly emerging, or is renewed war with Hamas imminent? Given that this is the Middle East, it should come as no surprise that there's movement in both directions.
Egypt has presented a sweeping proposal for the creation of a Palestinian state, to be created on land that Egypt would willingly cede from the Sinai Desert, in an area contiguous with Gaza. The new state would cover five times the area now controlled by Hamas; Palestinians would abandon their demand for a state on the West Bank, but major Palestinian population centers there would be granted "autonomy," a murky concept long used in this region. This new Palestinian state would be demilitarized, but the substantial enlargement of Gaza would make it possible for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees to be settled there.
Not surprisingly, reactions were varied. While Israeli leaders praised the initiative and deemed it worth exploring, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly rejected the deal out of hand. In classic Middle East fashion, after Abbas had rejected the deal, Tayeb Abdel-Rahim, secretary general of Abbas's office, denied that the deal had ever been offered. The report of the proposal on Israeli Army Radio, he said, was "baseless." Why his boss would have rejected a deal that had never been suggested in the first place was not clear.
While Egypt is being creative, however, the winds of renewed war are beginning to blow. Over the past several days, the Israeli press has consistently noted that the quiet we're now enjoying may prove short-lived. Avi Issacharoff, a former Arab affairs correspondent for Haaretz, wondered aloud in Times of Israel whether Israel was headed towards a renewed conflict with Gaza. With Israeli-Hamas negotiations apparently going nowhere, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's pugnacious Foreign Minister, warned that Hamas would never consent to being disarmed -- and lest Israelis imagined they could live with that, he insisted that Hamas was no less dangerous to Israel than Islamic State. YNet noted that Hamas had begun re-digging the tunnels that the Israeli Defense Forces had destroyed; the report included responses from residents of the area that if the tunnels were really being rebuilt, Israel would have every justification for renewing the war.
As if those tunnels were not sufficient, Israeli TV reported on Friday night that the IDF is preparing for a "very violent" war with Lebanon's Hezbollah, which possesses 100,000 rockets (including 5,000 powerful, long-range missiles), and has apparently also dug tunnels into Israel.
It was all a reminder to Israelis that even if the Egyptian plan were ever to get traction (highly unlikely), Israel's problems would hardly be over.
But there was also a more ominous note, the importance of which was overlooked by many. Ismail Haniyeh, second in command of Hamas' political wing, warned the other day that if Israel does not lift the siege on Gaza, fighting will resume on Sept. 25.
On the surface, it sounded like a standard Hamas warning. But that is the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Days that Jews treasure as moments of religious introspection, he intimated, could be the day their husbands, sons and fathers head back to war.
Worse still, Haniyeh may have been invoking a longstanding tradition of enemies using Jewish holidays as opportunities to attack. In 1973, of course, Anwar Sadat's Egyptian forces attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, the most sacred day of the Jewish year. Even earlier, though, the Nazis employed similar tactics in trying break the Jewish spirit. On Rosh Hashanah 1940, they announced the formation of the Warsaw Ghetto. In the ghetto of the Polish town of Zdunska Wola, they used Purim (the Jewish holiday on which Jews celebrate their triumph over ancient enemies) as the day for public executions of Jews. Other examples abound.
Because of this history, Haniyeh's warning might just backfire. If in threatening renewed war he reminded Israelis that this conflict is not about the siege on Gaza but is merely the latest chapter in an ongoing campaign to destroy Israel, Hamas is likely to find an Israeli populace saddened by renewed war, but profoundly committed to winning it, no matter the cost.
Israel pulls back from anti-Assad policy, as IDF redeploys against Islamist seizure of Golan - http://www.debka.com/article/24258/Israel-pulls-back-from-anti-Assad-policy-as-IDF-redeploys-against-Islamist-seizure-of-Golan-
The Israeli government has radically changed tack on Syria, reversing a policy and military strategy that were longed geared to opposing Syrian President Bashar Assad, debkafile's exclusive military and intelligence sources report. This reversal has come about in the light of the growing preponderance of radical Islamists in the Syrian rebel force fighting Assad's army in the Quneitra area since June.
Al Qaeda's Syrian Nusra front, which calls itself the Front for the Defense of the Levant, is estimated to account by now for 40-50 percent - or roughly, 4,000-5,000 Islamists - of the rebel force deployed just across Israel's Golan border. No more than around 2,500-3,000 belong to the moderate Syrian militias, who were trained by American and Jordanian instructors in the Hashemite Kingdom and sent back to fight in Syria.
This shift in the ratio of jihadists-to-moderates has evolved in four months. In early June, the pro-Western Syrian Revolutionary Front-SRF, mostly deployed in the southern Syrian town of Deraa on the Jordanian border, was the dominant rebel force and Nusra Front the minority.
The balance shifted due to a number of factors:
1. Nusra Front jihadis fighting alongside insurgents on the various Syrian battlefronts made a practice of surreptitiously infiltrating their non-Islamist brothers-at-arms, a process which the latter's foreign allies, the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, either ignored or were unaware of.
2. These tactics began to pay off in the past month, when large numbers of moderate rebels suddenly knocked on the Nusra Front's door and asked to join.
One reason for this was these militias' defeat and heavy losses of men and ground under the onslaught of the combined forces of Syria, Hizballah and Iran. Nusra Front was less affected. It was also the moderate rebels' preferred home, rather than the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant, whose atrocities, especially the beheadings of hostages and prisoners, they find repellent.
3. Nusra deployment on the Syrian Golan further swelled of late as its fighters were pushed out of eastern Syria by IS in its rapid swing through the Syrian towns of Deir a-Zor and Abu Kemal to reach its ultimate goal - one which has so far not rated a mention in Western and Israeli media.
The Islamist extremists are on the way to conquering the Euphrates basin in Syria and Iraq before advancing on the place where the two great rivers of Mesopotamia, the Euphrates and Tigris, are in closest proximity - Mahmoudiya, south of Baghdad.
Nusra fighters moved out of the way of the IS push through eastern Syria and made tracks for Quneitra to join the fight to seize this strategic Golan town and crossing into Israel from Assad's forces.
The pro-Islamist cast of the Syrian rebel force on Israel's Golan border is reflected in the turnaround in Israel's military position and attitude toward the insurgents on the other side of the Golan border fence. The IDF will henceforth be less supportive of the rebel struggle and more inclined to help Syrian troops in fending off rebel attacks.
This calls for a delicate balancing act in Jerusalem. While definitely not seeking an Assad victory in the long Syrian war, Israel has no desire to see Al Qaeda's Syrian branch, Al Nusra, seizing control of the Syrian sector of the Golan, including Quneitra.
Israel therefore finds itself in a quandary much like that of US President Barack Obama, who has promised to unveil his strategy for fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Wednesday, Sept. 10. He too is strongly reluctant to throw US support behind Bashar Assad, but he may find he has no other option.
Israeli intel available only to US dangled as bait for Arabs to join Obama's anti-IS coalition - http://www.debka.com/article/24256/Israeli-intel-available-only-to-US-dangled-as-bait-for-Arabs-to-join-Obama's-anti-IS-coalition
An anonymous Western diplomat's reported to Reuters Monday, Sept. 8, that "Israel has provided satellite imagery and other intelligence in support of the US-led aerial campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq." He added that after "being 'scrubbed' of evidence of its Israeli origin, the information has often been shared by Washington with Arab and Turkish allies."
debkafile's intelligence and counterterrorism sources reports that this claptrap is part of a deep game. While willing to share intelligence on Al Qaeda with the US, Israel would certainly not hand over satellite imagery or any other intelligence, knowing it would reach the hands of Turkey and possibly also Iran. Satellite imagery is far too sensitive to part with and gives away far too many secrets, like the its path, its capabilities, sensors and the resolution and angles of its cameras. Such material, if passed to anyone, would only be handed to a friendly head of state, a defense minister or a spy chief in exceptional circumstances.
There is also the remote possibility that the report was intended as a warning signal to draw to Israel's notice that its intelligence-sharing mechanism had sprung an unauthorized leak.
The most far-fetched contention by the "Western diplomat" was that "Israeli spy satellites overflying Iraq at angles and frequencies unavailable to US satellites had provided images that allowed the Pentagon to fill out its information and get better battle damage assessments" after strikes on Islamic State targets.
This makes no sense at all. All spy satellite in the world fly at the same altitudes and angles. American satellites can perform any task Israel's can - unless some interested party was deliberate hinting that Israel's satellites were not only spying on IS in Iraq but also on Iran next door.
The Western diplomat went onto to advance the view that Israel was also sharing information "gleaned from international travel databases about Western citizens suspected of joining the insurgents..."
He commented sagely: "The Israelis are very good with passenger data and with analyzing social media in Arabic to get a better idea of who these people are," he said.
Israel would no doubt be happy to dispense with this kind of "compliment."
The entire song and dance was staged by the "Western diplomat" just hours before US Secretary of State John Kerry was due to land in the Middle East for an urgent bid to get Arab partners aboard the US-led coalition for fighting IS, especially Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, as well as Egypt and Jordan.
He knows he is in for a hard time. Only Sunday, Sept. 7, the Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo decided against coordinating their actions to fight extremist groups, including al Qaeda, with the US, but rather pursue their own "national and regional strategies against terrorism."
Jordan, America's closest Arab ally, announced flatly it would not join the US-led coalition.
Kerry will find stepping over this hurdle a tall order, especially as time is short before Wednesday, when President Barack Obama promises to unveil his strategy for a coalition to battle the Islamic State.
The Western diplomat may therefore have been dangling sensitive Israeli intelligence for fighting terrorism - that would be available only through Washington - as bait for reeling in reluctant Arab powers to support the Obama plan. Washington may find a second use for this tactic: breaking up the Saudi-Egyptian-UAR alliance which backed Israel in the Gaza war.
Will the Gaza truce be shorter than the Gaza war? - Hamas said rebuilding tunnels and restocking - http://www.debka.com/article/24254/Will-the-Gaza-truce-be-shorter-than-the-Gaza-war-Hamas-said-rebuilding-tunnels-and-restocking-
Day by day, the prospect recedes of the Israel-Hamas Cairo negotiations actually taking place on schedule, one month after Aug. 26, the date the last Gaza ceasefire went into force. And even if they do, it will only be a pointless formality achieving nothing. The discussions, actions, disclosures and statements filling the air at present all point to the violence resuming on the Jewish New Year festival later this month.
Clearly aware of the dates, Hamas' Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh warned in a sermon Friday, Sept. 6, that rocket fire would start up against Israel on Sept. 25, the first day of the festival, unless the blockade of the Gaza Strip was lifted by then.
This eventuality would sorely embarrass Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, to say the least - after their extreme efforts to demonstrate to critics that Hamas would never dare shoot another rocket after the punishment it took in 50 days of relentless Israeli warfare and air strikes.
This was the rationale they used for halting hostilities, prematurely according to their critics, without delivering the final crushing blow against the Palestinian extremists.
It now seems that the truce may be shorter-lived than the conflict itself, because it rested on misconceptions. Egyptian President Abdel Fatteh El-Sisi and Prime Minister Netanyahu designated Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to oversee and take charge of the slow strangling of Hamas rule of the Gaza Strip. That was one misconception. For one thing, Abbas never dances to any tune but his own, and, for another, Hamas's popularity has soared at his expense - especially in his own domain, the West Bank, where a recent Palestinian poll showed 80 percent support for Hamas's rocket war on Israel.
Knowing which way the wind was blowing, Abbas made it clear in his remarks Saturday that he had no intention of disarming Hamas, but would take charge of the Gaza Strip only if he was assured by Egypt as well as Hamas that the Palestinians would have one ruling body and "one gun."
This was Abbas's way of telling Israel to forget about its demand to demilitarize Gaza, because he had accepted the Hamas formula for a unity government: The Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority would rule the territory and Hamas would continue to be the sole military force, enjoying a status akin to the autonomous Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
Israel knew about these understandings in the last week of August, when the Shin Bet Direct Yoram Cohen traveled to Jordan for a meeting with Abbas. That meeting was widely misrepresented as a rendezvous between Abbas and Netanyahu for launching the latter's vision of a "new political horizon" arising from the successful Gaza campaign.
Cohen's mission was quite different: He was to hand the Palestinian leader a clear warning about how Israel views the future of Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip and lay down red lines.
But for now, the second week of September, Hamas and Israel are back to the mid-war situation of impermanent truces, with Hamas still calling the shots and even setting the date for resuming its rocket war on Israel.
Hence the comments by Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman Sunday, Sept. 7, that it was "unrealistic at this time" to demand Gaza's demilitarization, although the issue "must stay on the table."
Clearly Netanyahu has given up on his main condition for ceasing hostilities, which was the demilitarization of the terror-ridden strip of coastal land adjoining southwestern Israel. He and the defense minister seem to have resigned themselves to Hamas being left with the capacity to manufacture and shoot rockets at will.
This acceptance roused into action the critics, who were vocally opposed to the way the war was handled and pointed out, above all, how little was achieved before a truce was accepted. An unnamed "senior political figure" caused a rumpus Sunday, when he reported in a leak to the media that, two weeks into the latest ceasefire, Hamas had begun rebuilding the attack tunnels, which IDF ground forces so painstakingly destroyed, and was again smuggling arms through Sinai tunnels, despite Egypt's efforts to run interference.
Furthermore, the Gaza terrorists were again manufacturing M-75 rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv. Even after Israel's massive aerial strikes, they were left with one-third of their rocket arsenal.
Unnamed sources in the defense ministry questioned the official's sources for this information, which landed with the same suddenness as the revelation that the government had begun discussing the choice of Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz's successor as the next chief of staff.
This issue tends to be highly charged as different contenders vie to make the running. If Netanyahu and Ya'alon wanted to delay the decision, they could have extended Gen. Gantz term, which ends Feb. 15, 1915, or got it out of the way by promoting his deputy, Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkott.
But both are reported to prefer to draw a line on the Gaza conflict and the performance of the two generals and start afresh. They therefore find themselves caught uncomfortably in crossfire from two conflicts - the possible resumption of Palestinian attacks from Gaza, and the contest in the top ranks of the IDF for the top job as chief of staff.
Hamas urges West Bank uprising, vows to rebuild tunnels - http://www.timesofisrael.com/hamas-gaza-conflict-has-changed-minds-in-the-world/
If Palestinian 'resistance' in the West Bank had a quarter of the tools that Gaza holds, Mahmoud al-Zahar says, Israel would be wiped out in a day
The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip has changed the opinions of certain global players who now wish to hold dialog with the group, senior Hamas member Mahmoud al-Zahar said Saturday, according to Ynet.
Al-Zahar said nations - he did not give specifics - which had previously regarded his organization as a terrorist group had now undergone a change of heart.
The Hamas leader also called for an armed uprising in the West Bank. He said the Palestinian Authority's security coordination with Israel was a crime and urged its forces to change direction and fight against Israel.
"If the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank had a quarter of the tools that the resistance in Gaza holds, Israel would be wiped out in a day," he said.
Al-Zahar repeated the organization's claim that it had been victorious in the Gaza war, saying the group would "build new tunnels" into Israel to replace those destroyed by the Israeli army.
"Victory has many fathers while defeat has only one father named [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu," he said.
A senior army intelligence official has admitted that Israel underestimated the tenacity of Gaza terrorists and did not expect the July-August 50-day conflict to last so long - insisting, however, they were soundly beaten.
The conflict, which ended with a fire last week, killed more than 2,100 Gazans - 1,000 of whom Israel says were engaged in active combat, and others that it accuses terrorists of using as human shields during the clashes - as well as 66 soldiers and six civilians on the Israeli side, in the bloodiest battle to date between the Jewish state and Hamas.
"If you'd asked me two months ago, I wouldn't assess that it's going to take us 50 days," the Israeli official told journalists in English at a briefing in Tel Aviv late Tuesday.
"We thought it's going to take them a shorter time to understand what happened, and we are mistaken here. It's a tactical assessment mistake, but it's a mistake," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But the official said Hamas, the main power in Gaza, and Islamic Jihad, the next biggest terror group, were soundly beaten.
"We think they are in very bad shape," he said.
Amid reports that tensions between Hamas and Fatah could hinder the reconstruction of Gaza, al-Zahar said Wednesday he was confident that the Palestinian public wouldn't hold the group responsible.
What happens next in Gaza "is the responsibility of [Palestinian Authority President] Mahmoud Abbas because now he is responsible for the government," he told the New York Times. "We are not responsible."
Cairo-based senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk said that the organization has already distributed $40 million in Gaza, $2,000 to each family whose home was damaged.
On Wednesday, reports in the Arab media indicated that Egypt was meeting with both the Israeli and Palestinian sides and was preparing to issue invitations to ceasefire negotiations in Cairo, but tensions between Hamas and Fatah over the payment of salaries to Hamas employees and administration of border crossings were delaying the talks.
These reports came a day after Fatah officials reportedly warned that if Hamas did not cede control of the Gaza Strip to the unity government, Abbas's presidential guard forces would not deploy along the borders and the crossings would remain closed. Egypt has said repeatedly it would not open the Rafah border crossing as long as it was controlled by Hamas.
However, riding an unprecedented wave of popularity following its most recent violent conflict with Israel, Hamas's leaders have sounded confident that it can maintain support from the people, and since an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire went into effect, Hamas's leaders have been working the streets to buoy that support.
Israel preparing for 'very violent' war against Hezbollah, TV report says - http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-preparing-for-very-violent-war-against-hezbollah-tv-report-says/
Army details dangers of conflict with Iran-backed guerrilla army in Lebanon, warns of 100,000 rockets, 5,000 long-range missiles, tunnels
Just 10 days after a ceasefire ended a 50-day Israel-Hamas conflict, the Israeli army is "making plans and training" for "a very violent war" against Hezbollah in south Lebanon, an Israeli TV report said Friday night, without specifying when this war might break out.
The report, for which the army gave Israel's Channel 2 access to several of its positions along the border with Lebanon, featured an IDF brigade commander warning that such a conflict "will be a whole different story" from the Israel-Hamas conflict in which over 2,000 Gazans (half of them gunmen according to Israel) and 72 Israelis were killed. "We will have to use considerable force" to quickly prevail over the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, "to act more decisively, more drastically," said Colonel Dan Goldfus, commander of the 769th Hiram Infantry Brigade.
The report said Hezbollah has an estimated 100,000 rockets - 10 times as many as were in the Hamas arsenal - and that its 5,000 long-range missiles, located in Beirut and other areas deep inside Lebanon, are capable of carrying large warheads (of up to 1 ton and more), with precision guidance systems, covering all of Israel.
Israel's Iron Dome rocket defense system would not be able to cope with that kind of challenge, and thus the IDF would have to "maneuver fast" and act forcefully to prevail decisively in the conflict, Goldfus said.
Goldfus said it might be necessary to evacuate the civilian residents of the area. "Hezbollah will not conquer the Galilee (in northern Israel)," the officer said, "and I won't let it hurt our civilians."
He said that anyone who thought Hezbollah was in difficulties because it has sustained losses fighting with President Bashar Assad in Syria is mistaken. The report noted, indeed, that Hezbollah has now accumulated three years of battlefield experience, and has greater military capabilities and considerable confidence as a consequence.
The report said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2012 that, in a future war against Hezbollah, Israel would have to hit homes in villages across southern Lebanon from which Hezbollah would seek to launch rockets into Israel.
As with Hamas in Gaza, the report said there were concerns that Hezbollah has also been tunneling under the Israeli border ahead of planned attacks. A deputy local council chief, Yossi Adoni of the Ma'aleh Yosef Council, said dozens of border-area residents have reported the sounds of tunneling under their homes since 2006 - when Israel and Hezbollah fought a bitter conflict known as the Second Lebanon War. "We are absolutely certain there are cross-border tunnels," Adoni said.
"There could be," noted Goldfus, describing the tunnel threat as "one more concern... If in Gaza there were tunnels, it stands to reason that it's possible here too." Israel's launched a ground offensive in Gaza in mid-July to destroy some 30 Hamas tunnels dug under the border; 11 IDF soldiers were killed during the Israel-Hamas war by gunmen emerging from the tunnels inside Israel.
Egypt's Palestinian state initiative exposes Abu Mazen's true face - Shraga Blum - http://www.i24news.tv/en/opinion/43382-140911-egypt-s-palestinian-state-initiative-exposes-abu-mazen-s-true-face
Until a few days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's statement during Operation Protective Edge regarding the emergence of "new diplomatic opportunities" for Israel seemed hollow. But a sudden, albeit unrealistic, initiative by President Mahmoud Abbas suddenly allowed Israel to seize the opportunity. The rest is history: Netanyahu's opponents in Israel, condemning his "inaction," called for an immediate resumption of peace talks based on the usual model: the creation of an independent Palestinian state in virtually all of Judea and Samaria, followed by an inevitable Israeli withdrawal - both military and civilian - from these territories.
But now a new and powerful Middle East player has stepped into the scene: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. According to an Israeli Army Radio report on Monday, Sisi suggested to Abu Mazen [Abbas] at an Arab League meeting in Cairo that a Palestinian Arab state be established in Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula. This proposal would have obtained Jerusalem's approval. Did this, then, constitute one of the Israeli PM's "possible diplomatic developments?"
The Egyptian proposal calls for Egypt to extend the Gaza Strip by 1,600-2,000 square kilometers into the Sinai Peninsula, multiplying its size five or six times. A demilitarized Palestinian Arab state would be established on this territory, led by the Palestinian Authority, which would welcome "Palestinian refugees." In Judea and Samaria, the major Palestinian cities would enjoy broad autonomy under the control of the PA, but the vast majority of the area would remain under Israeli rule. In return, Abu Mazen would relinquish his demand for an Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 armistice lines.
Of course, this is not a complete and final plan since it does not address many key issues. But it has the advantage of thinking outside the box. For a long time, the Israeli right called for creative solutions instead of unrealistic or irresponsible, rehashed ideas that have for the past 20 years represented a vital danger to the existence of Israel. For the first time, an Arab leader proposes a solution that also takes into account Israeli interests and that does not necessarily require the dismantling of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. What a breath of fresh air in Middle Eastern diplomacy. Will salvation come from an Egyptian leader?
This last question is rhetorical since the most significant part of this story is Abu Mazen's outright refusal to even consider the proposal. The Egyptians insisted that this might be the last opportunity for him to create a state, but the leader of the PA refused to even discuss the matter. For him, "the question of the refugees can only be resolved by the full implementation of their right to return to their cities and villages of origin." In other words, by flooding Israel with several million Palestinians (in addition to the 1.5 million Arab citizens currently living in Israel).
There are two interesting lessons to be learned from this refusal. Firstly, Abu Mazen officially and categorically rejects a peace plan presented to him by an Arab leader, without the media and international community holding it against him. Despite all evidence to the contrary, it is Netanyahu who will forever be dubbed "Mister No", whereas Abu Mazen is "ready to seize every opportunity for a settlement."
Secondly - and this is the crux of the issue - Abu Mazen has once more shed light on the DNA of the national movement he claims to represent: the goal is not to create a Palestinian state, but to produce the necessary conditions for the disappearance of the State of Israel at a later stage.
In 1947, David Ben-Gurion and the Zionist leadership accepted UN Resolution 181 which proposed the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Mandatory Palestine, even though the territorial divisions fell short of the Zionists' hopes and previous British commitments. But the aim was to establish a state for the Jewish people. The Arabs unanimously rejected the plan and Palestinian Arab representatives have since continued to reject proposals for the creation of an independent state. If they had wanted, they could have established a state between 1948 and 1967, during which time Israel did not control the regions of Judea and Samaria or East Jerusalem.
Sisi's initiative, even if it was only a trial balloon, is a small sign of hope. It shows that attitudes can sometimes evolve in the Middle East in the face of reality, and that it is possible to think of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by means other than the dangerous suggestions raised so far with a blind obsession.
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