Israel PM Netanyahu accepts Egyptian ceasefire proposal (Update: Hamas armed wing rejects)
Now it’s up to Hamas and the other factions.
Egypt has offered a cease fire proposal, as reported by Haaretz at its live blog (times are Israel time):
10:29 P.M. Sources in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry say Egypt has proposed a cease-fire outline to Israel and Gaza: The cease-fire will start at 9 A.M., meaning Israel will stop aerial, naval and ground operations against the Gaza Strip and promise not to engage in a ground offensive or harm civilians. At the same time, all the Palestinian factions will hold their fire.
Crossings between Gaza and Israel will be reopened, and restrictions on the passage of commodities and people will be eased, in return for a halt to hostilities.
Within 48 hours after the cease-fire, Israeli and Palestinian delegations will arrive in Cairo for continued indirect talks to discuss the details of the truce and its implementation. Egypt will receive guaranties from both sides, and promises to implement the outline. (Jack Khoury)
11:14 P.M. Israel’s security cabinet will meet Tuesday morning to discuss the Egyptian cease-fire proposal. A senior minister in the cabinet said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepts the Egyptian offer and will bring it to a vote in the meeting that will take place on Tuesday at 7 A.M. “This is a basic proposal that can be accepted as a starting point and after that further discussions on the specifics can be held,” the minister said. (Barak Ravid)
BREAKING: Israeli official: PM Netanyahu supports the Egyptian proposal for ceasefire in Gaza and will ask the cabinet accept it
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) July 14, 2014
This presents an obvious problem for Hamas.
There are differing assessments of how much pressure its leadership is under, hidden beneath apartment buildings and hospitals it knows Israel will not bomb. Regardless, Hamas will have failed to score any damaging blows to Israel, but will have caused the deaths of almost 200 Palestinians dead and a thousand terrorist locations destroyed.
Also, Hamas made demands for a ceasefire, including the release of terrorists released in the Shalit deal but subsequently rearrested. If those demands are not met, Hamas’ inevitable claims of victory will be hard to play.
Here is the text of the Egypt-proposed ceasefire. Notably it contains no concessions for Hamas. pic.twitter.com/NivNg6NmQQ
— Noah Pollak (@NoahPollak) July 14, 2014
For the ceasefire to take effect, all the Palestinian terrorist groups would have to hold their fire. Who even knows if that could happen.
What’s in it for Israel?
For one, it avoids a ground invasion which almost certainly would have brought international condemnation upon it. For the first time the international community mostly sat this one out for the past week — remarkable actually. It reflects the understanding that Hamas and other terrorist factions started the conflict, and the isolation of Hamas from Egypt and other Arab countries.
Israel didn’t achieve it’s goal of crushing Hamas, but it inflicted serious damage. Invading and holding Gaza again really is not an option.
But no one should think this is the last of it.
Can we use the right words? The proposal is not a ceasefire, it’s a hudna.
— Brian of London (@brianoflondon) July 14, 2014
The Israeli cabinet meets Tuesday morning. We’ll see if the passes. There is strong opposition, as The Times of Israel reports:
Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon says the Egyptian ceasefire proposal is “a slap in the face of the citizens of Israel.”
Jewish Home MK Ayelet Shaked says halting the offensive without damaging tunnels and rockets would mean Israel is “caving in” to Hamas.
Meanwhile, MK Miri Regev (Likud) says the agreement “is a danger to the security of the state of Israel and its citizens.”
Minister @naftalibennett Bennett will vote against the Gaza ceasefire in the cabinet meeting tomorrow morning
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) July 14, 2014
More to follow.
Update: Hamas rejects Egyptian ceasefire proposal, keeps firing rockets at Israeli cities
[Featured Image: Hamas naval commandos who infiltrated Israel and were killed.]
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Comments
Israel should cease fire JUST AFTER it has destroyed Hama’s war-making/terror missile capacity.
Not an instant before.
The U.S. should cut off aid. Tomorrow.
Bibi, I didn’t think I needed to give you this advice,
FINISH THE JOB,
then talk cease fire.
Your tentative okay brings back memories of 2006, 2009, 2012.
People should know by now, Bibi talks a good game, but in the end he will always cave. Remember who gave Hevron away in the first place. And who promised that the moment the Arabs started shooting from the hills there would be tanks going up them; and who blatantly reneged on that promise.
Yeah, yeah, and I have a bridge for sale too…
While Israel is behaving properly, this so-called ceasefire will mean squat diddly unless, and until, the Palestinians in fact want peace. Until the Palestinians accept Israel’s right to exist and its borders, Eqypt’s request will not result in anything meaningful.
Maybe by now Palestinian President Abbas, in the 10th year of his 4 year term of office, will be willing to tell his people that they need to accept peace between themselves and the Israelis and Israel as a country.
It is clear that the current Egyptian leadership hates Hamas.
The proposed ceasefire is of more benefit to Israel than it is for Hamas in the long run.
The rejection of the ceasefire will make both sides look bad but if one side accepts and the other rejects… then….
How does it benefit Israel? Sure, now that Hamas has rejected it Israel looks good, but one can’t rely on Hamas to always do the stupid thing. What happens if one day they say yes?
Israel should accept the peace treaty. First, it places Hamas in a position in which its lack of good faith is outed. Second, Israel then could justifiably move in with both barrels upon the first documented post-cease-fire rocket being launched into Israel.
I respectfully disagree. The past is prologue. Israel has been through this cycle repeatedly. What invariably happens is that Hamas stops its rockets for a time, replenishes its stocks and obtains more advanced missiles. Then it slowly starts again and, despite Israeli retaliation with airstrikes, the intensity of attacks gradually increases until a quasi-war occurs for a few days whereupon a “hudna” is reached, etc.
This time there has been very little international criticism of Israel – Hamas has been overt in its aggression and the rest of the Mid-East is so much worse than the Hamas/Israel conflict.
Israel should destroy Hamas as much as possible and agree to a cease-fire if and only if the Hamas Charter (which specifies that the raison d’etre of Hamas is the elimination of Israel) is utterly repudiated by Gazans and the remnants of Hamas.
There’s no reason why Israel can’t have it both ways.
Smash Hamas hard. When world opinion just begins to tilt back towards Hamas (thanks to Champ and the MSM), then agree to the ceasefire. The timing has to be just right on this but Bibi can do it.
Then as a condition of the ceasefire get the Egyptians to agree to prevent transfers of rockets and rocket parts through the Gaza tunnels. That’s in Egypt’s best interests as well.
Whack the Gazooks, put the squeeze on them, stop before the world gets all hissy, and prevents the Gazooks from re-arming. Win-win.
Hamas’s lack of good faith has already been proven many times over. How will one more demonstration change anything? Anyone who didn’t believe it the last ten times won’t believe it now either.
Bunch of things here. It’s not a peace treaty, the world won’t care when Hamas breaks it if Israel goes in with both barrels firing, and apparently Hamas’ armed wing didn’t even accept it…
Brian of London is right. The Hamas Covenant rejects the possibility of any cease-fire, or any binding agreement for peace. Under the Hamas Covenant, any agreement with Israel would be beyond the scope of the local government to agree. Analogies are that the agreement would be ultra-vires or unconstitutional. Under the Hamas Covenant, there can be no cease-fire, only a hudna (pause to re-load).
The Hamas Covenant is the primary barrier to peace in the Middle East. It must be repudiated before there can be any legitimate negotiations.
Asked about the boycott [called by Muslims for tonight’s Iftar dinner] at the White House, press secretary Josh Earnest said the purpose of the Iftar dinner “is to observe a religious tradition that Muslims all around the globe are observing at this time of Ramadan.”
“It also is an opportunity for the president and other senior administration officials to pay tribute to the important role that Muslim Americans play in American communities all across the country,” he said. “There are immigrants to this country from a variety of regions of the world who are Muslim, and it is important for every American to understand that they are critical to the success of our country and inter-woven into the basic fabric that makes United States of America such a unique place to live.”
Sorry, “Josh” there is no religious group “critical to the success of our country” and I can’t think of any LESS “inter-woven into the basic fabric that makes [the U.S.] such a unique place to live”.
What a lying moron…
I think you could make a strong case that evangelical Christians are a religious group critical to the success of the United States.
The Obama administration is ignoring the First Amendment and endorsing a religion. A religion that would gladly kill every single person not of that religion.
Wrong. Having an iftar dinner at the White House is no more an endorsement of Islam than having a Xmas or Easter dinner is an endorsement of Xianity. As far back as the 1790s the USA declared in a treaty that it is no more a Xian country than a Moslem one.
Seriously calling for a boycott of the WH Iftar dinner unless your policy demands are met? Hard to fathom, that is really missing the opportunity, plus it comes across as tremendously disrespectful.
There is a recording of Obama’s speech at the 2013 Iftar dinner on the WH website. I wonder if the Obama WH hosts anything on a similar equivalence for any other religion? As far as I know, the WH Passover seder doesn’t include official Jewish community representatives, rather just Jewish WH staffers.
I’m sure the White House has seen many a Xmas dinner over the centuries. And what difference does it make who from outside the WH is invited to the annual “seder”? The fact is that the WH holds one, and the president and his family attend.
The US just signed a deal to sell $11 billion worth of arms to Qatar, a country of 280,000 citizens and a major sponsor of Hamas so presumably it won’t be too long before Hamas is fully rearmed and reequipped.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/14/us-usa-qatar-idUSKBN0FJ2M820140714?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter
Israel could increase it’s land mass by 5 sq. miles if they bulldoze Gaza into the sea.
I mean, since we’re discussing “no good options”…
I’ve said for years that Israel should just pave the entire thing over, build shops and stores and make the “Gaza Strip” Mall open for business.
as always: how do you negotiate with people who want you dead? The Israelis should go in, find the rockets, and destroy the tunnels. Scr*w the UN
Why does every cease fire remind me of Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown?
Hold off on that cease fire until the last IDF unit has gone winchester. Hamas won’t honor it anyway.
Israel needs to destroy the Hamas military infrastructure including ammo dumps and tunnels. Enough to make them rebuild it for years before they can pose the sort of threat they are now.
Israel cannot afford to accept ceasefires as soon as they start winning the battle. They must follow through.