Extract from THE GAZA DICTAT Egypt Daily News, 21.7.2014 The ceasefire, which promised no long term solutions, no face saving dynamics or political gains for Hamas, was never a ceasefire, per se. Instead, it was an unconditional surrender which would further harm its posture domestically and internationally. Some have argued that what the triumvirate sought was refusal, by Hamas, to facilitate an Israeli ground assault rather than acceptance which would grant a civilian Palestinian populace under the gun a reprieve. Hamas publicly stated the Egyptian cease fire to “be all but dead” and dismissed it as a “surrender”. In proving the MENA dictum that all roads, in the Middle East, lead to Jerusalem, Hamas insists that the cease fire include the ability to both visit Jerusalem and pray at the Al Aqsa mosque. Furthermore, Hamas insists on a 10 year cease fire, including the closing of Palestinian airspace to Israeli aircraft, and immediate withdrawal of all Israeli forces to the border. Most importantly, an end to the siege, which includes opening of all crossings. Finally, though there are other demands, Israel is to remain clear of Palestinian internal matters like the unity government. If the Palestinian/Israeli dance were one inhabited by partners in sanity and political realities, one would argue, a compromise between both cease fire visions would be within reach. But fluidity, reality, and sanity are strange bedfellows to Palestinian/Israeli bilateral relations. As a result causality figures, as of the writing this article, stand above 500 killed and over 3,125 injured on the Palestinian side and over 20 killed and 200 injured on the Israeli side. Israel is an occupying force, Hamas is not a group of angels, and in the middle Palestinian civilians have nowhere to turn in one of the most demographically dense areas of earth: Gaza. Though the Egyptian ceasefire was deemed humiliating by Hamas the Hamas alternative is, likely, an unrealistic door on which to knock. If the combatants don’t, quickly, figure out a solution the Israeli invasion may expand further and with it, by the way side, hopes of sparing civilians untold misery. No matter the outcome one thing is not in doubt: the arena of foreign relations is not governed by Diktat. _____ Amr Khalifa is a freelance journalist recently published in Ahram Online , Mada Masr and Muftah
Posted on: Tue, 22 Jul 2014 09:18:33 +0000
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