Oh S**T!!!!!!!! Gaza

[darrels joy]

WASHINGTON—The U.S. and Israel signed an agreement Friday aimed at preventing the rearmament of Hamas in the years ahead, part of a bid to secure a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

The memorandum of understanding calls for Washington to deploy technical and military assets to the Palestinian territories to help prevent the smuggling of arms into Gaza, either by land, sea or air. The U.S. also committed to gaining the assistance of its allies in the Middle East and Europe to prevent arms from reaching Gaza or the Sinai Peninsula, particularly from Iran.

View Full Image



Getty Images A Palestinian youth jumps burning tires during clashes with Israeli forces at Qalandia checkpoint, between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.






"It's incumbent upon the international community to guard against the rearming of Hamas," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at a signing ceremony in Washington with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni Friday.

Israel started an offensive against Hamas on Dec. 27, saying it wanted to stop rocket attacks onto Israeli territory by the militant Palestinian group.

Some U.S. officials equated the U.S.-Israeli agreement to the Bush administration's Proliferation Security Initiative, which seeks to guard against the spread of weapons of mass destruction internationally. The U.S. and its allies have used the initiative to interdict ships and airplanes believed to be trafficking components for nuclear programs and long-range missiles.

....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123212394635290635.html

[darrels joy]

US, Israel sign anti-smuggling deal

Rice, Livni hold press conference after signing agreement incorporating international community in struggle against Hamas' rearming through Egypt; Livni describes deal as 'vital to cessation of hostility' in Gaza
Associated Press


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.

Fighting in Gaza

IDF strikes 40 targets in Gaza; sources say '23 bodies found under rubble' / Hanan Greenberg Mosque used to store weapons, six terror cells among targets hit by aircraft; Palestinians say bodies found beneath rubble of building in Gaza City neighborhood that was heavily bombarded Thursday; rocket fire on Negev continues Full Story

At the signing ceremony, Livni described the deal as "a vital complement for a cessation of hostility" in the troubled region.


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 told reporters earlier that she hoped some European countries would work out similar bilateral agreements with Israel.


She accused Hamas of starting the fighting in Gaza by firing rockets towards Israel despite an earlier ceasefire.


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."

Yitzhak Benhorin contributed to this report
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...657357,00.html

[1CAVCCO15MED]

Everything leads back to Iran. There are people in power there that think with absolute certainty God will allow them to prevail no matter what, that nothing on this earth will prevent them from acquiring nuclear weapons and nothing will prevent them from destroying Israel. One of the little noted things Imanutjob did was call on the US to convert to Islam. The significance is that is what the Arabs did in the early days just before destroying their enemys. Those that converted were spared. Anything less would be blasphemy.

[phuloi]

You want to know what the US can do to help? I`ll tell ya:
Give the Israelis the Bunker-Busters they requested in order to destroy the tunnels used as supply routes for Iran to arm Hamas. Or, better yet, let us arc-lite the border between Gaza and Egypt..or mabe Iran!

[SuperScout]

Actually, I think the intended target for the bunker-busters was quite a bit northeast, for any and all nuclear-related structures that the Imano-nutcases have. Despite what the WH said about how the BB's could upset the area, I think that an opposite effect would have prevailed, as the other rag-head nations would have thought twice about doing more nasties towards Israel.

[Seascamp]

Wouldn’t it just be something if the US would sign an anti-smuggling pact with itself and apply to it to our southern border . Wishful thinking, I know, but the Gaza tunnel systems, sea routes, etc. are rather small potatoes in comparison to the challenge we face but choose to ignore. Greif, even back yard pepper tree built submarines are coming right at us. Plus the Mexican war currently raging and spilling over the border makes the Gaza deal kind of a ‘yawn’ thing.

The litmus test for Gaza is if the Hamas rocket barrage stops. If not, then back to a new sheet of paper and start over, one more time. And lest we forget, the arms route from Iran to Gaza goes through Damascus and that is Pelosi belly-rub country. The broom pilot is not going to be pleased with this deal, no way. A check move as I see it and now we‘ll see how quickly she can shut it down.



Scamp

[darrels joy]

Did the Obama administration force Israel to stop Cast Lead?



There's a deeply disturbing headline that all three Israeli newspapers with English web sites share this morning. The JPost headlines "Officials: Troop pullout to end before Obama inauguration." Haaretz didn't put it in the headline, but notes

Israeli officials have said that troops would withdraw completely before Barack Obama's inauguration on Tuesday as the new U.S. president. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan has not been publicly announced.

Government spokesman Mark Regev would not confirm the timetable. He said only that if Gaza remains quiet Israel's dparture will be almost immediate.

YNet headlines "Israel plans to complete Gaza pullout before Obama inauguration." YNet even gives a time: 7:00 pm GMT. Even Hamas 'gave' the IDF a week to pull out.

I will grant that I would rather have our soldiers home than being sitting ducks at Gaza, but this accelerated timetable does not give the IDF a lot of time to confirm that the 'cease fire' actually takes hold.

All of which leads to the real question: Did the incoming Obama administration pressure Israel to end the Gaza war so as not to ruin the party coronation taking place in Washington on Tuesday.

From what I hear from the US, the incoming Obama administration placed 'enormous pressure' on Israel to end the operation. Why? Here's one possibility:

Second, increased tensions and polarization in the Middle East undermines Obama's ability to pursue a new policy towards this region, including a shift in America's 30-year old policy of isolating Iran. In fact, polarization along the imagined Gaza fault lines - and a misleading equation of Hamas with Tehran - traps the incoming Obama administration in an involuntary continuation of the Bush policies that contributed to the increased instability in the Middle East in the first place. From the vantage point of Israeli hardliners, this may be a welcomed outcome since it will make compromise with Tehran more difficult and pressure on Israel less likely. Hence, Tehran seems poised not to help reduce Obama's maneuverability.

I don't buy his characterization of President Bush's policies as contributing to 'increased instability' in the Middle East. And given that Tehran has done more than its share to arm Hamas (from where else did they get Chinese-manufactured rockets?) the equation of Hamas with Tehran is not misleading at all. But there is little doubt that it would be difficult for Obama to negotiate with Hamas when Hamas is in the middle of a war with America's number one ally. And we already know that Obama plans to 'negotiate' with Hamas.

It's going to be a very difficult four years.
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/200...ce-israel.html

Obama has spent almost as much on security (40M) as Bush spent on his inauguration (47M). If you have watched the festivities, you have seen Obama and family behind/inside bullet proof glass with NOONE around them.

I seems the "we can only have one president at a time" was just BS to hide his communication(s).

No wonder Bush moved out before the inauguration day.

Joy