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WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Israeli officials said the resolution to the Gaza Strip war would most likely emerge from talks in Cairo and not at the United Nations.
The Cairo talks were the likeliest path to a "political solution," the officials told journalists on Thursday, adding that they did not regard as serious the current negotiations in New York aimed at arriving at a U.N. Security Council consensus on ending the Gaza war.
Few details about the "Mubarak initiative," named for the Egyptian president, are known, but reports have said it proposes an end to attacks from Gaza and an end to the smuggling of weapons into Gaza in exchange for an opening of commercial crossings into the strip. Two top Israeli officials arrived in Cairo on Thursday to pursue the talks; top Bush administration officials, including Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, have also backed the Cairo initiative.
The Israeli officials who spoke to journalists said the cease-fire and the end of smuggling were Israel's bottom lines; they did not reject other aspects of the "political solution" that might emerge from such an agreement, including the possibility that it would re-join Hamas to the moderate Fatah in a Palestinian national unity government.
The Israeli officials said, however, that it was critical that Hamas not emerge as having scored diplomatic gains during the war.
Israel opposes any Security Council-imposed end to the war, saying it would confer undeserved legitimacy on Hamas, a terrorist group that controls Gaza. Top officials from western nations, led by the United States, are in New York negotiating the wording of a Security Council resolution introduced by Libya on behalf of the Arab League.
Israel launched major operations in Gaza on Dec. 27, two weeks after Hamas suspended a cease-fire with a barrage of rocket attacks on southern Israel.
The Israeli officials said they were working closely with Bush administration officials on efforts to end the war; they had not been in touch with officials of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, observing the principal of foreign entities working only with a sitting president.
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First, my wish is that everybody lives in peace. Second, I’m afraid that this attacks on the UN people that supply assistance to the Palestinians, making them stop operations, is going to be look later as a genocidal action. Turkey move Armenians for relocation purposes and that action turn on the deaths of thousands of Armenians. There was a massacre in India when the British were in charge. They didn’t supply assistance to the wounded. It was criticize later.
The UN has been part of the problem, always blaming Israel and not stopping Hamas from using it as one of the civilian “shields.” It is certainly a problem of appearance, but I hope Israel will continue to educate anyone who is willing to listen. From what I have seen, Israel has been willing to allow assistance to the wounded. I believe the policy of imposing a “diet” on Gaza is counterproductive, but it is far from genocide. And let’s remember that Hamas has had no problem supplying itself with munitions and other weapons, but not medicine and food for the people it controls.
Hamas was create by Israel to take power away from the PLO.
Israel created his own monster.
Is my idea that the Government from Israel enjoys being attack by Hamas. Then they have the excuse to invade Gaza and destroy 100 times more property than what Hamas did. And they keep expanding their illegal settlements. The longer the violence is, there can’t be peace. If there can’t be peace, Israel has more time to expand and expand. Each time there is a period of calm, Israel manages to bomb Hamas members, what make them mad and makes them launch more rockets.
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