Operation Cast Lead: Day 14

Hamas has repeatedly stated that it would never accept a ceasefire, so why do headlines continue to equivocate between Israel and Hamas both refusing to stop fighting? Hamas continues attacks against Israel, and the Israelis are supposed to sit back and accept it?

While the call is tantamount to a demand on the parties, Israel's troops won't be required to pull out of Gaza until there is a durable cease-fire. The resolution calls on U.N. member states to intensify efforts to provide guarantees in Gaza to sustain a lasting truce, including prevention of illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition.

In Israel's first official response to the resolution, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said the Hamas rockets fired at Israel Friday "only prove that the U.N.'s decision is not practical and will not be kept in practice by the Palestinian murder organizations."

A Hamas spokesman said the Islamic militant group "is not interested" in the cease-fire because it was not consulted and the resolution did not meet its minimum demands.

Israel launched its assault on Dec. 27 in an attempt to halt years of rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled territory.

Despite the devastating offensive, Hamas has kept up rocket attacks on southern Israel. The rockets fired Friday hit in and around two of the largest southern cities, Beersheba and Ashkelon. Cities within rocket range of Gaza have largely been paralyzed since the fighting began.

The Security Council action came hours after a U.N. agency suspended food deliveries to Gaza, and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers. It also followed concerns of a wider conflict after militants in Lebanon fired rockets into northern Israel early Thursday, though the border has been quiet since.

Left out of that last bit about the Red Cross is reports that Hamas was sneaking in equipment and materials for its war against Israel among those humanitarian aid shipments.

That's why we're in the current battle in the first place. Israel finally said enough to the incessant rocket attacks and has gone after Hamas. The UN Security Council's latest resolution calls for a ceasefire process, but Hamas has no interest in abiding by it. It's completely impractical when it puts more conditions on Israel than it does on the terrorists who launched the war in the first place; Hamas. They haven't abided by their own ceasefire/hudnas in the past, and this situation is no different. Hamas has wanted war since its creation, and now it has it in spades.

Here's the full text of the resolution.

1. The Security Council stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.


2. The Security Council calls for the unimpeded provision and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment.


3. The Security Council welcomes the initiatives aimed at creating and opening humanitarian corridors and other mechanisms for the sustained delivery of humanitarian aid.


4. The Security Council calls on member states to support international efforts to alleviate the humanitarian and economic situation in Gaza, including through urgently needed additional contributions to UNWRA and through the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee.

5. The Security Council condemns all violence and hostilities directed against civilians and all acts of terrorism.

6. The Security Council calls upon member states to intensify efforts to provide arrangements and guarantees in Gaza in order to sustain a durable ceasefire and calm, including to prevent illicit trafficking in arms and ammunition and to ensure the sustained reopening of crossing points on the basis of the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access between the Palestinian Authority; and in this regard, welcomes the Egyptian initiative, and other regional and international efforts that are underway.

That's why the diplomats don't get it. Hamas has no political interest in stopping the war since their religious obligations trump all.

Hamas continues long range rocket attacks against Israel during yet another 3-hour truce, and yet we're supposed to believe that Hamas will honor a ceasefire? The diplomats have their heads in the sand if they think that a piece of paper printed at the UN will stop the war that Hamas launched.

The resolution makes no mention of how Hamas initiated the conflict, continues violating humanitarian truces carried out over the past several days, or that Hamas is responsible for war crimes by using human shields or incitement to genocide by repeatedly calling for Israel's destruction. Instead, we get a statement that condemns acts of terrorism, which Hamas supporters will once again use to claim that Israel is the one engaging in terrorism. Diplomats around the world continue to downplay Hamas' role in causing the current round of fighting, and that only further fuels Hamas - they think that they're wearing down Israel's will to fight and that the diplomatic war against Israel is taking a toll to the point where the diplomats will force Israel to stop defending itself against Hamas and the Islamists.

As seen by comments on my prior coverage, there are more than a few people who think that Israel is the group engaging in terrorism, not Hamas. It's an up-is-down world, and the Security Council resolution does nothing to address this.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad both believes that it is their religious obligation to destroy Israel at all costs, and the human toll is irrelevant - Palestinian or Israeli. The proof is in the comments from the very hospital where Doc. Propaganda is busy committing medical malpractice. This is a hospital that is crawling with stringers and reporters from around the world and no one else caught this nonsense?

The New York Times interviews people from the same hospital where Dr. Propaganda, Mads Gilbert is busy propagandizing away using whatever is at hand to further the cause for Hamas. In the course of the Times piece, however, we see that Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who both consider it their religious obligation to destroy Israel, aren't exactly shy about what they hope for - death.

A car arrived with more patients. One was a 21-year-old man with shrapnel in his left leg who demanded quick treatment. He turned out to be a militant with Islamic Jihad. He was smiling a big smile.

“Hurry, I must get back so I can keep fighting,” he told the doctors.

He was told that there were more serious cases than his, that he needed to wait. But he insisted. “We are fighting the Israelis,” he said. “When we fire we run, but they hit back so fast. We run into the houses to get away.” He continued smiling.

“Why are you so happy?” this reporter asked. “Look around you.”

A girl who looked about 18 screamed as a surgeon removed shrapnel from her leg. An elderly man was soaked in blood. A baby a few weeks old and slightly wounded looked around helplessly. A man lay with parts of his brain coming out. His family wailed at his side.

“Don’t you see that these people are hurting?” the militant was asked.

“But I am from the people, too,” he said, his smile incandescent. “They lost their loved ones as martyrs. They should be happy. I want to be a martyr, too.”

Israel is going to oblige this Islamic Jihad fool (or should I say tool) along with all of his friends.

Further complicating matters is that Hamas now claims that Mahmoud Abbas is no longer in charge of the Palestinian Authority as his term has expired.

Hamas officials said that as of Friday they would not recognize Abbas's status as president of the PA.

But they also made it clear that they would not demand his resignation for now "because of the war" in the Gaza Strip.

"This is not the time to talk about such matters," said one Abbas aide. "President Abbas was elected by a majority of the people, and as such he's the legitimate leader. He represents all the Palestinians and not only those living in the West Bank."

PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayad told reporters on Thursday that the law calls for holding presidential and legislative elections simultaneously. And since the legislative elections are due to be held in January 2010, Abbas is entitled to stay in office for an additional year, he explained.

However, Hamas and some Palestinian legal experts have openly challenged Abbas's right to remain in power after the expiration of his term.

So, while Hamas is busy attacking Israel and considers Abbas out of a job, none other than President Elect Barack Obama thinks that he needs to open dialog with Hamas.

The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's ­doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organisation, sources close to the transition team say.

The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bush ­presidency's ostracising of the group. The state department has designated Hamas a terrorist organisation, and in 2006 ­Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.

The Guardian has spoken to three ­people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive. A tested course would be to start ­contacts through Hamas and the US intelligence services, similar to the secret process through which the US engaged with the PLO in the 1970s. Israel did not become aware of the contacts until much later.

Hamas has no interest in diplomacy - only acts that lead to Israel's destruction. When will the world come to recognize this inalienable and incontrovertible fact?

UPDATE:
The journalistic malpractice continues with respect to the CNN video of the Gaza hospital incident. The print story accompanying the video is still up, but the video is gone.

UPDATE:
The UN is engaging in a blood libel, claiming that Israel told a bunch of Gazans to move from one building to another, and then proceeded to shell the second location, injuring Gazans. It's par for the course when the UN in Gaza are really a bunch of Palestinians and Hamas supporters and sympathizers; they're not objective observers by any stretch. UNRWA's existence is wholly dependent upon the continuation of the refugee crisis, so they have no interest in seeing the conflict end.