This report is the eighth in a series on the current confrontation
between Gaza and Israel.
ISRAEL: The following is the perspective of Danny
Rubenstein, one of Israel’s greatest award winning journalists and a close
friend of the NCF:
It’s a window of opportunity now because the Hamas
regime is isolated and broken both militarily and
financially.
Now is the first time Egypt and Abu Mazin and
Israel have truly cooperated. This is a good chance to bring Gaza to life. There
are a lot of possibilities. For instance the gas reservoirs (Gaza has vast
offshore gas reserves). The only reason they are not developed is the need
to find a customer. You cannot develop these reserves without a customer. Gaza
itself is not enough as a customer. The only relevant customer is
Israel.
Developing the Gaza reserves through Egypt is a
disaster because the terrorists would attack the pipeline in Sinai. If Israel
buys this then there could also be a pipeline to Jordan. This would bring
millions of dollars to Gaza. You could run desalination plants for Gaza with the
cheap energy.
For 15 years nothing has been done with this gas.
And this is only one example of how Gaza could be
developed.
If you listen to Netanyahu, he doesn’t say
anything about getting rid of Hamas. I am afraid he wants a weak Hamas to stay
and Abu Mazin to remain a weak partner for peace. It would be much much better
if Abu Mazin were strong and would take over Gaza.
Of course Abu Mazin getting with the support of
Israeli tanks would be a disaster. But now if we had a cease fire and moved on
from there, Hamas is popular but very weak because it is isolated by the entire
world. That’s why it is a good time to start this
dialogue.
GAZA: The following comment comes from the NCF
office in Gaza.
The situation is the same. The situation is still
very bad today. Violence. Tank shells. Especially on the East of Gaza, North and
South. Everywhere. Today so far 32 have been killed and more than 100 injured.
In total thus far we have 832 dead, more than 5,200 injured, 17,000 houses
damaged, 1,800 completely destroyed.
Hamas fighters and the Israeli Army are still
fighting. Hamas killed three Israeli soldiers today but we hear nothing of that
from the Israelis.
On the political effort there is nothing new. We
will support any new idea, believe this. But compromise is difficult because
Hamas must completely end the siege. But Israel just wants quiet on the basis of
calm = calm. This is completely impossible for us because we would just be in
the same miserable situation we were in before all this began which means
nothing.
The Egyptian side do not support Hamas demands to
end the siege.
We want to rebuild the airport and seaport but
Israel is not ready to give Palestine this point.
For Al Eid there will be a truce for a few days
maybe.
The obstacle is Egypt and maybe Saudi
Arabia.
It’s really terrible.
COMMENT: Today's comment is from UK Task Force, an organisation that
highlights issues in regard to Israel’s Arabs, and they have highlighted and
submitted this article from the Economist.
Also – Geoffrey
Whitfield of Sports for Peace sent us this more subjective comment piece from Uri
Avnery of Peace Now. Thank You
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