Here are several interrelated news items of interest today:
The Jerusalem Post reports that “The head of Hamas’s political bureau in Damascus, Khaled Mashaal, rejected a request by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa that Hamas unilaterally stop firing Kassam rockets at Israel, according to a report in the London-based daily Al-Hayat on Wednesday. Arab diplomatic sources told the paper that Moussa had met Mashaal in Damascus a few days ago to propose that Hamas hold its fire. Mashaal, however, reportedly shrugged off the request, insisting that Hamas would only end the rocket fire if Israel reciprocated in accordance with the equation ‘stopping Israeli aggression in return for stopping rocket fire’.” This news item is posted here .
The JPost may, or may not, have picked up this item from Ma’an news agency in Bethlehem: “The exiled head of Hamas’ politburo, Khalid Mash’al, has rejected a proposal by the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Mousa, suggesting that Hamas unilaterally stop firing homemade projectiles at Israeli towns bordering the Gaza Strip, Arab diplomatic sources said on Tuesday. Mash’al insisted that any ceasefire must be bilateral, meaning that Israel should halt its attacks on Gaza in exchange for Hamas halting the launch of the projectiles. Mash’al and Mousa met a few days ago in Damascus. Sources who knew the outcome of the meeting said that Hamas also insisted that Israel should not have any role, physical or electronic, in operating the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. In addition, the sources said, Hamas insists that the European monitors stationed at the crossing should be based in the Egyptian border city of Al-Arish, not in Israel, that Palestinian security forces stationed at the crossing be affiliated to President Mahmoud Abbas, not the government of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Hamas also wants to have its own checkpoints on the road to the crossing point, and a share of the economic benefits of trade that passes through the crossing. Sources also highlighted that contacts between the Egyptians and Hamas are still ongoing in attempts to hammer out an agreement on several issues that emerged after the breach of the border wall between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Some Palestinians from the Gaza Strip are still detained in Egypt after that incident, and the Egyptian authorities are still upset at Hamas’ behavior after the incident”.
This Ma’an news report is posted here .
The JPost also reported today that “The Security Cabinet was discussing the escalation in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday morning. The ministers were debating various courses of action, military and political, including a large-scale ground operation”. This JPost news is included in a longer story here .
The JPost adds, in another story, that “Foreign Ministry spokespeople are refusing requests to appear on Al-Jazeera because of what the ministry deems heavily biased coverage of the situation in the Gaza Strip, a ministry official said Tuesday … To support the argument of an Al-Jazeera bias, one Foreign Ministry official quoted from comments senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar made Monday on Hamas’s television station, Al-Aksa, saying that ‘after I thank God, the Praised and the Almighty, I thank the people of the media… specifically the Al-Aksa and Al-Jazeera stations, and all the stations that showed pictures of the pulse of the Palestinian majority’. ‘Thank you to all those who gave support in presenting the pulse of the Palestinian majority, which says we will resist until the Day of Judgment’, he said … The Foreign Ministry official said these comments only strengthened the ministry’s charges that Al-Jazeera was biased in its coverage, and that the ministry believed the station was cooperating with Hamas, against Fatah. Ministry officials held meetings last week with Al-Jazeera’s representatives in Israel, including its bureau chief Walid al-Omary, to discuss the coverage. The Foreign Ministry has charged that Al-Jazeera was in cahoots with Hamas in broadcasting what Israel believed was a staged candlelight protest that followed a government decision last month to reduce electric and gas supplies to the Gaza Strip. Omary denied Tuesday that his network was providing anything but a factual picture from Gaza, adding that the network took pains to cover both sides. Indeed, he said, his camera crews were attacked by angry Sderot residents when they went to cover the story in that city last week. ‘We are not inciting, not provoking’, he said. ‘We don’t have planes, missiles and artillery, and are not part of the confrontation. We are covering this like all others’. Omary said his network frequently had Israeli officials and spokespeople on the air, and that if the Foreign Ministry did indeed carry on with its boycott, other Israelis and government officials would still be willing to be interviewed. ‘We feel sympathy for the suffering of all’, he said. ‘But if you compare the situation in Israel and inside Gaza, you know what happened – more than 120 people were killed in Gaza, and three Israelis were killed. That’s the situation in the Middle East, we are just delivering the news’.”
This JPost report on the Israeli Foreign Ministry boycott of Al-Jazeera is published here.