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Olmert: strictly speaking, not lying through his teeth. Just not telling the truth.
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| By Israel Insider staff March 11, 2008 |
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Despite Israeli denials of a deal, Egyptian intelligence minister Gen. Omar Suleiman has brokered an informal ceasefire and tacit Israeli approval for a reopened Rafah crossing from Gaza to Sinai, so terrorists and weapons can flow freely and need not be smuggled through tunnels.
Prime minister Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, denying secret talks with Hamas, were technically correct but essentially disingenuous. There were no meeting between the two sides; Egyptian representatives shuttled between them. No documents were signed, leaving it possible to deny the deal or abrogate it at any time.
The emerging deal may buy days or weeks of quiet, based on past experience. The last three days have been free of rockets attacks and IDF action in the area.
Analysts and regular citizens opin Hamas is simply exploiting a welcome respite to recuperate, re-arm and regroup. But residents in the area are enjoying the relative peace and quiet.
Hamas agreed not to dig new arms smuggling tunnels but did not agree to stop using existing underground routes. Amos Gilead, political adviser at Israel?s defense minister, who was in Cairo Sunday, March 10, accordingly countered with this caveat: Israel reserves the freedom to resume military attacks if Hamas goes back to firing missiles or uses the tunnels to smuggle in new weapons supplies.
The trouble with this deal, say senior Israeli officers quoted by Debkafile, is that it is full of holes and will not last. On the one hand, as long as Hamas and Islamic Jihad are not shooting missiles and rockets at Israel, the IDF has no cause to hit back. The list of targets which the Israeli cabinet drew up last week for the next round of attacks ? Hamas leaders and terrorist infrastructure ? has therefore been put on hold. But Israel has no way of telling if and when Hamas uses the smuggling tunnels. Incoming intelligence on these smuggling activities is received after ? sometimes long after - the event. Egypt and Hamas may dispute Israel?s information and the wrangling can go on for weeks.
Furthermore, say the Israeli officers, by accepting the reopening of the Gaza-Egyptian border crossing, Israel has agreed to the unrestricted passage of members of Palestinian armed groups to and from Tehran, Damascus and Beirut.
Hamas has promised Egypt not to smuggle weapons and explosives through Rafah, but officers familiar with Hamas? practices are sure they have no intention of standing by this promise.
The Egyptian-brokered ceasefire arrangement has forced Israel to tacitly accept the end of the international siege of Hamas-ruled Gaza, a dramatic victory for the Islamist Palestinian group that was precipitated when US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice demanded that Israel bring truckloads of supplies to GAz. The convoys were not stopped, even when they came under Palestinian fire and an attempt was made to smuggle from the West Bank substances used for making missile explosives concealed in cans of edible oil.
The US and Israel long ago had long ago abandoned their insistence on border security measures, which Rice had negotiated after Israel?s 2005 withdrawal, which provided for European monitors to man the Rafah terminal and surveillance cameras linked to Israel to be installed there.
Egyptian and Hamas pressure is expected to build up to force withdrawal of security measures from all Israeli crossings into Gaza as well.
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