“To the ‘horror’ of the Israeli ministers, the Kerry proposal accepted Hamas’s demands for the opening of border crossings into Gaza — where Israel and Egypt fear the import of weaponry; the construction of a seaport; and the creation of a post-conflict funding channel for Hamas from Qatar and other countries, according to the sources. The proposal, meanwhile, did not even provide for Israel to continue demolishing the Hamas network of “terror tunnels” dug under the Israeli border.” Is it a surprise to anyone that an Obama Administration official would devise a proposal that would have the effect of strengthening the jihad against Israel while weakening the Jewish state?
“Kerry ‘completely capitulated’ to Hamas in ceasefire proposal, say Israeli sources,” Times of Israel, July 26, 2014 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
Israeli government sources on Saturday night accused US Secretary of State John Kerry of “completely capitulating” to the demands of Hamas and its champion Qatar in drafting the Gaza war ceasefire proposal that Israeli ministers unanimously rejected on Friday.
The unnamed sources, quoted by Israel’s Channel 2 TV, said Kerry “dug a tunnel under the Egyptian ceasefire proposal” — which Israel accepted and Hamas rejected last week — and presented the Israeli government with a text that accepted “most of the demands” raised by Hamas, the Islamist terror group that rules the Strip.
To the “horror” of the Israeli ministers, the Kerry proposal accepted Hamas’s demands for the opening of border crossings into Gaza — where Israel and Egypt fear the import of weaponry; the construction of a seaport; and the creation of a post-conflict funding channel for Hamas from Qatar and other countries, according to the sources. The proposal, meanwhile, did not even provide for Israel to continue demolishing the Hamas network of “terror tunnels” dug under the Israeli border.
Rather than provoke an open diplomatic confrontation with the United States, the report said, the appalled ministers chose not to issue an official statement rejecting the Kerry terms. Instead, word of the decision was allowed to leak out.
The cabinet was meeting again on Saturday night to discuss all aspects of the 19-day conflict with Hamas. Ongoing efforts were being made to reformulate the ceasefire terms, Israeli sources said.
Channel 2′s diplomatic reporter Udi Segal said “voices” from the cabinet had described Kerry as “negligent,” “lacking the ability to understand” the issues, and “incapable of handling the most basic matters.”
The Channel 2 report said that some of those involved in the contacts with Kerry had suggested that “perhaps there was some kind of misunderstanding” or that Kerry “was only presenting a draft” of the offer, but the secretary himself gave no indication that this was the case when he expressed his disappointment that no ceasefire had been agreed during a press conference in Cairo on Friday night.
Israel and Hamas did maintain a humanitarian truce through Saturday evening, during which Israel continued to track and demolish some of the Hamas tunnels. Hamas ended the truce unilaterally on Saturday night and resumed rocket fire.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, in a TV interview just before the Saturday night cabinet meeting, said Israel needed to continue its ground offensive in Gaza until it was confident that what the IDF had achieved “can prevent a fourth round” of conflict with Hamas and guarantee the safety of the people of Israel. “We have to be sure, the day after a ceasefire, that Hamas cannot restart digging tunnels” and amassing better, more dangerous missiles. “If we haven’t achieved that…,” he tailed off.
Israel was also fuming Saturday over the tactics followed by Secretary Kerry since Friday night in his ceasefire quest.
Kerry flew to Paris and held talks Saturday without representatives of Israel, the Palestinian Authority or Egypt, but with Qatar and Turkey, which Israel’s Communications Minister Gilad Erdan said showed “we’re a long way from a political solution.”
Privately, Israeli sources signaled deep dismay that Kerry engaged in the talks in Paris with representatives of Turkey, whose leadership is openly hostile to Israel, and Qatar, whose leadership is seen by Israel to be representing Hamas’s interests. Egypt was also understood to be deeply dissatisfied with Kerry’s tactics.
Israeli government sources also privately contradicted Kerry’s assertion Friday that his ceasefire proposal was “built on” the Egyptian proposal from last Tuesday. Far from resembling the Egyptian proposal, which urges an immediate ceasefire followed by negotiation, the Kerry proposal leans heavily toward Hamas, the sources said, in tying Hamas preconditions to a cessation of hostilities.
Said Erdan, in a Saturday evening interview on Channel 2: “We will not end this operation and leave Gaza until the tunnels are dealt with.” Israel is also intent on drastically degrading Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure, he said. “The international community needs to understand that we are very open to the economic rehabilitation of Gaza” once the conflict is over, but that if Hamas remained in control of Gaza, and continued to build rockets and tunnels, Israel “won’t be able to tolerate that.”
Saturday’s “humanitarian truce” in Gaza, in contrast to the Kerry ceasefire terms, was regarded as meeting Israel’s interests, government sources said. Israel was able to continue work on demolishing the tunnels, they noted.
On Friday afternoon, The Times of Israel published what Arab sources said were the key terms of the Kerry offer, which indeed made no provision for Israel to be able to continue tracing and demolishing the cross-border tunnels.
An Army Radio report on Friday night highlighted that the US on Monday signed an $11 billion arms deal with Qatar, and noted that Qatar is championing Hamas’s demands in the ceasefire negotiations, and is also alleged by Israel to be financing Hamas’s rocket production, tunnel digging infrastructure, and other elements of its military infrastructure. The radio report also claimed that Ban Ki-moon “is flying around the region on a Qatari plane.”
Channel 2′s respected Middle East analyst Ehud Ya’ari said Saturday that Turkey and Qatar are “Hamas’s lawyers,” and that it was “very worrying” to see how Kerry was handling the ceasefire process.
Six Israeli soldiers have been killed by Hamas gunmen emerging from the Hamas tunnels in five incidents in the past 18 days, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Hamas was planning massive terrorist attacks via the tunnels on Israeli kibbutzim that would have had “catastrophic consequences.”
Israel’s relations with Kerry, strained for a long time, were not helped when he was caught on a hot-mic earlier this week apparently sneering at Israel’s insistence that it is trying to tackle Hamas terror targets in Gaza with “pinpoint” accuracy. Comments made by the secretary in the same incident also indicated that Israel had not invited him to embark on this ceasefire mission, presumably because Israel wanted more time to tackle the Hamas tunnels.
The Israeli army’s southern commander, who is overseeing Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza, confirmed earlier Friday that he felt the army needed more time, although it had located what it believes are most of the tunnels.
Netanyahu has said Operation Protective Edge will continue and expand as necessary until sustained calm has been achieved for the people of Israel and Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure has been significantly weakened. Israeli officials have spoken of the need to have Gaza demilitarized, and the EU earlier this week demanded the disarming of Hamas and other Gaza terror groups. Hamas has fired over 2,000 rockets at Israel over the past 18 days. The IDF launched a ground offensive last Thursday that has focused on finding and demolishing the network of Hamas tunnels. Gaza officials say 1,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive; Israeli military officials say hundreds of Hamas gunmen are among the dead. The IDF toll is 40 dead, six of them killed by Hamas gunmen emerging from tunnels in Israel. Three civilians have been killed by rocket and mortar fire from Gaza.
John C. Barile says
Turkey and Qatar run the U.S. government’s foreign policy. May Erdogan and al-Thani be toppled.
Jovial Joe says
That’s not a cease fire proposal, it’s rank capitulation. In all my years I’ve never witnessed such brazen collusion with the enemies of freedom as has occurred with this administration. I would go so far as to say that this has been the darkest episode in the history of our Western civilisation.
Charli Main says
JJ
there is an even darker episode, yet to come, when 75 million Muslim Turks are invited into the European Union, to live and breed anywhere in Europe they like.
It took hundreds of years of bitter fighting to kick them out and now they will just walk back in waving shiny new EU passports.
sc says
what else would you expect from a traitor like kerry?
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
s it a surprise to anyone that an Obama Administration official would devise a proposal that would have the effect of strengthening the jihad against Israel while weakening the Jewish state?
Hardly, but Big John has little choice but to kowtow and further assist the mass murderers. The only alternative would be to publicly define Hamas as mass murderers who are faithfully acting on the commands of Allah in the Holy Ko-Ran, and that is no option at all. Doing that would be verboten.
The entirety of the Western world has been in deep denial about Moslems for decades. When old man Klinghoffer was rolled in his wheelchair into a watery grave in ’85, the general reaction was muffled, as if it was done out of some parochial dispute over Jewish colonialism in the Middle East.
The only thing that’s changed in the intervening three decades is that Western Infidels are more open about their anti-semitism. But even that’s fake. I don’t think they hate the Jews that much, they *need* the Jews to be able to explain the eschatological horror of the Moslems, who have a Final Solution that reaches beyond that of Adolph and would thrust into the guts of every Infidel household on Earth — with self-congratulation, self-praise, and open celebration.
Like how they celebrated in the streets of NY and NJ when the first tower went down. These people are only capable of that kind of happiness.
richard Sherman says
The US State Dept has been foundationally antisemitic sinnce the 1930s..Kerry represents the same antisemitism thatt had the US State Dept supporting a US arms embargo of Israel from 1948 until after 1967. The State Department celebrates dead Jews just like everyone who celebrates the sociopath Muhammad who personally decapitated 900 unarmed Jews.
jp says
When has the Obama admin every failed to take the side of Islamist lunatics?
Tradewinds says
John F (stands for Failure) Kerry is such a loser. How in heck did he become SOS?
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
How in heck did he become SOS?
He went to Yale is why. The consignment of the nation’s upper echelon to Ivy League grads was tolerable way back when they were real colleges. Now, they’re anti-American anti-freedom sub-intellectual dumps that confer the ability of a couple of thousand professors the power to impart grievous damage on the nation, which the Professoriat is more than happy to do.
Richie says
Israel needs to see that with Obama and any Democrat in the White House, the US isn’t much of an ally. I am convinced that the day will come when Obama will order US troops fight on the side of the Jihadists against Israel.
RonaldB says
In the debates between Mitt Romney and Obama, it was obvious that Romney was far more intelligent than Obama. His superiority in organization of thought and detail of expression was obvious.
However, Romney’s grasp of real US interests in the Middle East was tenuous, and seemed no better than Obama’s. Romney at the time favored US intervention in Syria.
It seems, though, that the intellectual mediocrity of Obama is fully matched by that of his appointments. Kerry himself was a major contender for US president, which should perhaps cause us to rethink our constraints on the US electoral process. US election procedures seem to select against truly thoughtful candidates, in favor of publicity-seeking airheads.
In any case, a critical aspect of the current proposal is, how are Israel’s supporters in the US, specifically, the far-left Reform Judaism movement, responding to the US blundering? The US still has a major role in preventing the UN from declaring an official sanction against Israel. Interestingly enough, with the fracturing of the Muslim world into Sunni, Shi’ite, the Muslim Brotherhood, and now the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Israel may be able to use the self-interests of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and some of the emirates to make itself more independent of the US.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt see Iran as a huge threat to them, and are not about to undercut the ability of Israel to stand as a bulwark against Iranian aggression. Saudi Arabia has to maintain formal Islamic principles, such as rabid religious intolerance, but outside it’s borders, it probably quietly supports many Israeli interests.
But, the US, with the raging mediocrities of this administration and Kerry in particular, is being left far behind. Unfortunately, the large block of reform Jews is seriously dropping the ball, and it is only the Christian supporters of Israel who are vocal in supporting Israel’s measures to protect itself and its people.
Daniel Triplett says
This treasonous, arrogant Bassett Hound knows only how to marry wealthy widows. He’s an idiot and a fool, dragging all crises in the wrong direction every time.
John Kerry is a disgrace to America. I’m embarrassed and ashamed he represents my blessed country. He’s 10X worse than Hillary ever was, and she was worthless.
My God, I wish the Israelis would just refuse his phone calls, deny him landing rights, and completely tune this traitor out. There are plenty of other great Americans with whom the Israelis can work. Try Ted Cruz, our next POTUS, for starters. The Israelis need no one’s permission to kick Muslim ass. Netanyahu answers to no one but God.
Kerry doesn’t belong on the same stage as Netanyahu. He’s not qualified to shine the PM’s shoe.
cookiebaker says
Does anyone else think Obama and Kerry are the modern day Laurel and Hardy?
Kerry`s expression,mimic’s? Laurels.So, “another fine mess you have gotten us into”.
Only this is no joke.Who will stand up to Jihad?Admit what it really wants?
Not them.
Geppetto says
It should be clear to all by now that John Kerry and Barack Hussein Obama are way out of their depth when dealing with the adversaries of America, Israel and much of the free world. American leadership has become an oxymoron and it bears repeating that every American of voting age who voted for Obama should be ashamed of themselves.
It is not anywhere near enough, in this information age, to choose to vote for candidates based on the same superficial clap trap used to sell “soap.” Obama is handsome, interracial and a gifted orator and that’s where the Hollywood like facade ends but that and a long, ongoing, media smear campaign on everything conservative, is what got him and his equally inept Democratic legislators elected. Politics is a dirty game and no place for amateur politicians or amateur voters. Spending a few hours on election day to “pull the lever” in and of itself, does not make one a responsible citizen. Voting irresponsibly has resulted in the rudderless ship that is now America.
Pathfinder0100 says
Kerry-a coward in the war
a traitor
a liar
the worst Sec. of State in the US history