Maybe Banky Moony was listening after all.
I suppose "unilateral cease-fire" is UN-speak for "unconditional surrender".
If not Orwellian. (Or French).
Lets guess who's supposed to "surrender" here.
AP's story is below.
January 15, 2009
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The U.N. chief urged Israel Friday to declare a unilateral cease-fire in Gaza, but Israel rebuffed the idea as its diplomats headed for Egypt and the United States in what appeared to be a final push toward a truce.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon floated the idea during a visit to the West Bank on his Mideast mission to try to stop Israel's three-week-old offensive against Hamas militants who have been firing rockets from Gaza for years.
"I strongly urge Israeli leadership and government to declare a cease-fire unilaterally," Ban said from Ramallah, the seat of the West Bank government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a fierce rival of Hamas. "It's time to think about a unilateral cease-fire from the Israeli government."
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev dismissed the idea.
"I don't believe that there's a logical expectation in the international community that Israel unilaterally cease fire while Hamas would continue to target cities, trying to kill our people," he said.
Ban is on a weeklong trip to the region meant to promote a truce after both sides ignored a U.N. resolution demanding an immediate and durable cease-fire.
He will not meet with Gaza's Hamas rulers, who have been shunned by much of the international community since they violently overran Gaza in June 2007.
It's not the first time that there has been a call for a "unilateral cease-fire" on the part of the Israelis; usually it came from the English Parliament, and those calls were so transparently one-sided that even a hardcore Palestinian sympathizer like Tony Blair had to reject the call at the time.
The interesting item here is, that by Banky Moony bypassing Hamas and thereby tacitly admitting on behalf of the UN that Hamas IS a terrorist oragnization, he further illustrates the true ineffectuality of the UN's involvement in any aspect of dealing with the conflict between the Jewish State and her unequivocally hostile neighbors.
Read that again; even AP can find only so much wiggle room with the facts.
He will not meet with Gaza's Hamas rulers, who have been shunned by much of the international community since they violently overran Gaza in June 2007.
Banky Moony should declare a unilateral moratorium on United Nazions diplomacy in, about, or around Israel, and recuse himself and his "organization" from any pretense to adjudication of the conflict, owing to a clearly blatant conflict of interest.
1 comment:
I have wanted to respond to a blog comment of yours before, especially surrounding the recent US elections but time slipped away. Now with last night's announcement by Israel (Olmert and Barak) of the unilateral ceasefire, I have my chance.
Unilateral ceasefire despite its numerous complications, may actually work to Israel's favor:
1. It creates (if that's possible) positive press for Israel; that it's stopping the bloodshed of the "poor innocent Palestinians" (tongue in check--since they are both being cynically used as 'human shields' by Hamas and have chosen to allow their homes/environs to be turned into military targets), garnering support from the international community (principally Europe and the UN, but also Egypt) to place the precipitating actions--the arms smuggling and rocket launching--on a larger agenda/screen if only for the short-term. [I'm less sanguine about the media coverage.]
2. Israel has agreed to only stop firing 'unprovoked'. It will still maintain its armed forces on the ground, retains the right to respond to fire (which already happened this morning) until its clear that hostilities are over and Hamas has been neutralized.
3. The timing is also important. With the Bush era drawing to a close, there’s little guarantee that Obama will offer the same conditions. With the Obama inauguration several days away, the (potential) quiet will allow the world to focus on Washington DC and allow the Obama team to enter the fray at its own pace knowing that Israel has publicly and officially expressed its desire to cease the current round of hostilities. It will, therefore, give Israel some extra ‘brownie points’ from the new administration.
Only time will tell if the unilateral ceasefire is a white flag for Israel or the start of a new dynamic in Gaza. Despite all the Hamas spinning, the reality of a desimated Gaza speaks for itself and if it also leads to a regime change (we can always hope), that too will be "le'tova".
The issue is far more complicated and convoluted than I expressed above. I’ll save the rest of my commentary for another time.
Shavua Tov and have a happy MLK Day (I still wait for the “MLK white day sale” :-)))
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