Saturday, March 1, 2008

Mahmoud Abbas: If Israel Doesn't Let Us Keep Murdering Its People, We Won't Let It Offer Us More Concessions

That's the essense of Abu Mazen's angry response to Israel's modest activity reacting to the bombardment of Sederot and Ashkelon by Palestinian Arab terrorists. The following are excerpts from an Associated Press story with some PRIMER comments added.





Israeli Strikes Kill 50 in Gaza



By Ibrahim Barzak

Gaza City, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli troops, tanks and aircraft targeted Gaza militants bombarding southern Israel with rockets and mortars Saturday, killing 50 Palestinians in the deadliest day of fighting in Gaza since Hamas seized control in June.

As many as two dozen civilians died in the fighting, including a baby and a young child. Two Israel soldiers were also killed. Gaza Health Ministry official Dr. Moaiya Hassanain said 160 people were wounded and 14 of them, including a baby, were in critical condition.

The intense fighting pushed the Palestinian death toll to more than 80 since fighting flared Wednesday. About half of those were civilians.

[That, of course, is according to the bloated and generally highly inaccurate creations of Palestinian Arabs. It also includes, for example, those civilians who died from Kassam rockets aimed at Israel but which fell short and accidentally murdered Palestinian Arabs instead.]


Palestinians leaders called the killings "genocide" and threatened to call off peace talks with Israel.

[This is a threat repeated at the drop of a hat at least a dozen times each day. It's not much of a threat, given that the Palestinian Arabs have no intention of negotiating in good faith and couldn't uphold an agreement even if they wanted to.]


"The response to these rockets can't be that harsh and heinous," said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. "It is nowadays described as a holocaust."

[An interesting assertion made by the Holocaust denier who leads the Ramallah branch of the Palestinian Authority, as well as the Fatah and PLO terror groups.]


In Syria, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal described Israeli attacks against civilians in Gaza as "the real Holocaust."

[The Palestinian Arabs are the ones who attack civilians; there haven't been any Israeli attacks directed at civilians in Gaza.]


Chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia said Palestinian leaders including Abbas recommended suspending peace talks at a meeting Saturday in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

"I think it will be suspended," Qureia said. "What is happening in Gaza is a massacre of civilians, women and children, a collective killing, genocide," Qureia added. "We can't bear what the Israelis are doing, and what the Israelis are doing doesn't led the peace process any credibility."

[Ha kol b'seder as long as Arabs murder Jews; it's just not kosher for Jews to take even minimal defensive measures against Arab terrorists.]


Israeli officials met Saturday to discuss the Gaza violence and its implications for peacemaking. Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said talks didn't preclude fighting. Talks are "based on the understanding that when advancing the peace process with pragmatic (Palestinian) sources, Israel will continue to fight terror that hurts its people," he said.

[The Road Map prescribed negotiations would not begin until the Arabs ended their terror activities, something they were supposed to have done back in 1993.

When it comes to "pragmatic" Palestinian Arabs, the term refers to Arabs who are willing to sit down with Israel to accept concessions while pretending to be uninvolved in continuing terror attacks.]


On Friday, Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai renewed a threat to invade Gaza to crush militant rocket squads that attack southern Israel daily.

[Can anyone imagine any country other than Israel ptting up with the constant terror attacks the way Israel has?]


The spike in violence came just days before Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was to arrive in the region to nudge Israel and Palestinians closer to an accord. But the rising violence could mar her visit.

[What's the point of trying to reach an accord when the Palestinian Arabs have neither the interest nor the ability to adhere to one?]


Palestinian fighters kept up a steady stream of rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli targets, undeterred by Israeli troops backed by tanks and attack aircraft. Six Israelis were wounded, all but one of them slightly, in rocket fire that reached as far north as Ashkelon, 11 miles from Gaza.

The bloodletting began shortly before midnight Friday in the northern town of Beit Hanoun, where a 13-month-old girl, Malak Karfaneh, was killed by shrapnel. Hamas blamed Israel, but residents said a militant rocket fell short and landed near the baby's house.

[Poetic injustice.

As Golda Meir pointed out, peace won't come before the Arabs begin to love their children more than they hate Jews.]




Palestinian rocket fire earlier in the week also killed an Israeli man. On Thursday, militants raised the stakes by firing Iranian-made rockets into Ashkelon, a coastal city of 120,000 people closer to Israel's heartland.

[No nation can countenance rocket fire at a city with over a hundred thousand people.]




Israeli government spokesman David Baker said Israel was "compelled to continue to take these defensive measures" to protect more than 200,000 Israelis living under the threat of Palestinian rocket barrages.

Militants "hide behind their own civilians, using them as human shields, while actively targeting Israeli population centers," Baker said. "They bear the responsibility for the results."



Mashaal also blamed his Fatah rivals for helping along Israel's attacks.

"I accuse the president of the Palestinian Authority of providing coverage of this holocaust in Gaza," Mashaal said in Damascus. Hamas has said Abbas' condemnation of rocket fire has given a pretext to Israel's assault on Gaza.

[Pretext???]


Journalists also came under fire in Jebaliya and a cameraman for Dubai TV, Mahmoud Ajrami, was wounded.

A health official said 35 ambulances were lying idle because they did not have fuel to power them. Israel, which supplies all of Gaza's fuel, cut back supplies in recent months in an effort to increase pressure on Hamas to rein in the rocket launchers.

[Only Israel would supply fuel to the very people launching missiles at its cities!]


Israeli-Palestinian talks resumed in November after a seven-year breakdown at a U.S.-sponsored conference. At the gathering, the two sides pledged to try to reach an accord by the end of this year. In recent weeks, negotiators have met almost daily.

But even when violence is at a lower level, Abbas' efforts are compromised by the fact that he only rules the West Bank, while Gaza is controlled by Hamas. And Israel's fragile government would be hard pressed to make concessions to the Palestinians while Gaza militants pummel southern Israel.

[It would also help if the Palestinian Arab "negotiators" would negotiate, rather than clinging to the same extreme positions they started with a decade and a half ago when the disastrous Oslo Process began.]

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