Thread:
People keep asking me why is #Israel negotiating with #Hamas. While Israel refuses to confirm its negotiating with the terrorist organization the reality on the ground suggests otherwise. Here are my thoughts on the subject.
1. The @netanyahu government doesn’t want another war with Gaza, Unless it will fundamentally change something on the ground. It appears that the leaders don’t believe that change will come from war.
2. All previous attempts to try and not impede on talks between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority have left Israel at the mercy of those talks and have usually ended up in rocket fire at Israel.
3. The PA has little interest in reconciliation with Hamas without full control, Hamas is a life longing organization that will not cede its control.
4. The PA will not enable The Egyptian and UN efforts to create a better environment on the ground in order to prevent empowerment of Hamas.
5. Hamas’ interest remains alleviation of the humanitarian situation in order better their public standing and consolidate control. This campaign began on the 30th of March.
6. Israel’s interest is to improve the security of its civilians that have been suffering from rockets, tunnel threats and most recently incendiary devices. And @netanyahu needs to prevent populist politicians from attacking him while it happens.
7. The tweets I receive about it being the time to end Hamas once and for all, usually reflect an unrealistic belief from afar that Hamas as an ideology can be defeated.
8. I believe the government should do everything possible to avert an unnecessary war, and if the PA is getting in the way they should be bypassed with mediators.
9. Egypt and @nmladenov have been making progress. With @AvigdorLiberman opening Kerem Shalom & increasing the fishing zone to 9 nautical miles should be seen in the context of war prevention and confidence building measures.
10. These are not signs of weakness,
But calculated conflict management, that can improve the reality for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
1. Wow. @danawt reporting that the US Government is expected to announce at the beginning of September that the Administration will cease funding the West Bank operations of @UNRWA, will propose a new definition of refugees to coincide with @Refugees.
2. Here’s @UNRWA beneficiaries in the West Bank
809,738 registered Palestine refugees
19 camps
96 schools, with 48,956 pupils
2 vocational and technical training centres
43 primary health centres
15 community rehabilitation centres
19 women’s programme centres
3. Also @danawt reported that the administration will ask Israel to change @UNRWA mandate in order to prevent Arab financial support too. Obviously the organization doesn’t get its mandate from Israel. This is a very strange statement.
After a long day on Twitter here are my thoughts about the #GazaReturnMarch - Hamas cynically picked today as the peak of the demonstrations for one purpose - to restore international involvement in Gaza for the plight of the peoples dire situation.
Hamas in the past tried to gain this attention by launching rockets, attack tunnels and abduction. While those are still on the table, the new strategy is the border confrontations.
Their intention is to regain attention of the international community and solve some of the difficulties they are facing bu putting pressure on the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Israel.