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Prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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In-Depth Issues:
Hundreds of Hamas Members Trained in Rocket Launching in Damascus and Tehran - Georges Malbrunot
(Le Figaro-France - in French)
Policemen Killed in Gaza Were 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Members (MEMRI)
Israeli Public in No Mood for Compromise - Kim Sengupta
(Independent-UK)
Hamas Moves Against Fatah "Collaborators" - Khaled Abu Toameh (Jerusalem Post)
Son of Hamas Leader Gives Glimpse into Terror Organization (FOX News)
Israel Interrupts Hamas Radio, TV Broadcasts in Gaza (AFP)
Useful Reference:
Video: Children of Hamas (YouTube) Search Key Links Media Contacts Back Issues Fair Use |
News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza on Saturday night, opening a ground war against Hamas after a week of intense airstrikes. The Israeli military said in a statement that the objective of the ground campaign was "to destroy the terrorist infrastructure of Hamas, while taking control of some of the rocket launching sites" that Hamas uses to fire at southern Israel. "Hamas can stop it whenever it wants," by stopping its rocket fire, said Shlomo Dror, a Defense Ministry spokesman. (New York Times) See also Israeli Troops Control Roads North, South of Gaza City Israeli infantry units backed by tanks took control on Sunday of the major roads leading into Gaza City, witnesses said. Dozens of tanks operating south of Gaza City, in the area of the former Jewish settlement of Netzarim, had also taken control of the coastal road. (AFP) See also More than 50 Hamas Terrorists Killed in Ground Operation - Hanan Greenberg The IDF estimates that since the start of the ground operation Saturday night in Gaza, more than 50 Hamas operatives have been killed. Mortar shells are being fired at the troops, who are responding with tank fire. (Ynet News) In a radio address Saturday, President Bush said: "This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas - a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel's destruction. Eighteen months ago, Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a coup, and since then has imported thousands of guns and rockets and mortars. Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, but Hamas routinely violated that ceasefire by launching rockets into Israel. On December 19th, Hamas announced an end to the ceasefire and soon unleashed a barrage of rockets and mortars that deliberately targeted innocent Israelis - an act of terror that is opposed by the legitimate leader of the Palestinian people, President Abbas." "In response to these attacks on their people, the leaders of Israel have launched military operations on Hamas positions in Gaza. As a part of their strategy, Hamas terrorists often hide within the civilian population, which puts innocent Palestinians at risk." "Another one-way ceasefire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable. And promises from Hamas will not suffice - there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end." "America's objectives in the Middle East will remain clear: We seek security and peace for our allies, the free people of Israel. For the Palestinian people, we seek a peaceful and democratic Palestinian state that serves its citizens and respects its neighbors." (White House) See also Hamas Provoked Attacks, Bush Says - Sudarsan Raghavan and Dan Eggen (Washington Post) The U.S. thwarted an effort by Libya on Saturday to persuade the UN Security Council to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after Israel launched a ground invasion, diplomats said. The U.S. refused to back the Libyan-drafted text or a later, watered-down call for a truce. The U.S. insists that any resolution state that Hamas is a terrorist organization that seized power in Gaza from the legitimate Palestinian Authority. U.S. envoy Alejandro Wolff said there was no point in issuing statements that Hamas, which unilaterally declared an end to a 6-month-old ceasefire last month, would ignore. "I don't think it does the council any good...to issue statements that aren't going to be observed," Wolff said. "Israel's self-defense is not negotiable." (Reuters) France condemned an Israeli land assault in Gaza on Saturday, just hours after the Czech presidency of the EU said Israel appeared to be acting defensively. "At the moment, from the perspective of the last days, we understand this step as a defensive, not offensive, action," said Czech EU presidency spokesman Jiri Potuznik in Prague. (Reuters) See also German Chancellor Merkel: Hamas Terror Cannot Be Accepted - Benjamin Weinthal German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her New Year's address: "The terror of Hamas cannot be accepted." According to her spokesman Thomas Steg, she said in a conversation with Prime Minister Olmert that the responsibility for the conflict lies "clearly and exclusively" with Hamas. Merkel demanded that Hamas "immediately and permanently" stop its rocket attacks on Israel. (Jerusalem Post) Iranian President Ahmadinejad's senior advisor, Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi, pointed to efforts made by Iran to bring together the member states of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) in an emergency meeting on the crisis in Gaza. "In contacts we had (with the OIC member states), only eight countries said that they will attend the meeting," Fars news agency quoted him as saying. (Tehran Times-Iran) Israel's assault in Gaza has widened the rift between Palestinians who back the search by moderate leaders for a peace accord and those drawn to Hamas' call for armed struggle. Palestinians say they are reluctant to rally behind any national cause not backed by all political factions. That helps explain why unrest over the violence in Gaza has been less intense in the West Bank than in some Arab capitals, said Hani Masri, a political analyst in Ramallah. (Los Angeles Times) News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
The Israel Defense Forces started deploying combat units to surround Hamas' main power base. The goal is not to destroy every last rocket launcher, but rather to break the Hamas' resistance and force it to agree to a long-term cease-fire. The ground invasion will also accelerate the diplomatic stopwatch. That means the IDF has less than a week to make genuine progress in Gaza. Hamas is likely to use suicide attackers, booby-trapped tunnels and sniper fire against IDF troops. More than 100 militants who trained in Iran will lead the fighting against the IDF. (Ha'aretz) The Israeli army is on high alert along the northern border out of concern that Hizbullah will fire rockets - or use Palestinian proxies to do so - in response to the IDF's escalation in Gaza. This would open a second front for Israel as it operates against Hamas in the south. On Saturday, Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, arrived in Syria to discuss the situation in Gaza. According to media reports, Jalili said Iran and Hizbullah had reached an agreement under which the Lebanese group would launch rockets into Israel if the IDF began a ground operation in Gaza. (Jerusalem Post) The international community, headed by the U.S. and Egypt, is giving Israel time to carry out the ground offensive in Gaza, so it will severely damage Hamas' regime. The rationale behind such a move is that a weakened Hamas would improve the chances of achieving a stable agreement in Gaza once the fighting subsides. According to sources in the U.S., President Bush has intercepted an initiative by Secretary of State Rice and British Foreign Secretary Miliband to formulate a cease-fire draft. One source said Bush instructed the State Department to refrain from action in the matter. According to officials, the U.S. and Israel are cooperating diplomatically on the issue. (Ha'aretz) Senior Hamas terrorist Hussam Hamdan, who was in charge of Grad-type rocket launches into Beersheba and Ofakim, was killed in an IAF strike on Khan Yunis on Sunday. Senior Hamas terrorist Muhammad Hilo, in charge of Hamas special forces in Khan Yunis, was also killed in the same airstrike. (Jerusalem Post) A number of Palestinian rockets exploded in the Ashdod area Sunday, injuring a woman. One hit a store and started a fire. Rockets also landed near Ashkelon. (Ynet News) See also Palestinian Rocket Fire Injures Two Palestinians in Gaza fired five rockets at Sderot Sunday, injuring one woman. A rocket fired on Saturday scored a direct hit on a house in Netivot, causing the structure to completely collapse and wounding the resident of the house. (Ha'aretz) Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
Hamas came to power in January 2006 largely thanks to the corruption and incompetence of the Palestinian Authority. But many of the Palestinians who voted for Hamas were well aware of the movement's radical ideology and its desire to replace Israel with an Islamic state. The majority of the Palestinians who voted for Hamas knew exactly what they were choosing. Indeed, in mid-December, more than 250,000 Palestinians took to the streets to celebrate Hamas' 21st anniversary. The Palestinians who are now shouting and crying because of the Israeli offensive should direct their anger first and foremost toward the "elected" government of Hamas. The Hamas government will disappear only when the Palestinian masses take to the streets and demand regime change - from the same people who were bold enough to bring down Abbas' Fatah faction in 2006 because of its corruption. (Hudson Institute) Hamas, like Hizbullah in Lebanon, is a proxy for the real enemy Israel is confronting: Iran. Israel's current operation against Hamas represents a unique chance to deal a strategic blow to Iranian expansionism. Iran has co-opted Hamas, a Sunni organization closely linked to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, transforming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a jihad against the Jewish state. The Middle East conflict is no longer just about creating a Palestinian state but about preventing the region's takeover by radical Islam. Indeed, Palestinian statehood is impossible without neutralizing the extremists who oppose any negotiated solution. If Hamas is successful in manipulating world opinion into the imposition of a premature cease-fire, it will proclaim victory and continue to stockpile long-range missiles for the next round of fighting. That would mean another triumph for Iran. The writers are fellows at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. (Los Angeles Times) Some will recommend that Obama approve direct talks with Hamas. But Hamas is dead set against a two-state solution. Indeed, Hamas deploys suicide bombers specifically aimed at derailing progress toward peace. Engaging Hamas will not help the peace process, but it will legitimize the group most violently opposed to such progress. Engaging in direct diplomacy with Hamas while it targets civilian population centers would empower a movement designated as a terrorist group by both the United States and the European Union. It would also pull the carpet out from under Palestinian moderates who are truly interested in pursuing peace and are vying with Hamas for popular support. The Obama administration should take the opportunity to lead an international coalition bent on empowering Palestinian moderates and weakening extremists. The internationally recognized conditions for engaging Hamas are clear, and should be reaffirmed: renunciation of terrorism and political violence, respect for past agreements negotiated by the Palestinian Authority and recognition of Israel. (Forward/Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Untold numbers of Israeli soldiers will lose their lives as the result not merely of the genocidal aims of Hamas (and its Iranian puppet-master), but also the indifference and pusillanimity towards Palestinian terror displayed by world governments over the past six decades of Israel's fight for survival, along with the active encouragement of genocidal Islamists by Jew-haters who were on such thuggish display in coordinated demonstrations in British and other Western cities. Such people have made no protest at the bombardment of Israeli towns by more than 6,000 rockets in the past six years, deliberately targeting innocent civilians. No, their protest only starts when Israel finally takes the military action aimed at stopping this murderous barrage. (Spectator-UK) Observations: Hamas Rockets Block the Birth of a Palestinian State - Malcolm Rifkind (Telegraph-UK)
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