Quartet backs Egypt mediation in Gaza Strip, easing of blockade

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The top diplomats from the U.S., the EU, Russia and the United Nations, which make up the Quartet, said they backed Egyptian efforts to broker an informal truce between Israel and Palestinian militants and to ease a crippling embargo of the coastal territory.

The stance by the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators increases pressure on Israel to ease its blockade, tightened last June after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement. "Principals strongly encouraged Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Egypt to work together to formulate a new approach on Gaza that would provide security to all Gazans, end all acts of terror (and) provide for the controlled and sustained opening of the Gaza crossings for humanitarian reasons and commercial flows," the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, said in a statement.

The Quartet also called on Israel to freeze continuing settlement construction in the West Bank to keep the peace process from collapsing.

The Quartet added that Israel should cease all activity that could undermine confidence.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/979944.html

Members of the Middle East Quartet have called on Israel to freeze the construction of further settlements in the West Bank.

Etc.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6AB5AB17-E843-4690-B0A5-44E3B3CB0693.htm

Means of achieving them seem even vaguer, however.

It is unclear that Egypt can sufficiently influence Hamas to achieve an 'informal' truce, and unlikely Israel would accept anything but a formal, signed one.

Past experience would suggest that were the Gaza crossings opened to sustained commercial activity, this, and the Arab Palestinians participating in it, would become prime targets for Hamas gunmen. No greater threat to this organization exists than an increased prosperity among the residents of Gaza.

it's actions clearly indicate this desire.

If indeed prosperity among Palestinians particularly in Gaza is the greatest threat to Hamas, and Israel truly wants to be rid of that organization, then it would seem that Israel would be eager to promote such prosperity, yet it does not do this. Israels actions here are truly mystifying.

About the shrewdest and coldest thing Israel could do in this matter would be to parachute down daily into Gaza slabs of halal lamb and beef, rice, wheat, flour, onions, milk, fruit juice, chocolate, and coffee. If you detect a certain disdain for vegetables, perhaps someone else should draw up the list and add tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, and other varieties of garnish to the loads....

It does not much surprise me, though, that this is not the course adopted. People locked in fighting are not completely rational, and succumb to a sort of tunnel vision that focuses only on the fight, and on the tools of fighting, violence and coercion, and the aim of fighting, namely to make things so unpleasant for the opponent that it concludes nothing is worth all this, and gives it up.

Regarding the crossings, it is unfortunate that as a practical matter, opening them to two way commercial flow would, in the present circumstance, be to open a conduit for infiltration by militants bent on killing Israelis, that the 'ultras' would certainly avail themselves of. It was formerly the case that there was a good deal of commercial traffic into Israel from Gaza, and a great passage of workers to employment in Israel. In the early days of Arafat's P.L.O., shooting some of these workers as 'collaborators' to dissuade the rest was a chief occupation of the organization's gun-men, spiced with placing the occasional bomb timed to detonate at dawn or evening at the bus stops they used in Gaza. But it did not work and had to be abandoned, as the pressure of people wanting livelihoods was simply too great. But the recent pattern of hostilities has made choking off this traffic in laborers something the Israeli polity demands of its government, as a measure for its own immediate safety. An Israeli government that opened the country to an influx of Gaza laborers, however beneficial this might be on several scores, would have to be willing to accept a number of Israeli casualties along with those benefits, and perhaps more important, be able to maintain a majority in the Knesset in the face of them.

as though the Israeli government WANTS Hamas to stay in power as long as possible. And as though Hamas in their turn are actively supporting Netanyahu's election campaign.

Of course, they don't really want these consequences. Each side sees it as a fight for survival - but each side also seems to be hardening its attitudes, in response to threats from the other side, in a dangerous vicious circle.

I just wish the Palestinian voters WOULD wake up to what a disaster Hamas are. But then I wish the Americans would have woken up earlier to what a disaster Bush is; and that we'd never elected Maggie; and that Israel wouldn't elect Nutty; etc.; etc. However, America, Britain and probably Israel will not destroy their countries by electing bad leaders; Palestine's statehood and prosperity could depend quite crucially on getting better leaders.

The 'hard men' on both sides prop one another up, though it is not by intent, even sub-conscious intent, that they do so, but rather by the limits of their vision and intelligence.

You are quite correct that it is of vital importance to the people of Arab Palestine that they somehow contrive to gain a better grade of political leadership. They have few, if any, opportunities for error left. If the matter continues on the same line as it has done in the past, the legitimate aspirations of that people will be one more forfeit in history.