Will It Be A Real Ceasefire?

For one thing, it will only last if Israel leaves Gaza.  Hamas leaders say they’ll abide the ceasefire for a week, by which time it wants Israel out.  And, as Jonathan Shainan writes, there is no chance for a lasting peace unless and until Israel offers Palestinians sovereignty in Gaza.

It is important to understand that Israel did not leave Gaza in 2005. Israeli settlers left Gaza, and Israeli soldiers moved from its center to its perimeter. The deprivation inflicted by the subsequent siege has been widely chronicled elsewhere, and while it may provide little justification for Hamas violence, one thing is absolutely clear: Israel has controlled the Gaza Strip from June 1967 until today. It decides who enters and who leaves, decides when food and medicine and money can cross the border and when they can’t. It decides where the walls go and who guards them, when to send in its tanks and planes, who can govern and who cannot govern, and above all, who lives and who dies.

Juan Cole has an interesting statistic:

Hamas rockets have killed 4 Israelis during this conflict; Israeli forces have killed some 1205 Palestinians, many of them innocent civilians and others ordinary policemen.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.