GAZA – FOR BETTER OR FOR THE WORST!
THIS SHOULD BE A VERY INTERESTING WEEK,
EITHER THE DUST WILL SETTLE OR FUR WILL FLY,
TIME FOR ISRAEL TO DECIDE – DO TRUCE OR ATTACK!
May 19, 2008
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
My sentiments concerning the Gaza Strip have not changed one whit from what we issued some 14 months ago in
the March 14 Blog Excerpt of 2007, which immediately follows.
The Gaza Strip – The Armpit of Israel that will not go Away!
March 14, 2007
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The human ability to find ways to escape the inevitable is astounding!
If someone asks a group of people, “Please raise your hand if you think you will die one day?” – All hands should rise. If a second question was then asked, “How many of you that lifted your hands, believe you will die today?” – The response would be nil! In essence, we all believe we will eventually leave this flesh or be buried in it, but the event is always going to be tomorrow, not today.
The cauldron just keeps on boiling as the witches of Hizbollah stir it on Israel’s northern border, while several terrorist groups on its southern border mix their poisonous Gaza ingredients into the mixture.
It is difficult for me to understand how anyone, believer or unbeliever, can believe this hodge-podge of mass confusion and Middle East hatred, will end up any other way than in a great Middle East War.
There is a question only to when it will begin in earnest!
Since I am a believer, and thoroughly convinced the conflict is an event of the near future, there is little I can do, except to warn believers to watch and keep their garments while they wait, and to warn unbelievers to turn to the mercy of God in Christ Jesus before it is too late.
End March14, 2007 Blog Excerpt
I have guesstimated for some time that I believed a full scale war led by the antichrist is quite likely to break out at some point in time between 2010 and 2015, and I see nothing to make me change that forecast.
Begin DEBKAfile Exclusive
Exclusive: Olmert and Barak finally opt for truce rather than military operation in Gaza
May 18, 2008, 11:08 PM (GMT+02:00)
DEBKAfile’s military and Middle East sources report that Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak will inform Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak at their meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh Monday, May 19, that the kidnapped Israel soldier Gilead Shalit must be included in the ceasefire deal.
Israel and Hamas have been using Egypt’s good office to negotiate a ceasefire.
Without consulting the security cabinet, our military sources reveal that Olmert and Barak have finally come down in favor of a truce with Hamas instead of a substantial military operation to eliminate the Palestinian fundamentalists’ war machine and wipe out the missiles plaguing their Israeli neighbors.
Hamas quickly countered by raising its price for the soldier it snatched two years ago, namely more jailed terrorists “with blood on their hands.” Israel has offered 72 of these hardened murderers and held back on the 280 terrorists on Hamas’ list. But after relenting on Hamas’ truce terms, Olmert and Barak are expected to reach a compromise on this issue as well.
Olmert’s statement at the Sunday, May 18, government session in Jerusalem that the Gaza situation cannot go on and Israel “is very close to the point of a decision” on this issue is seen by inside sources as an attempt to mislead the go down more smoothly if Gilead Shalit were part of the deal.
What is really close at hand, according to DEBKAfile’s military sources, is the deal for a ceasefire. Two key questions are still outstanding:
1. The number of jailed Palestinian murderers Israel is willing to trade for Shalit.
2. How and when Israel will lift its blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. This will entail throwing open all the enclave’s border crossings as part of the reciprocal ceasefire package.
The Barak-Mubarak interview Monday has a good chance of settling both these questions. Mubarak, who wants closure on the Gaza question, knows that in
these matters, the Israeli defense minister is the man to do business with.
Begin Jerusalem Post Excerpt
Barak: Incursion into Gaza imminent
Herb Keinon and Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST
May 19, 2009
Even as Defense Ministry officials said Sunday that Israel was likely to accept the Gaza Strip cease-fire deal brokered by Egypt, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in a meeting with a high-level US congressional delegation, did not mention the cease-fire and talked instead about a possible large-scale military incursion.
Participants in Barak’s meeting with the Congressmen said they walked away from the discussion with an impression that an IDF operation was very much in the offing.
In the meeting, which included US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Barak asked the members of the bipartisan congressional delegation to think how they would act if for seven years San Diego had been bombarded by rockets from Tijuana, just across the Mexican border.
When asked during an interview with The Jerusalem Post afterward whether Israel would be justified in launching a widespread incursion into Gaza, Pelosi said that “Israel makes its own decisions about its
own security. I would hope that it is something that could have been avoided by other means. Minister Barak was very direct in his presentation to us about what the possibilities were.”
Barak is scheduled to talk about the terms of the Egyptian-proposed cease-fire during talks in Sharm e-Sheikh on Monday, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, the architect of the proposal.
Barak is expected to urge Egypt to change its cease-fire proposal to a two-stage deal that would first include a cessation of terrorist activity and IDF military operations, and then an opening of the border crossings into Gaza in exchange for the release of kidnapped soldier Cpl. Gilad Schalit, defense officials said Sunday.
Under Cairo’s original proposal, the border crossings were to be opened immediately, along with the end of terrorist activity and the cessation of IDF action, and Schalit was not involved in the deal.
Officials said Barak planned to present Mubarak and Suleiman with a list of conditions that Israel had set for its acceptance of the cease-fire with Hamas, including an increase in Egyptian efforts to stop weapons-smuggling into Gaza along the Philadelphi Corridor.
The officials said that Israel was likely to accept the cease-fire deal even if it did not include Schalit’s immediate release.
An Egyptian promise to expedite its mediation over Schalit’s release could, the officials said, also be considered progress and constitute a reason to accept the truce.
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