In special interview with New York Times on Middle East, Obama adds that it is ‘hard’ to see PM able to make concessions.

Yitzhak Benhorin YNET

“Netanyahu is too strong (and) in some ways Abu Mazen is too weak,” US President Barack Obama said in a comprehensive interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman Friday, commenting on the balance of power between Israel and the Palestinians.

However, President Obama also noted that the high percentage of support for Prime Minister Netanyahu among the Israeli public proves to be a weak point for him. “If he doesn’t feel some internal pressure, then it’s hard to see him being able to make some very difficult compromises, including taking on the settler movement. That’s a tough thing to do.”

Relations that have seen ups and downs. Netanyahu and Obama at White House (Photo: AFP)

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CNN POLITICS

Washington (CNN) — As rockets and missiles traced the skies over Gaza and Israel, every side of the conflict swarmed cable news and social media to stake a claim to the higher moral ground, amplifying the debate over how to resolve the conflict.

But one group tried to break through the noise. J Street, which bills itself as a pro-Israel and pro-peace organization, released a statement that reaffirmed its actions over the past six years: challenging the status quo of the pro-Israel lobby.

While adding to the chorus of pro-Israel voices in the U.S. condemning Hamas and expressing support for Israel’s right to defend itself, J Street tagged on a series of emphatic “ands.”
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“Whenever Israel does anything to defend itself, it is accused of acting disproportionately or committing war crimes. That there is a new form of anti-Semitism at work here is unquestionable” • An interview with my father, Norman Podhoretz.

Ruthie Blum, ISRAEL HAYOM

Norman Podhoretz

Since the 1980 U.S. presidential election, Norman Podhoretz has been called — along with ?the late Irving Kristol — one of the two “founding fathers of neoconservatism.” A member of the Democratic Party disillusioned with what he and a growing group of other liberals viewed as a radical shift away from the values they held dear, Podhoretz ?supported Republican candidate Ronald Reagan.
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BY DAVID M Weinberg, Israel hayom

By Martin Sherman, JPOST

Thy destroyers and thy demolishers shall emerge from within thee. – Isaiah 49:17

One cannot be both a Zionist and a Leftist. – Anton Shammas, Israeli-born Arab poet

Against the wishes of much – indeed, according to one recent poll, over 85% – of the public, the government has agreed to a cease-fire in Gaza.

The wages of war

As the dust of war begins to subside, it is far easier to see what Israel did not achieve in the four weeks of bloody fighting, than what it did.

True, Israel inflicted immensely more damage on Gaza than it suffered. However, despite this, opinion polls show that more Israelis believe that Israel did not win the war than believe it did. Read more…

CAROLINE GLICK, jpost

President Barack Obama has a plan.

He wants to use the cease-fire talks in Cairo to strengthen Fatah.

In remarks Wednesday, Obama said, “I have no sympathy for Hamas. I have great sympathy for some of the work that has been done in cooperation with Israel and the international community by the Palestinian Authority. And they’ve shown themselves to be responsible. They have recognized Israel. They are prepared to move forward to arrive at a two-state solution. I think [PA Chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a.] Abu Mazen is sincere in his desire for peace.”

Obama’s plans for the cease-fire were spelled out in detail the day before in a column by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. There Ignatius claimed that Secretary of State John Kerry has abandoned his previous position on the cease-fire. That position was harshly criticized by Israeli leaders and US media heavyweights, including Ignatius himself, for its clear bias in favor of Hamas.
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DEBKA

Hours before the 72-hour ceasefire was due to expire Friday morning, Aug. 8, the Palestinian Hamas’ military wing slapped down an ultimatum before Israel: Either allow the Gaza Strip to have an open seaport – which would be tantamount to lifting the Gaza blockade – or prepare for a long and brutal war of attrition with thousands of fatalities.

Hamas’ decision about extending the ceasefire was tensely awaited Thursday night after Israel’s acceptance. Instead, the Palestinian Islamists declared that the war would go on unless Israel bowed to their dictates.
Israel’s envoys had previously rejected their demand for a deep sea Gaza port in the talks taking place in Cairo under Egyptian auspices.

Abu Obeida, spokesman of Hamas’ military wing, Ezz e-Din Al-Qassam, also announced that his movement had acquired new rockets with larger warheads than the more than 3,000 fired against the Israeli population in the month-long conflict, and they would be aimed at Israel’s Ben Gurion international airport. Israel would be severed from its air transport ties with the outside world, he said.
“We demand our fundamental rights,” said the Hamas spokesman, in a statement that was broadcast live Thursday night. “We call on our envoys to the Cairo talks not to continue negotiations until Israel surrenders to our demand for a seaport. The war is not over until the siege of Gaza ends.”

Here I am in Toronto. I have been away from the internet all of yesterday.

My speech was well received.

Now I’ll have to catch up.

An Israeli official says Israel will extend truce under current terms; Hamas officials say they will not extend cease-fire unless significant progress made in negotiations; threaten to resume rocket fire.

DEBKA  August 6, 2014, 10:57 PM (IDT)

DEBKAfile reports exclusively on the terms Israel handed in to the Cairo talks Wednesday Aug. 6 for a durable peace on the Gaza Strip. In the document Shin Bet Director Yoram Cohen, who leads the Israeli delegation, put before the Egyptian intermediaries, the first key condition is based on the Oslo 2 Accords, which restricted Palestinian brigades in the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria to bearing light firearms. The second condition would grant the Israeli military the freedom of action to strike a tunnel system designed for terrorist attacks and demolish plants manufacturing missiles.

Israel requires these two measures to be incorporated in any accords reached at the Cairo conference.

The 19-year old Oslo 2 accord, concluded in Washington on Sept. 28 1995, permitted Palestinian security forces to be equipped solely with light firearms take booty by Israel in the Galilee Peace operation against Palestinian forces in southern Lebanon. Read more…

Elite opinion believes Israel will lose “long-term” whatever happens in the next weeks. Not necessarily.

By Victor Davis Hanson, NRO

In postmodern wars, we are told, there is no victory, no defeat, no aggressors, no defenders, just a tragedy of conflicting agendas. But in such a mindless and amoral landscape, Israel in fact is on its way to emerging in a far better position after the Gaza war than before.

Analysts of the current fighting in Gaza have assured us that even if Israel weakens Hamas, such a short-term victory will hardly lead to long-term strategic success – but they don’t define “long-term.” In this line of thinking, supposedly in a few weeks Israel will only find itself more isolated than ever. It will grow even more unpopular in Europe and will perhaps, for the first time, lose its patron, America – while gaining an enraged host of Arab and Islamic enemies. Meanwhile, Hamas will gain stature, rebuild, and slowly wear Israel down. Read more…

Op-Ed: To My Soldiers and the Jewish People: We Have Won!

Words written as the fighting ceases. Officer Shechter adds: “Hope you will all have the patience to read to the end. Send this to everyone and tell all the Jewish People that we must realize that we have won!”

Lt. Col. (Res.) Uri Shechter, INN
The writer is Dep. Commander (Res.) of the IDF Nachal Brigade.

These words are dedicated to the wonderful officers and soldiers of the Nachal Brigade, to the bereaved families, wounded soldiers and their families, to all the IDF soldiers and to our wonderful Jewish People.

As we end a month’s battle in Gaza, and I hear questioning noises about its outcome, it is important to me to tell all of the Jewish People that we have won. Victory is ours from both a military and a civilian point of view.

As far as the military results are concerned, we can be holding victory celebrations. Hamas is on the rocks, at best he can stick his head out of his hiding places for a second and signal a “V” with his hands – until he gets a welll-aimed rocket, that is.
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I am told that Netanyahu has two redlines. 1) don’t allow the peace process to be linked to the ceasefire negotiations. 2) don’t allow any rebuilding until demilitarization is agreed to. Let’s see if they step over them. I don’t understnd why Israel is cooperating with Egypt to install the PA at the border. What’s all that about? Ted Belman

Shlomo Cesana, Daniel Siryoti, Yoni Hirsch, Lilach Shoval and Israel Hayom Staff

According to Egyptian reports, the cease-fire negotiations now taking place in Cairo will see Hamas give in to Egyptian demands.

“Hamas suffered a blow to its military, both its rockets and its tunnels, and [Hamas officials] arrived in Cairo to find none of their demands on the agenda,” one diplomatic official said.

“Hamas could have achieved the same thing with the first cease-fire effort, but they rejected the Egyptian initiative then and now they are giving in to Egypt’s dictate. The blockade is not being lifted. At the end of the day, the Egyptian initiative won out and so Hamas lost.”
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DEBKA

As the Israeli delegation arrived in Cairo for indirect talks with Hamas, at the end of the first 24 hours of a three-day ceasefire in the Gaza War, Israeli government spokesmen went to great lengths Tuesday night, Aug. 6, to convince the public that the Gaza war was over and the enemy seriously degraded.

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz went to so far as to declare: “We now move into a period of rehabilitation.” This was not exactly the message the soldiers wanted to hear from their commander as they headed out of the battlefields of Gaza after 28 days of hard fighting and heavy losses.

But government PR artists were already churning out a horror what-if scenario that depicted a theoretical operation for conquering the entire Gaza Strip.
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By Caroline Glick, JPOST

There is only one thing worse than reasserting Israel’s military control over Gaza: Losing southern Israel. 

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By Ted Belman

Why is Israel participating in the ceasefire talks.She will be forced to concede more than she wants to and will not get what she wants. At lease if she boycotted the talks, she wouldn’t be conceding anything.

For all Bibi’s tough talk and spin, the reality is otherwise. Bibi pulled the IDF out of Gaza to meet a prime demand of Hamas before negotiations started. In a blink of an eye he sent a delegation to Cairo for ceasefire talks knowing what the Arabs were demanding. A tougher response would have been to say “call me when you are ready to negotiate demilitarization”. The truth of the matter is that Hamas will never agree to demilitarization. The fact that Bibi didn’t draw a line in the sand means that he is flexible on demilitarization.

JPOST published an analysis by Herb Keinon of the negotiations that lie ahead.

[..] And now those EU leaders will ask for payback from Israel for giving it the diplomatic space to wage the campaign, and the currency in which they will want to see payment will be “progress in the Mideast peace process.”

“You want our help demilitarizing Gaza, be more forthcoming toward Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank” will be the likely refrain. And this refrain will also be heard from Washington, where the Gaza crisis further strained the already less than ideal Obama-Netanyahu relationship. Read more…

DEBKA

Israel and a Palestinian delegation to talks in Cairo, including Hamas, were due to start observing a 72-hour ceasefire in the Gaza Strip starting Tuesday, Aug. 5, at 8 a.m., to be followed by negotiations under Egyptian aegis for a long-term cessation of hostilities.

This decision flies in the face of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s solemn pledge 48 hours earlier to continue Operation Defensive Edge until Hamas and its terrorist allies stopped firing rockets (a massive barrage was fired up to five minutes to eight).

He stated that Israel was turning away from ceasefire accords, which Hamas had violated six times causing IDF fatalities, and reserving its military and diplomatic freedom of action to act solely in its own security interests. “No accommodation, only deterrence” was the motto of the moment Saturday night, Aug. 2.

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Preventing Hamas from rearming, with regional support, is government’s top priority; Jerusalem willing to ease Gaza blockade

BY RAPHAEL AHREN, TOI