Waltz with Bashir - Ari Folman gets Prizes
About Lebanon 1 war Animated.
I finally Saw the Movie 19th Feb 2009.
I was not at Demontration here in Yaffo.
http://yuditilany.blogspot.com/2009/01/thsouands-marched-through-jaffa-against.html
as Reported by yudit here.
I can not keep up with the rate of events here.
Unilateral ceasefire tonight at 2am. But this is only a step in complicated situation.
Israel to begin unilateral Gaza cease-fire at 2 A.M.
Prime Minster Ehud Olmert on Saturday night announced that Israel's security cabinet has voted in favor of a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, which will come into effect at 2 A.M.
The announcement comes after three weeks of fighting in the coastal strip, as Israel launched a massive military offensive aimed at halting years of daily rocket fire on its southern communities. Palestinian sources say that more than 1,100 Gazans have been killed since the offensive began on December 27. Three Israeli civilians and 10 Israel Defense Forces have been killed during that period.
The decision to launch the cease-fire was approved during a lengthy security cabinet meeting which began after sundown in Tel Aviv. Two ministers were against the move, and another abstained.
"Our fight is not with the people of Gaza," Olmert said at the Tel Aviv press conference following the cabinet meeting. "We left Gaza in 2005 with the intention of never returning," he said, referring to Israel's unilateral withdrawal of troops and settlers from the territory under former prime minister Ariel Sharon.
Olmert warned that Iran, through its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, was trying to establish its own hegemony in the region. He said that Hamas had underestimated Israel's decisiveness, had been "surprised" by the launch of the offensive, and was still not fully aware of how badly it had been damaged.
Olmert said that "if Hamas entirely ends its rocket fire on Israel, Israel will consider an IDF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip." If that did not occur, he said, "The IDF will continue to operate in order to protect our citizens."
Most rocket launching areas are now controlled by IDF, he said.
A strong hint at the impending cease-fire announcement came earlier Saturday, when Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that Israel was very close to meeting the objectives of its 22-day-old offensive in Gaza.
"After three weeks of Operation Cast Lead, we are very close to reaching the goals and securing them through diplomatic agreements," Barak said during a visit to the south of the country, according to a statement from his office.
The decision means Israel has put an end to Operation Cast Lead without an agreement with Hamas, relying instead on the support of the United States and Egypt in battling arms smuggling into Gaza.
Israel's Channel 10 earlier Saturday quoted IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi as saying he is in favor of bringing the IDF Gaza operation to a close.
A government source emphasized that there has been great progress with Egypt in reaching an agreement on fighting arms smuggling. The deal would require the combined use of technological measures on the border between Gaza and Egypt, operations against smugglers in the southern Gaza town of Rafah and the use of international experts to identify smuggling tunnels on the border.
The deal would also call for cooperation between Israel and Egypt on matters relating to the Gaza Strip in which they have shared interests, without the interference of Hamas.
Egypt is at the moment considering whether to organize a summit in the near future in Cairo between Olmert, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Egypt's state-run news agency MENA reported on Saturday that Mubarak has invited French President Nicholas Sarzoky and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for talks on how to end the Gaza offensive.
The Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported that Abbas and Sarkozy are set to hold talks with Egyptian President Hosni Muabark on Sunday.
The United States and Israel signed an agreement on Friday aimed at stopping the smuggling of weapons into the Gaza Strip, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.
The deal includes measures meant to fight arms smuggling from Iran to Gaza, with the policing to take place throughout the route by which the arms reach Gaza, including patrols of the Persian Gulf, Sudan and neighboring states.
The two-and-a-half page document outlines a framework under which the United States will provide military and intelligence assets, including detection and surveillance equipment, as well as logistical help and training to Israel, Egypt and other nations in the region. The equipment and training would be used for monitoring Gaza's land and sea borders.
The document also calls for the U.S. to expand work with its NATO partners in the effort, particularly in the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean and eastern Africa, according to a text.
It also commits Washington to use relevant components of the U.S. military to assist Mideast governments in preventing weapons and explosives flows to Gaza that originate in or transit their territories.
Although signed by the Bush administration, the agreement is binding on the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama and Rice and State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said both Obama and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton had been briefed on the details.
Last update - 11:26 01/01/2009 haaretz
JEWISH WORLD / Pro-Israel camp would be wise to heed Muslim cries for peace
By Roi Ben-Yehuda
As technology advances and televisions get flatter, bigger, and clearer, one subject will always be broadcast to the world in black and white: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The recent events in Gaza have engendered a predictable world reaction: polarization, anger, hatred, and fear. The left screams "massacre," while the right wants to get tougher.
Watching the mass protest and reading about strident calls for Israel's dissolution, we Jews can't help but get that lonely feeling in the pits of our stomachs: The world is against us. Call it a Pavlovian response conditioned by persecution on a mass scale.
But the pro-Israel camp would be wise to pay attention not only to the bellicose cries coming from the mosques and streets, but also to the Muslim voices courageously speaking out against Hamas.
The Muslim Canadian Congress, for example, has issued a statement holding Hamas responsible for precipitating the recent conflict in Gaza.
The statement begins by condemning the recent Israeli attacks in Gaza as "disproportionate," but quickly turns its attention to censuring Hamas. According to the congress, Hamas is responsible for using the Palestinian people as "human bait," in an effort to kindle an all-out war in Gaza.
In words that would have made Alan Dershowitz blush, the statement asserts that: "No other national liberation movement in modern history has offered martyrdom as a substitute to freedom and statehood. Hamas has set back the clock for the Palestinians and it is time for all Palestinians to recognize that Hamas offers only death, destruction and a place in Paradise, not a Palestinian State."
The columnist Mona Eltahawy, to give another example, who writes for Egypt's Al Masry Al Youm and Qatar's Al Arab, published a piece in which she lambasts Hamas and the Arab world for their self-destructive addiction to Israel.
"It is difficult to criticize Palestinians when so many have died this weekend," she writes, "but the Hamas rulers of Gaza are just the latest of their leaders to fail them. For those of us who long to separate religion from politics, Hamas has given the truth to the fear that Islamists care more about facing down Israel than taking care of their people. The Palestinians of Gaza are victims equally of Hamas and Israel."
Eltahawy originally published her article on Facebook, where bashing Israel is a full-time occupation. But even on the popular social networking site, a quick glance at some threads reveals that Muslim are far from intellectually monolithic on the operations in Gaza.
"Israel is no angel among nations," writes a man who identifies himself as a secular Muslim, "but Hamas is a disgrace to the freedom struggles of countless peoples - offering its own people to die so that it can serve some sick allegiance to Iran."
And putting the matter succinctly and evenly, one young Palestinian writes, "I've never felt so angry the way I do now? F%#K HAMAS, F%#K ISRAEL."
So what can we make of all this? Why are more Muslims publicly voicing their opposition to Hamas? Is this an example of buyer's remorse? Has Hamas' gross blundering of an occupation-free Gaza finally cost them the privilege of representing the Palestinian cause?
"The simple reason we see Muslims speaking out against Hamas," says the Muslim activist and writer, Raquel Evita Saraswati, "is that the organization has proved itself to be terrorist by nature and function; and while the larger Muslim community has always stated its rejection of terrorism, we see the pressing need to make our voices louder in these especially contentious times."
Many pro-Israel readers will see this statement, along with the ones above, and feel vindicated. But that would be a mistake. These letters should not be seen as an endorsement of Israel?s Spartan policies - which most of the writers correctly see as futile and morally abhorrent - but rather as a type of self-reckoning; a kind of honest awareness that is necessary for peace to flourish.
That said, the recognition that Israel is not always the problem and that occupation is not the only reason Palestinians fight is of no small significance. It is imperative, therefore, that we do what is in our power to ensure these voices are front and center competing in the great suk (market) of ideas, because once an idea is out there, it can never be un-thought.
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