January 19, 2009

By Ted Belman

Both Bush and Rice went on record of wanting a “sustainable and durable ceasefire”. What we got is anything but. So much for rhetoric. But not to worry everyone is going to work to stop the smuggling. We even have an MOU to prove it and chorus of voices from European leaders in support of it. But no one believes it will succeed.

Egypt is looked to as central in the effort to fashion a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah and a way forward. Anyone who believes that this gives cause for hope, is an idiot.

At least Livni says if Hamas fires more rockets at Israel, we will”slap them down”. Sharon said, on disengagement, the same thing. No thanks.

Now EU says it will host high-level talks with Israel and PA but Livni may not attend. This article is of interest because it discusses reconstruction efforts.

Earlier Monday, a senior European Union official said that she expected humanitarian aid to Gaza to flow quickly, but signaled that reconstruction of buildings and infrastructure would only begin when the EU has an acceptable Palestinian partner.

Visiting EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner did not explicitly single out Hamas, but she strongly hinted that it would be difficult to rebuild Gaza as long as the Islamic movement remains opposed to international peace efforts.

“For reconstruction you also need on the other side an interlocutor, so how will this be done? Is there a reconciliation process in the meantime? What will be done? All that is open,” she said

She also said that Hamas’s confrontation with Israel was hindering prospects for a better life for the people of Gaza.

“We don’t want to go on to reconstruct Gaza every I-don’t-know-how-many-years,” she said. “This is not what we want. What we would like to see is a clear sustainable peace.”

“We have been at the side of the Palestinian population always and we will be at their side, but at the same time it’s also for the Palestinian population on both sides to say, ‘We want this peace,”‘ she said.

Ferrero-Waldner spoke a day after European leaders visited Egypt and Israel to pledge support for measures to stop Hamas from rearming and to turn a fragile cease-fire into a durable peace.

She suggested a rapprochement that returns Fatah to Gaza could be key to arranging international help.

“We are already in the first preparations for a conference on immediate humanitarian needs and then later on there would be, at the right moment, a conference on reconstruction, but that is more complicated.”

To believe that there can be reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah is to believe in fairies, To believe that Hamas will ameliorate its position and desire to destroy Israel is equally illusory.

So, if Europe doesn’t get its way will it refuse to provide funds for reconstruction? I doubt it.

What’s going to happen is that Iran will start supplying the money to Hamas to win back the people, like it did in Lebanon. So what’s Europe going to do then?