Report: Hamas discussing 5-year truce

Source

Senior members said to be in Qatar to weigh accepting deal that would provide Gaza with a seaport in exchange for a halt in fighting.
Leading members of Hamas are meeting in Qatar to discuss a proposal for a long-term ceasefire with Israel, the Palestinian Al-Quds newspaper reported Monday.

The truce proposal, which is backed by both Qatar and Turkey, is based on an outline formulated by UN special envoy to the Middle East Nikolay Mladenov, according to Israel Radio.

Israeli media reported that leading Hamas member Abu Marzouk arrived in Doha from Gaza on Saturday and held a series of meetings with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, who lives in Qatar, as well as other senior officials in the organization.

The truce proposal is said to stipulate that Israel allow the construction of a floating sea port off the Gaza coast, to be subject to Israeli or international supervision.

In return, Hamas would agree to cease fire for five years, with the possibility of extending it.

UN envoy Mladenov warned the Security Council last month that Gaza residents have become desperate, and that Israel and the Palestinians bear responsibility to prevent a collapse.

He also said Gaza residents were furious about the Israeli blockade, the closure of Rafah Crossing to Egypt (although it has been temporarily opened since), Hamas itself, and the international community that has failed to follow through on its commitments to help rehabilitate the Strip.

About a year since Operation Protective Edge, the UN's report on its events is imminent. Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem suggested that the report will be released later this week.

Concerned that the Palestinians would leak the report, the Foreign Ministry released its own version of events on Sunday. It claimed among other things that Hamas forced Palestinian civilians to stay in battle zones.

The Israeli line of defense is that Hamas committed war crimes and that half of Palestinian fatalities were militant terrorists.

The calm that has settled over southern Israel since last summer was recently broken. Sporadic rocket launches were attributed by Gaza authorities to a radical Salafi organization opposed to Hamas.

The truce idea has come up in the past, at least since the Aug. 26 ceasefire that ended last summer's 50-day war between the sides, but Israel has strenuously objected to the Hamas demand for an airfield and sea port, fearing these would be used to bring in weapons.

Seems there is some place for optimism after all...

a reply to: MaxMech

Optimism

I don't think so

Whenever Israel screamed peace, they never fullfiled their end of it, it was all calculated diversion.

You think Hamas didn't learn from their Goliath.

a reply to: PredatorCrackling

All I need to do is replace one word and and it's still be true -

Whenever Hamas screamed peace, they never fulfilled their end of it, it was all calculated diversion.

The above is correct for both sides. Nevertheless, there is some place for optimism.

I think Hamas understands that the harsh conditions in Gaza affecting the population. They are loosing power. More and more Gazans are turning to ISIS. Hamas just can't continue doing what it's doing. Their options are to stop the "armed resistance" (or at least pause it for a few years), or lose control of Gaza. So, basically they don't really have a choice.

Lets hope for peace for the future generations on both sides, let the kids grow in peace and decide there future together

The Palestinians rejected peace and put themselves in this situation.

They need to accept peace to get out of it. If and when they do, I expect Israel to follow through. If they don't, there is no longer any defense.

a reply to: MaxMech

And here I am thinking that Hamas was to hand over control of the Gaza strip ?. The Palestinians should be just as mad at Egypt for closing their border as they are at Israel...Egypt are just as complicit in this whole blockade affair but you won't hear MSN or activist saying it. Hope they get the seaport and have it run by the U.N.

a reply to: fishwhisperer

Hamas could block it and it would be fine. Everything Israel does is bad, always. That's the rule.

The Palestinians are their own worst enemies.They could have had statehood during the Clinton administration.They insisted on the right of return and the talks collapsed.
They backed the PLO,Hamas now ISIS?
If there is a cease fire history shows you can count on them to sabatoge themselves by breaking it.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

Exactly.

All Hamas/PLO/et al have ever had to do, was live up to their end of it. Israel then loses all hope of convincing anyone they're the good guys.

Bonus?

Kids on both sides, or is it all sides, get to live instead of dying in the crossfire. Win-win for all sides.

Now are they smart enough to realize this?

I doubt it.

a reply to: seagull

Yes! Much of my defense of Israel stems not from any favor towards them, but from the fact I find it hard to condemn them when they are actually under attack! Remove that, and I would then expect Israel to achieve peace, or blame them.

No offence, but why would Israel agree to that? Hamas has to take a much bigger step than "Hey, I won't kill you for 5 years if you give me everything I want". Qatar and Turkey are Certainly not any agents for peace in the region, take a look at the sponsors of ISIS.

Sorry but the Gazans will have to deal with the results of their leaders nihilistic policies. They are laying in a bed of their own making.

a reply to: MaxMech

The only people who would be surprised by this are those who vested interests ( read hatred) in the Israel - Palestine conflict. The Palestinians have worked out correctly that Isis and its cohorts are their real enemy. I don't find it hard to foresee that in a battle for their own survival the Palestinians,Israelis and the Kurds will be allied against Isis and Iran.

a reply to: pavil

They probably won't.

But it does, eventually, have to start some where.

xpert11 has it right, I think. Or is close to the mark, anyway.

It could be, however doubtful I may be, that Hamas/et al has come to the same conclusion. ISIS/Iran is the enemy. ...and enemy of my enemy could at the least be an ally, if not a friend.

...and if this offer is legit, if nothing else, it's a place to start.

originally posted by: xpert11
a reply to: MaxMech

The only people who would be surprised by this are those who vested interests ( read hatred) in the Israel - Palestine conflict. The Palestinians have worked out correctly that Isis and its cohorts are their real enemy. I don't find it hard to foresee that in a battle for their own survival the Palestinians,Israelis and the Kurds will be allied against Isis and Iran.

If that happened, the question then is what happens when ISIS is no longer a threat. Do newly forged alliances hold, or break under the strain of old hatred?

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

That would depend largely upon, I think, how long the conflict lasted between ISIS/Iran, and Israel/Palestine...

Long enough for the Israelis and Palestinians to realize they've more in common than they've been lead to believe by their "leaders"... Who knows what happens then.

Or... They could go back to killing each other, then suddenly realize that hey, we're acting just like our enemies...and stop.

Or... They go back to the way it's been for the past generations, as though nothing changed.

There's no way of knowing what would happen.

a reply to: OccamsRazor04

You have the right question. The wrongs of 1919 will be righted after the coming world war is over and Islamic extremists have been wiped out. The people of the Middle East will choose their own borders and the region will be reconstructed with a Marshal Aid style program.

Take away religious/ethnic hatred and the Middle will become a agricultural region. The real vital resource in the Middle East is fresh drinking water. History teaches us that it is harder to win the peace then the war. If we win the peace the people of the Middle East will be interested in global commerce (aka post war Japan) then raging total war.

a reply to: seagull

Bear in mind that Islamic extremists will have caused whole sale destruction on a scale we are yet to witness. People will decided that having fought next to him/her their neighbor isn't all that different from them. They will in some cases see how there leaders took them down the path they went on.

The failure to win the peace could open up a whole can of worms. If you take take away religious and ethnic differences in the Middle East the likely future flash point is access to a supply of drinking water. The only way the region could wholesale breed extremists straight away is if the region was abandoned in the post war period. Reconstructing the Middle East will be a fairly straight forward task. Ensuring Russia and China don't emerge as a threat to global security once more is the real challenge.

a reply to: xpert11

We will see. It is easier said than done to starve the seeds sown by hatred.

a reply to: pavil

Hamas has to take a much bigger step than "Hey, I won't kill you for 5 years if you give me everything I want".

A seaport, which will be under Israeli or international supervision, is hardly "everything they want".
Don't forget the Hamas charter -

Article Eleven:

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.

This is the law governing the land of Palestine in the Islamic Sharia (law) and the same goes for any land the Moslems have conquered by force, because during the times of (Islamic) conquests, the Moslems consecrated these lands to Moslem generations till the Day of Judgement.


Article Fifteen:

The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews' usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters.

Source

Moreover, it's not like Israel is giving up the ability to bomb them back to the stone age if they go back to terror.

a reply to: xpert11

I don't find it hard to foresee that in a battle for their own survival the Palestinians,Israelis and the Kurds will be allied against Isis and Iran.

Agreed. This could be a beginning of a new dawn in the middle east.