How’s this for an objective news source?

Rice pushes for peace progress; Israel denies hidden agenda

No bias there. Nope. None at all.

Nor is there any bias in this article, about Hamas offering free rides to fuel-starved Gazans. Here are the first three grafs that will show up in your local paper’s World News section:

The ruling Hamas party started using police cars on Sunday to ferry Palestinians around the Gaza Strip because of severe fuel shortages.

Orange stickers reading, “We are ready to drive you for free,” were affixed to blue units of the Hamas-run police force.

Israel has restricted fuel supplies to Gaza in an attempt to pressure Palestinian militants to halt their rocket barrages at nearby Israeli communities.

And here’s graf four, that gets cut out of most of them:

Although Hamas complains bitterly about fuel shortages, the militant group is widely believed that it has hoarded supplies for its own use — especially now that it is offering its vehicles to ferry people for free.

Funny how if something were “widely believed” about Israel, it’d be pushed in screaming headlines. But when Palestinian and Israeli sources point out that Hamas is confiscating fuel from hospitals for its own use, it’s not a story in the AP.

This article is practically a press release for Hamas.

Many residents, hit by lack of other transport, were just grateful for the service.

Suzan Salman, a 48, used one of the police cars to take her to a downtown hospital, where her daughter had just given birth. “It’s good that we have somebody who cares about us,” the grandmother said.

“We are here to serve our people,” said Mohammed Hamza, a 25-year-old Hamas policeman.

Transport has come to a near halt in Gaza since Israel reduced supplies of gasoline and diesel fuel.

Way to go, AP. I see you also mentioned that Gaza fuel distributors are refusing to deliver fuel, or that Hamas is stealing it. Boilerplates are apparently only for Israeli actions (xxxx Palestinians have been killed since yyyy date). Negative facts about Palestinians? Down the memory hole.

The Swiss are upset because Israel didn’t invite any members of the government of Switzerland to Israel’s 60th birthday celebration. Hm. I wonder why.

The relationship between Israel and Switzerland has been strained since a recent visit by Calmy-Rey to Iran to witness the signing of a multibillion-dollar natural gas supply contract between Swiss company EGL and Iran’s state-owned National Iranian Gas Export Company.

I’m still not getting it.

Calmy-Rey has supported the so-called “Geneva Accord” - an alternative Middle East initiative worked out after two years of Swiss-funded secret negotiations between Israeli opposition figures and Palestinians. The deal would have mapped out borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state, but it was never officially endorsed by either side.

“As a neutral state we talk to everyone,” Calmy-Rey was quoted by Sonntag as saying.

Nope, still not getting it.

In March, Switzerland was the only European member of the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council to vote in favor of a resolution condemning Israeli military action in Gaza that resulted in the death of more than 120 Palestinians, many of them civilians. The military raids were prompted by Palestinian militant groups escalating their rocket fire into Israel.

Switzerland said at the time it wanted to send a strong signal to Israel about the “particular gravity of the events in the southern part of Israel and Gaza.”

No, I really don’t understand why Israel doesn’t want the Swiss around.

She said Switzerland would continue to condemn breaches of international humanitarian law. “Particularly Israel, with its painful history, should understand and appreciate that,” she said, according to Sonntag.

Yeah, maybe it also had something to do with the famed “neutral” nation stealing billions of dollars from Holocaust victims. But it’s far more important that the Swiss lecture Israel on human rights than give up the secrecy that allows Switzerland to fund more criminals and criminal activity than any other nation on earth.

Our esteemed, lovely and talented co-blogger Simply Jews hosts this week’s tremendous Haveil Havalim #164 (the no-name edition) with a special emphasis on Yom Hashoa.

I’ve been remiss these past couple of weeks keeping up with my regular carnivals.Last week’s Haveil Havalim #163 was up at Tzipiyah.

And over Pesach Jack had a non-Haveil Havalim roundup a testament (as if any were needed) of his commitment to the J-blogoshphere.

Fourteen years ago.

On May 4, 1994, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat reached agreement in Cairo on the first stage of Palestinian self-rule.The agreement was made in accordance with the Oslo Accords, signed in Washington, D.C. on September 13, 1993. This was the first direct, face-to-face agreement between Israel and the Palestinians and it acknowledged Israel’s right to exist. It was also designed as a framework for future relations between the two parties.

This lead to:

The Israeli Defense Forces withdrew from Jericho on May 13 and from most of the Gaza Strip on May 18-19, 1994. Palestinian Authority police and officials immediately took control. During the first few days there was a spate of attacks on Israeli troops and civilians in and near the Strip. Arafat himself arrived in Gaza to a tumultuous, chaotic welcome on July 1.

Here’s Clyde Haberman’s sentimental tribute to Arafat’s arrival in Gaza from the NYT:

Yasir Arafat, the fiery, flawed and indomitable symbol of the Palestinian struggle for a homeland, entered the Gaza Strip today, completing his odyssey to territories that he hopes to turn one day into a state.With tears in his eyes, Mr. Arafat knelt after crossing the border from Egypt and kissed the ground — land he has not seen in decades and that for the first time has come under Palestinian authority and, for now, his personal stewardship.

Michael Kelly recalled the scene somewhat less charitably (”Promises but never peace, Washington Post, April 3, 2002)

On July 1, 1994, Yasser Arafat entered Gaza to establish the Palestinian Autonomous Region — betwixt-and-between creature of the Oslo peace process that was supposed to become, under the guiding light of the Oslo peace process, the physical base of another ambivalent notion, the Palestinian National Authority. I went as a reporter to Gaza a few hours before Arafat arrived, and I stayed there for about five weeks, observing the early days of life and governance under the Palestinian Authority. Arafat ’s entry into Gaza was an object lesson: a purposely uncaring display of brute power. He arrived from the Sinai in a long caravan of Chevrolet Blazers and Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs, 70 or 80 cars packed to the rooflines with men with guns. The caravan roared up the thronged roads and down the mobbed streets, with the overfed, leather-jacketed, sunglassed thugs of Arafat ’s bodyguard detail all the time screaming and shooting off their Kalashnikovs to make their beloved people scurry out of their beloved leader’s way.This was the whole of the Palestinian Authority from the beginning, an ugly little cartoon of Middle East despotism. There was never any pretense of democracy, of rule of law, of a free press, of a working system of taxes or courts or hospitals. There was never any real government. No one ever bothered to build an economy or create jobs or even pick up the trash or pave the streets. There were only security forces — many, many of these — and villas by the sea for Arafat ’s cronies, and millions of dollars in foreign aid that seemed to always turn up missing, and prisons and propaganda. And in the middle of it all: “President” Arafat sitting in a room — surrounded by waiting sycophants and toadies and respectful ladies and gentlemen of the press — and complaining.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

The Washington reports that Palestinian Recruits Hit Streets Unprepared

The first class of Palestinian security officers trained under a multimillion-dollar U.S. program to strengthen the Palestinian Authority is deploying to one of the West Bank’s most restive cities without promised supplies of body armor, helmets or even flashlights after Israel blocked a shipment of equipment.The shortage in U.S.-funded supplies threatens the Palestinian government’s ability to provide security in the West Bank, which Israel has made a condition of future withdrawals from the occupied territories. There have also been significant problems with the training, including a final round that one American involved in the program described as “a complete fiasco.”

Of course given the past “success” of training Palestinian security forces Israel’s reticence is somewhat understandable.

This is accounted for in the article that observes:

Israeli officials contacted Friday said they could not immediately comment on what supplies had or had not been approved for the Presidential Guard. But they said Israel has been as cooperative as possible in approving equipment, given its own security needs.A senior official in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s office said Israel had approved most requests related to the Palestinian security training — “both weapons and equipment.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t easy,” this official said.

Last month, an armored personnel carrier that had been donated to the Palestinian Authority years ago was used by Hamas fighters to attack a crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, wounding 13 Israeli soldiers.

(Israel has in fact approved much more sophisticated equipment, so what has happened?)

Schwartz said the unit involved in that exercise “was given additional training before returning to the Palestinian Authority,” adding, “It achieved the standard.”The American, who talked on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, also spoke of the training supervisors putting on what he called “a dog-and-pony show” when U.S. congressional delegations or other visitors came to the site.

Visitors “do a bus tour where they view various training sessions that are completely staged,” the American said.

Dog and pony show? That’s certainly the impression I’ve gotten from all those newswire photos. The Palestinian security forces have been trained but it looks like a lot of choreography.

Unfortunately the article fails to mention one other matter and that is the makeup of the Palestinian Presidential Guard. In response to the State Department’s announcement of the training, the Skeptical Bureaucrat reminded us:

The Presidential Guard’s personnel overlap to a large extent with al Fatah’s Force 17 (of Black September infamy) and even with the al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade. So, watch for future news of U.S.-trained and equipped terrorists - maybe even HAMAS infiltrators in the Guard - committing atrocities against Israel.

I don’t trust these security forces. Unfortunately, the State Department has a stake in ensuring that they succeed, even if it means denying their failures.

Isabel Kershner writes in Israel’s tactics thwart attacks, with tradeoff.

Suicide bombings in Israel have dropped off so significantly that the nation’s security officials now dare to speak openly of success. But the very steps they are taking to thwart bombers appear to collide head-on with the government’s agenda of achieving peace with the Palestinians.It is a classic military-political dilemma. The progress in stopping suicide bombers, the vast majority of whom cross into Israel from the West Bank, has brought enough quiet for Israel to resume peace talks with the Palestinian leadership there.

But the current calm is fragile, and to maintain it Israeli security officials say they must continue their nightly arrests and sometimes deadly raids in the heart of the West Bank — tactics at odds with a peace effort that envisions a separate Palestinian state, an eventual Israeli withdrawal from much of the West Bank and, in the meantime, a gradual transfer of authority to the Palestinian police.

“The price of staying out” of the West Bank, said one senior Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of military restrictions, “might be one that we don’t want to pay.”

The dilemma to Kershner is, of course, that how can Israel take charge of its own security and not allow the Palestinians control of their own territory. But it’s not really a dilemma. Kershner ably points out the terror that was an outgrowth of trusting the Palestinians when the Palestinians didn’t accept Israel’s right to exist.

As the military official said, trusting the Palestinians may entail a price that’s too high. Certainly history has taught that lesson.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Way to conduct negotiations, Hamas.

Hamas has threatened an “unprecedented escalation” against Israel if it does not agree soon to the Egyptian-mediated cease-fire offer, the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported Sunday.

[...] “All options are open. The ball is in the Israeli court,” Abu Zuhri said, adding that if Israel continues its procrastination, aggression and blockade of Gaza, “it may lead to unprecedented escalation.”

Gee, it’s almost as if they didn’t hear a word Jimmy Carter said to them.

Then again, it’s not like they haven’t used these tactics in the past.

In the meantime, the kassam rocket fire continues. And terrorist groups say they won’t agree to the truce, and leave themselves a loophole wide enough to drive a car-bomb through. They “reserve the right” to respond to “Israeli aggression,” code for the IDF taking out terrorists who, say, launch kassams into Israel. The thing that PIJ does all the time.

The thing that bothers me is that Olmert is apparently going to accept this truce, knowing full well Hamas wants only to rearm and regroup.

On the other hand, Olmert may finally be facing a scandal big enough to force him out. Since Israelis don’t think he’s worth getting rid of for his abysmal defense record, maybe his corruption will finally do it.

Here’s hoping. Israel deserves better leadership than she’s got.