Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas are to sound out militant groups on extending a ceasefire with Israel from Gaza to the West Bank, officials said on Wednesday.Seven paragraphs later:
Olmert spokeswoman Miri Eisin brushed aside the proposal for a wider ceasefire. "We need to see that you can actually implement the ceasefire (in Gaza) before we can consider an extension," she said.Four paragraphs later:
She said Israel has not responded to rocket fire since the ceasefire in Gaza took effect. "It's about time Palestinians deliver on a promise instead of just Israel delivering on ours."
Even if a ceasefire were extended, Eisin said Israel would not back away from its demands that the new Palestinian government recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept interim peace deals.
"Those principles are not for negotiation," she said.
Abbas wants to widen the ceasefire to include a cessation of Israel's West Bank raids and Palestinian attacks from the territory as part of a deal that would free a captive Israeli soldier and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
The November ceasefire largely halted confrontations with Israel in Gaza, although some factions have continued firing rockets into the Jewish state sporadically.Let's analyze this article, shall we?
Reuters' Nidal al-Mughrabi starts off with the assumption that there has been a cease fire in Gaza since November. A few paragraphs later (not quoted here), he admits that Islamic Jihad never accepted the cease fire. A bit later he quotes an Israeli spokeswoman saying that there was never a cease fire although Israel has refrained from reacting to rocket attacks. And finally in the last paragraph he says that the ceasefire "largely halted" confrontations, although there have been "sporadic" rocket attacks.
As is usual in the wire services, the author is twisting facts and positioning them in such a way as to make it appear that Palestinian Arabs are acting peacefully and that Israel and the PA are equally aggressive and/or restrained. This is the "even-handed" analysis that must shine through in all of AP's and Reuters' articles because their pro-Arab propaganda must outshine the facts, lightly sprinkled within their rhetoric.
There is no cease fire. There never was a cease fire. Palestinian Arab rocket attacks on Israel INCREASED since November compared to earlier months in 2006. Not only Islamic Jihad but Fatah as well have been shooting rockets, almost daily, into Israel. Israel has largely not responded to these attacks but that has not affected their frequency. There were almost-daily rockets throughout December and almost-daily rockets throughout February (I didn't keep a calendar for January.)
There is functionally no distinction between suicide bombings that target innocent civilians and rocket attacks that target innocent civilians - both are terror attacks. The fact that Mughrabi downplays hundreds of rockets and pretends that they are part and parcel of a "cease fire" shows how twisted his facts truly are.
Reuters and Nidal al-Mughrabi are deliberate apologists for terror and they feed hundreds of daily newspapers regular reports that are as skewed and dishonest as this one.