Israel Chooses Arrests Over Bloodshed

Rounds Up More Than 30 Senior Hamas Officials In Bid To Stop Rocket Attacks From Gaza

(CBS/AP) 
Abbas, a moderate from the Fatah party, has been meeting with Haniyeh in Gaza this week in an effort to reduce tensions with Israel.

Thursday's raid was the second major crackdown on Hamas in the past year. Israel rounded up dozens of Hamas officials, including three Cabinet ministers, last June after Palestinian militants tunneled into Israel from Gaza and captured an Israeli soldier.

Some 40 Hamas lawmakers arrested last summer — nearly one-third of the Palestinian legislature — are still behind bars. Despite the crackdown, the soldier, Cpl. Gilad Shalit, remains in captivity.

Among those rounded up Thursday were former Cabinet minister Abdel Rahman Zeidan, legislators Hamed Bitawi and Daoud Abu Ser, the mayors of the towns of Nablus, Qalqiliya and Beita, and the head of the main Islamic charity in Nablus, Fayad al-Arba.

Until Thursday, Israel's crackdown on Hamas had been largely focused on the group's Gaza Strip stronghold. Israeli air strikes during the past week have killed more than 40 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them militants.

The air strikes came as Abbas and Haniyeh were making a new push to restore a truce with Israel.

It also was the first time the men have met since fighting between their Hamas and Fatah movements broke out two weeks ago, killing more than 50 people. The two sides reached a truce last weekend, but tensions remain high.

The Abbas-Haniyeh meeting ended with the two sides agreeing their factions would meet again.

"We are working to recommit to the truce," Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said.

A Haniyeh aide, Ahmed Yousef, said a renewed cease-fire with Israel would have to be comprehensive and include the West Bank in addition to Gaza. The previous truce, brokered in November, applied only to the Gaza-Israel border; Israel rejected repeated Palestinian demands that it also halt arrest raids in the West Bank.

"If it is going to be for Gaza only, then no one will be able to convince the Palestinian resistance factions to commit to that," Yousef said.

Israel, however, sees no point in extending to the West Bank a truce it says has failed to prove itself in Gaza.

"Israel has always said that if a cease-fire is kept in Gaza we're willing to extend it to the West Bank," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. "The trouble is that a cease-fire in Gaza has never been kept ... It has been a sham. The idea of extending a failure is flawed one."

[ajapierce]

The radicals out there wanting to kill people should all have bountys put on their heads for dead or alive arrests. The world is in very sad shape and the last thing the world needs now is more wars when we are trying to make progress in medicine and technology.

This planet needs more peace, because when global warming starts to warm up the whole world we will be beating each other to death with sticks.

[sharncedar]

The Israelis seemed destined to play out every act of the Holocaust, but from the other side. Now we are told they are merciful because they are arressting and putting people in concentration camps, instead of shooting them dead without a trial, presumably. That's a strange definition of mercy.

These kinds of acts backfire, even those who believe God is dead or sleeps understand that Israel is creating its own doom, act by act. It's strange and sad, a people destined to destroy themselves.

Either Israel can be a nation, in which case it needs to accomodate all the residents in its political sphere which is all of Palestine since that is the land occupied and administered by the Israelis, or it can continue to be a fantasy, a dream of some unreal religious purity. The fantasy has to fail, because the Jews themselves are not close to being pure in their religion, they are quite atheist and soft, less serious monotheists than the Islamic people they kill for sport. So what is left is a tragic impossibility, a straining fantasy that demands so much it victimizes all of Israel's neighbors and the people living in their land. It's a death wish I guess on their part, how can anything come of this but some tradgedy. Then I suppose they'll blame America or somebody for it like last time.

[cfin5]

Let me take a guess.......This Nasser Shaer, the education minister that was arrested, is the one that is responsible for the Mickey Mouse thing? If so, WHAT A SICKO!!!.....Don't let him go Israel!!!

[patriotic9]

"It should be understood that killing Americans and Jews anywhere found are the highest act of worship and the highest form of good deeds in the eyes of Allah," Simon quotes bin Laden.

Posted by lars008 at 02:54 PM : May 24, 2007


Killing American and Jews anywhere?
Why?
Why not killing Germans and Jews?
Why not killing French and Jews?
Why not killing Danish and Jews?

Enemies of United States made this happen.

If Europeans were not brought into Palestine after WWIII to occupy the land of those Palestinians by force who had nothing to do with the actions of Hitler and PSYCHOTIC CHRISTIAN ENEMIES of UNITED STATES didn't support that atrocities on the cost of American Money, Amiercan lives and USA herself because Americans are GOD-NEGLECTED and NON-AMEICAN EUROPEAN INVADERS IN PALESTINE are GOD-CHOSEN, USA is an UNHOLY LAND while NON-AMERICAN FILTHY PALESTINIAN LAND where ISLAMIC RADICAL "JESUS" was born is a HOLY LAND,Our constitution which separates CHURCH from STATE is UNHOLY wehreas ANTI-AMERICAN BIBLE which discriminates against Americans by not promising them a single penny while promising NON-AMERICAN GOD-CHOSEN ENEMIES OF THE GOD'S ONLY SON a LAND in the MIDDLE EAST is HOLY, USA would have only friends and no ENEMY in the world.

[lars008-2009]

Hizbullah Deputy Sec-Gen Sheikh Naim Qassem: We Have Jurisprudent Permission to Carry Out 'Martyrdom' Operations, Fire Missiles on Israeli Civilians From Ayatollah Khomeini
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD154907

NOW CAN WE KILL THEM ALL???

if it is ok for fascist nazi islamic muslims to kill all non muslims everywhere.... is it ok for the non muslims to kill all fascist nazi islamic muslims???

Switching Sides: Inside The Enemy Camp

But then in 2000, well before his arrest, something happened which would make Abas question everything he believed in: a fatwa, a religious edict, was issued by Osama bin Laden.

"It should be understood that killing Americans and Jews anywhere found are the highest act of worship and the highest form of good deeds in the eyes of Allah," Simon quotes bin Laden.

Abas and his fellow commanders were ordered to read the fatwa to their men and make sure they carried it out. The others obeyed, but Abas refused. It was his moment of truth. He firmly believed that jihad was to be fought only on the battlefield in defense of Islam; he had always been taught that the killing of civilians had nothing to do with holy war and that it was forbidden.

The fatwa justified killing non-Muslim civilians everywhere.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/04/60minutes/main2761108.shtml?source=RSSattr=60Minutes_2761108

[ezillyamused]

I say Israel should round up ALL of the Palestinian occupiers and ship them off to Lebanon!!!