This is a total Shakedown in the relationship between the Obama administration and Israel. US President Barack Obama exerted “heavy pressure” on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in a phone call Sunday to end Operation Protective Edge in Gaza immediately, according to Channel 2 television.
Netanyahu's demand that Gaza be demilitarized was reportedly swept aside by Obama, who said that he saw such an arrangement as part of an overall peace deal to be reached between Israel and the Palestinians, and not as part of a ceasefire with Hamas. According to an official US statement, Obama “made clear the strategic imperative of instituting an immediate, unconditional humanitarian ceasefire that ends hostilities now and leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities based on the November 2012 ceasefire agreement.”
Israel’s ambassador to the UN criticizes a UN Security Council presidential statement that demanded an immediate ceasefire and calls on the world to stand with Israel against terror. Prosor notes the absence of any reference to Hamas rocket fire in the statement. “The presidential statement miraculously managed to not mention the Hamas or rockets or Israel’s right to defend its citizens,” he says and declares he is appealing not to world leaders, but rather to public common sense.
MK Ze’ev Elkin, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, rejects the Obama administration’s calls for an immediate ceasefire, recalling Palestinian elections in 2006. “The international pressure has begun,” Elkin tells Ynet. “When we once listened to the Americans and allowed Hamas to participate in elections, Hamas took over Gaza and we received a terrorist entity. Hamas is a terrorist organization just like Al-Qaeda, so there is no reason to talk about negotiations.” “The fact that Hamas is firing means that it is still not deterred, and did not reach a real breaking point,” he says.
Politicians from the right and the left continue to find common ground in their opposition to US ceasefire efforts in their current form. Labor MK Nachman Shai tells Channel 10 that President Obama “stopped Israel with his action. He didn’t think far enough ahead.” Earlier, Shai told Ynet that “the United States imposed a ceasefire upon us too early.” But, he emphasizes, Israel cannot say no to the US.
Source: Arutz Sheva
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