Israel's defense minister said Sunday he intends to extend a troop withdrawal plan in the Gaza Strip to areas in the West Bank to help ease hardships for Palestinians and pave the way toward a cease-fire. Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told reporters he hoped to expand a plan under which Israel would pull troops back from the edges of Palestinian cities in the Gaza Strip once violence ebbed and Palestinian security forces took control. "I think the issue of Gaza-first, which I initiated, will include not only Gaza but also other places," Ben-Eliezer told reporters at a meeting with Catherine Bertini, a U.N. humanitarian envoy. The Palestinian cabinet gave preliminary approval on August 7 to the Gaza-first plan to ease Israel's military clampdown. But Palestinian and Israeli officials who later met to discuss the proposal failed to reach any agreement amid Palestinian demands for Israeli troop withdrawals from West Bank cities reoccupied in June after a spate of suicide bombings. "The main idea is to achieve a cease-fire and for tensions and all the violence to decrease," Ben-Eliezer said about his proposal.
The Paleostinian cabinet give preliminary approval on August 7th and has since been sitting on it and arguing for more. In typical fashion, the Israelis are actually listening to the arguments, rather than standing their ground. If the Paleos actually wanted to "achieve a cease-fire and for tensions and all the violence to decrease" they'd accept the Gaza First plan and then negotiate from that point as it produced results. I predict that if it's ever implemented, there won't be any observable results — it's nothing but a negotiating ploy to get more concessions without giving anything in return. Pfui. |