Meshal: We'll halt rockets if IDF ends assassinations

A senior Palestinian official said late on Friday that Khaled Meshal, the head of Hamas' political bureau, told Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Khalifa Al-Thani that Hamas would be willing to halt rocket firing on Israel, if Israel would stop its targeted killings on Hamas militants.

The Palestinian source told Israel Radio that Meshal spoke with Al-Thani on the telephone. The Qatari prime minister later called Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to update him of his conversation with Meshal.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/865943.html

The pols making the agreements are not in control of those launching the rockets...

But at least they are better than random killings, I guess.

I believe that Olmert and his cabinet could stop target killings easily

why not? The army doesn't operate independantly of him.

Do you mean you think the army'd defy him? As in Begin and Sharon?

With regard to the "illegal settlements" for example, but there are other things, especially in dealings with the occupied people. It is true that the Israeli government is more functional than what the Palestinians have, but it seem to occur all the time that orders are given by people like Peretz or the supreme court, and they are ignored. The alternatives would seem to be to assume that the orders are fake or that the officers and courts issuing the orders are ignored at will.

Surprising conversations

A few days after the Six-Day War, major general Ariel Sharon asked me to come to his office. Sharon, who had been the commander of a division, was already considered one of the war's heroes. Sharon's appointment to this position had been an emergency one; at the end of the war he returned to his regular job as head of the training division in the General Staff.

Sharon had a highly unusual request of me. "I would like to ask you not to criticize prime minister Levy Eshkol anymore," he said. I expressed amazement on how it was possible that he, of all people, who had levied such harsh criticism on the prime minister during the war, was approaching me with a request like this. "What happened? What's the reason for this change of heart?" I asked.

Sharon replied frankly. "Understand," he said, "at a time like this in particular, after the victory, it's desirable that Israel should have a weak prime minister. This will make it possible to quickly transfer the Israel Defense Forces' training camps and military exercises to the West Bank. That will be my job, and that's what I will have to deal with as head of the training division. A weak prime minister will be wary of interfering in a move of this kind. But he must not be made too weak; otherwise he could be toppled."

Sharon revealed for the first time his point of view on the territories, as well as his modus operandi, which was carried out in a crafty and sophisticated way. About a year before that, Sharon had been promoted by the chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, to the rank of major general. Sharon was concerned about the leadership qualities of the prime minister, Eshkol, and not about the new chief of staff, Moshe Dayan. It is possible he was aware that Dayan would not hold back a plan to transfer the IDF's training bases to the territories.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/865719.html

A Qassam rocket struck between two houses in the western Negev town of Sderot on Saturday morning, damaging property but causing no injuries. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility.

Also Saturday, Israel Defense Forces troops arrested four Palestinians in the Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, security sources said. They said the four men were brothers, but did not give their affiliations.

The IDF said that four people had been taken in for questioning for firing rockets from Gaza into Israel, but all four had been released.

The strike came hours after the Israel Air Force killed a senior Palestinian militant on a motorcycle near the town of Khan Yunis Friday evening in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, the Islamic Jihad militant group and the IDF said.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/865943.html

Hamas deputy political leader Moussa Abu Marzouk told the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram that his organization may be willing to agree to a new one-year cease-fire with Israel, Israel Radio reported Saturday.

According to the radio report, Abu Marzouk said Palestinians need mutual and comprehensive calm in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Regarding abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit, the Damascus-based leader said prisoner exchange talks were halted because Israel rejected the list of prisoners Hamas wants freed.

He added that no progress on the issue would be possible unless Israel changes its position.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/865965.html