Truce Brewing Between Hamas And Israel
Hamas’s political leadership have tentatively accepted the terms of an eight-year truce with the Jewish state, according to sources within Hamas.
The sources, speaking to KleinOnline from the Gaza Strip, said Israel gave support to Egypt to accept a Hamas delegation for further talks on the proposed long-term ceasefire.
After discussions in Egypt, the Hamas delegation, headed by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, will travel to Qatar and Turkey for more input on the truce deal, which is being brokered by former Quartet envoy and ex-prime minister of Britain Tony Blair.
The Hamas sources said the current version of the truce, as accepted in theory by Hamas’s politburo, includes a Hamas pledge to stop all rocket fire from Gaza and to cease digging tunnels into Israel.
Hamas also agreed not to operate within 30 meters of the Israeli border, the sources said.
In return, the Hamas sources said, Israel agreed to allow thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to enter the Jewish state for work, a detail which cannot be confirmed with Israeli diplomatic sources.
The Hamas sources said Israel will allow for a larger “fishing zone” off the Gaza coast along with a corridor to connect the Gaza coastline to international waters. Israel, however, would still monitor and inspect ships in the area.
A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no comment on the truce talks or the Hamas claims.
Ahmed Yusef, an adviser to Haniyeh, last weekend said significant progress had been made in reaching a long-term truce.
Sen. Schumer Setting A Trend?
Since Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., came out against President Obama’s deal with Iran, a number of other key undecided Democrat lawmakers have quietly weighed whether or not to oppose the international nuclear agreement in a vote next month.
Informed Israeli diplomatic sources have identified Sens. Claire McCaskill, Ben Cardin, Christopher A. Coons, and Cory Booker as leaning toward rejecting the agreement, which could jeopardize Obama’s major foreign policy venture.
Other senators said to be undecided include Bob Casey, Joe Donnelly, Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Manchin, Ralph Peters, Harry Reid, Jon Tester, and Ron Wyden.
While he has remained low-key on the subject publicly, Booker held an off-the-record conference call last Wednesday with members of the New Jersey Jewish community during which, one participant said, he expressed skepticism about numerous aspects of the nuclear agreement.
Cardin, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is also inching closer to opposing the deal.
“He is certainly being lobbied on all sides,” Cardin’s spokeswoman, Sue Walitsky, told the Huffington Post. Walitsky said Cardin’s decision probably won’t be made until after Labor Day.
Diplomatic sources here also said McCaskill is moving closer to opposition. She indicated support for the agreement, however, in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press” last Sunday.
Former Guantanamo Commander To Israel: Forcefeed Your Prisoner
The former commander of the United States’ detention center at Guantanamo Bay gave Israel advice on how to deal with hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner Muhammad Allan: Forcefeed him immediately.
Col. Michael Bumgarner, speaking on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on New York’s AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphia’s NewsTalk 990 AM, declared that “without reservation they should force feed him.”
Bumgarner served as commander of the Joint Detention Group – the guard force at the Guantanamo Bay detention center used by the U.S. to house dangerous terrorist suspects – from April 2005 through June 2006.
He was instrumental in putting down widespread hunger strikes from over 150 prisoners during his tenure at the facility.
He argued that if Israel does not force-feed Allan and prisoners like him, “You are going to have a constant breakdown within any of your institutional settings there.”
“We found that the more we tried to entice them and encourage them all it did was encourage more of a hunger strike…. Inside the prison it is very simple. You cannot enter into a position of greater policy being run by the individuals inside the prison. That’s exactly what happened at Guantánamo and things got totally out of control. They thought they were influencing national decisions by their behavior.”
Pro-Trump Democrats Flail Hillary
Two self-professed Democrat women who shot to YouTube stardom last week after defending Donald Trump against Fox News host Megyn Kelly are now calling Hillary Clinton “tainted” while warning a Clinton presidency would “ruin” America.
“Let’s call it like we see it. She’s not gonna make a good president. Even though she’s a woman, she’s not gonna be the best president for our country,” stated Lynnette Hardaway in a joint radio interview with her YouTube co-shouter, Rochelle Richardson, referring to Clinton.
The African-American duo, known online as Diamond and Silk, made these comments Sunday on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.”
This host asked the two Trump enthusiasts, “Why, as Democrats and women, are you not supporting Hillary Clinton?”
“Because she’s tainted,” replied Hardaway, with Richardson chiming in to support the statement.
“Hillary Clinton is tainted by Benghazi and those e-mails. That’s why. That’s what’s going to ruin our country. It’s gonna ruin our country, and then America is gonna be left out of the bus, is gonna be left behind again,” she said.
“No, No, No! We can no longer look at who’s a Republican, who’s Democrat. Who’s black and who’s white. We’ve got to look at who’s gonna do the job, and that’s why we stumpin’ for Trump.”
Hardaway said Clinton is a poor choice, because she has “a scandal that’s following her.”
Continued Hardaway: “She’s got to find those e-mails. I heard she turned over her server the other day. Good for her. And she has that Benghazi following her. She’s not gonna make a good leader.
“Listen, we need someone that’s gonna come in here. That’s gonna unite us that’s gonna make out country great again. That’s why we stump for Trump,” she said.