Gaza Latest: Cairo Intercepts Missiles, Mossad's Flotilla Testimony, and Hamas on Direct Talks

Missiles Intercepted by Cairo: Palestinian news Agency Ma'an reported on Saturday that Egyptian authorities intercepted a shipment of at least 190 anti-aircraft missiles, rockets, and other ammunition in Sinai and seized explosives and weapons in Rafah.

Mossad to Give Flotilla Testimony: The Turkel Commission, an independent public commission set up to investigate the Freedom Flotilla attack, sent a letter to Mossad's Director Meir Dagan to give testimony. The commission has already called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and top Israel Defense Forces officials for testimony on the decision-making process before the Israeli forces' raid on the Mavi Marmara, the flotilla's lead ship.

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An Israeli military investigation team has already concluded that the operation's planners lacked critical intelligence. The team concluded there were "operational mistakes" but no “operational failures”, and it was possible to prevent the flotilla’s mission to Gaza by political means, such as the opening of land crossings.

Hamas United against Direct Talks: Last week Hamas' Damascus bureau leader Khaled Meshaal stated that the upcoming talks between Israelis and Ramallah were illegitimate and the result of Washington's coercion.

Gaza's leader Ismail Haniyeh followed this with the assertion that the Palestinians cannot give up Jerusalem or any other part of Palestine. Haniyeh said: "Israel is trying in dozens of ways to achieve its goal, and now it is through negotiations."

Palestine-Israel Analysis: Ramallah's "One Month Trial" and Netanyahu's "Security Card"

After half the members of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization failed to attend the discussion over direct talks with Israel, the Palestinian Ma'an News Agency reported that Hamas cancelled Saturday's reconciliation meeting with Fatah.

According to the London-based Arab language daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has re-labeled the talks as a two-stage process: a one-month trial period to see if Israel's Netanyahu Government will extend the freeze on West Bank settlements and then direct talks focusing on core issues.

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For that second stage of the talks, Abbas suggested that the Quartet --- in which Russia, European Union, and United Nations sit with the US --- can press Washington to get Israel to reveal its hand, behind closed doors, on the borders of a future Palestinian state. In a letter, Abbas urged the Quartet members to abide by resolutions of the UN pertaining to the Israeli-Arab conflict, the principles of the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, the 2002 road map and the 2002-2007 Arab Peace Initiative.

Azzam al-Ahmed, a senior Fatah official who also serves as an adviser to Abbas, expressed dismay over Washington’s failure to invite representatives of all the Quartet members to the launch of direct talks in Washington early next month.

On the Israeli front, Prime Minister Netanyahu is preparing to use his best card, "security issues", as soon as the talks commence. Over the weekend, Netanyahu said he plans to focus on security arrangements before addressing final borders. (That means "drawing final borders across security arrangements". If Israeli forces are deployed in the Jordan Valley and most of the 500.000 Israeli settlers are kept as a buffer force for the Israeli state from missiles, then the lines have more or less been drawn.)

Netanyahu increased the pressure by depicting a "real partner on the Palestinian side, sincere and serious in negotiations, negotiations which will require both sides to take necessary measures, not only the Israeli side but also the Palestinian side”. Then it would be possible to “shortly reach a historic peace agreement between the two peoples.”

In response to Ramallah's "one-month trial" for the extension of a settlement freeze, Netanyahu will use his "security" card in order to get the maximum concessions at the beginning of negotiations. That is a wise strategy: if the concessions are not made, then West Jerusalem can blame Ramallah for not living up to its agreement to negotiate. However, that in turn also points to the difficulty of getting Israel to move beyond the initial phase of talks.

Who might be responsible for that position? What about a country whose administration once supported Palestinians pre-conditions --- including the settlement freeze and ending the occupation in East Jerusalem --- yet, with urgent phone calls to Ramallah, has insisted on no pre-conditions and definitely no reference to Israel's weapons programmes, including its nuclear capability? Any guess who that might be?

Israel-Palestine Analysis: Who Wants A One-State Solution?

Let's ask a very basic question: What is the most likely alternative to the two-state solution? For the Israeli right and the majority of Palestinians settled in the West Bank (according to a poll by the Palestinian Ma'an News Agency), it is a one-state agreement. Based on this data, we can read political motivations behind these preferences.

In an article published in Haaretz, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens argued that Israel had to break its taboos by granting Israeli citizenships to Palestinians. He said:

We are already a binational state and also a multicultural and multi-sector state. The minorities [meaning Arabs] here make up 20 percent of the population --- that's a fact and you can't argue with facts.

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So Palestinians would be granted equal rights, such as the right to vote for a new Knesset. The second generation of Palestinian granted equal rights, if not the first generation, would be enjoy their lives in Jerusalem's telecommunication sectors, on Tel Aviv's beaches (world's 9th best) and in Israel's Hebrew University (which is in the top 100 universities in the world).

Critics from the Israeli "left" contend, however, that while this proposal provides the Palestinians full personal rights, it also envisages a country whose symbols and spirit will remain Jewish: what is sought by the right-wing is a "democratic Jewish Israel". The Palestinian problem would become a domestic issue. Instead of dealing with the Obama Administration, Ramallah's foot-dragging strategies, United Nations' telling offs and "provocative" flotillas, problems related with Palestinians granted Israeli citizenships would turn to their loyalty to the Jewish character of the state or their relatively high birthrate.

On the Palestinian front, those who argue for a one-state alternative and political "vision" assume that Palestinians would overtake the rule of the state through the state's democratic channels. However, the Palestinian question would face new and more complex problems and the nationalist movement could lose its support from the emerging Palestinian elite.

Beyond these political calculations, if the Ma'an poll reflects the general public opinion of Palestinians, questions emerge. Is this a "hopeless" reaction to the division of Palestine and a historical memory of defeat? Is it a surrender to the "enemy"? Or is it weariness of harsh living conditions imposed by politics and the futile hope of the better life lived by their Jewish neighbours?