Gaza & Israel...Hope for Peace

Helena Cobban points to an encouraging story indicating that Israel and Hamas are inching closer to.... what? detente? rapprochement? At this stage diplomatic language does not have a good word. "Temporary truce" is about right.

...both Israeli and Palestinian sources expect that by the middle of next week, a temporary truce between Israel and Hamas brokered by Egypt may go into effect. It won't be announced as such - Israel is squeamish about officially striking a deal with what it deems a terrorist group - but if it goes ahead, Hamas will strong-arm its own fighters and those belonging to Islamic Jihad into halting the barrage of rockets aimed at the farming communities and towns of southern Israel. In exchange, Israel is expected to refrain from targeted killings of Hamas operatives, and will hold off on mounting any major assault into Gaza. Israel will also commit itself to gradually lifting the blockade on goods reaching Gaza's besieged inhabitants.

What's that guy running for president always talking about?

Hope?

Change?

He's such a dreamer, you know.
Did you catch that part about "brokered by Egypt"? I wonder where the U.S. State Department figures in all this. Does anyone in Washington know or care what's going on?

The "Palestinian" challenge is represented by a word with a multitude of meanings, depending on who uses it. Readers with time to do some homework can start with this link.

Breakout - Hamas and the end of the two-state solution

My own interest can be tracked back two years...

Hamas electoral victory -- Snips from here and there (January 2006)

Jimmy Carter at eighty-one (February 2006)

Abbas, Hamas and Israeli Intel (May 2006)

Corporal Gilad Shalit -- Israeli hostage in Gaza (June 2006)