[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA

"US presses Israel to allow Hamas to prepare to attack Israel undisturbed"
is certainly a harsh description of the situation.

But it is the truth.

And it should not be a surprise when one considers that the America point
man is the same Secreteray of State Rice that didn't want Israel ("according
to foreign reports") to destroy the Syrian nuclear plant before it went hot
because it was best to keep the glaring failure of her policy to appease of
North Korea policy offf the radar screen.]

US presses Israel on Gaza cease-fire
YAAKOV KATZ and HERB KEINON , THE JERUSALEM POST Apr. 28, 2008
www.jpost.com
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Pressure is picking up on Israel to reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas in
the Gaza Strip ahead of US President George W. Bush's planned visit to
Jerusalem in two weeks, defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, head of the Defense Ministry's
Diplomatic-Security Bureau, has been holding intensive talks with Egypt on a
proposed cease-fire in the Gaza Strip being brokered by Egyptian
Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman, according to the defense officials.

There was increasing pressure from the US and Egypt to reach a deal before
Bush's visit on May 14, the officials said, and Israel was making every
effort to move forward with the deal, even though Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
and Defense Minister Ehud Barak had yet to formulate an official position on
the matter.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is scheduled to visit Israel next
week.

"There is a push to wrap up the deal before Bush's visit," a top defense
official told the Post Sunday. "The hope is that quiet in Gaza will enable
Israel and the PA to focus on reaching a peace deal by the end of the year."

Suleiman has in the meantime postponed a planned visit to Israel until the
beginning of next week, after he receives a final answer from the various
Palestinian factions on whether they accept the terms of the proposed
cease-fire together with Hamas.

Suleiman is scheduled to receive a final answer from the factions on
Wednesday and will then update Israel.

"Assuming the factions accept the terms, Suleiman will likely visit Israel
in the beginning of next week to finalize Israel's position," the top
defense official said, warning that if Israel rejected the deal it could
damage relations with Egypt and be interpreted as a blow to Suleiman's
prestige.

While the Defense Ministry is pursuing the cease-fire talks, senior IDF
officers have voiced opposition to halting military operations against Hamas
in Gaza. On Sunday, two Kassam rockets struck Sderot. One scored a direct
hit on a home, causing extensive damages but no injuries.

One of the more dominant voices comes from OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen.
Yoav Galant, who, the Post has learned, recently expressed fierce opposition
to a cease-fire with Hamas, warning it would be used by the terrorist
organization to rebuild its damaged infrastructure and to increase its arms
smuggling under the Philadelphi Corridor from Sinai.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki, who held talks in Jerusalem
Sunday with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and ministry director-general Aaron
Abramovitch, said in Cairo a day earlier that Israel's "latest statements"
on a cease-fire with Hamas should not be considered Israel's final word.
In a statement, Zaki said that Israel "will make its position [on the
proposed cease-fire with Hamas] clear following a series of closed-door
meetings that will take place later."

The government's position, repeated as a mantra by Olmert's spokesmen over
the last week, is that Israel is not negotiating either directly or
indirectly with Hamas, and that if Hamas wants a cease-fire it knows what it
needs to do: stop all firing of Kassam rockets into Israel; stop terrorist
attacks on Israelis anywhere; and stop the arms smuggling into the Gaza
Strip.

Zaki, according to the Egyptian statement, "played down Israel's initial
rejection of the cease-fire as some sort of propaganda."

Zaki, who is a close confidant of Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul
Gheit, said, "The cease-fire that Egypt has been seeking to achieve between
the Palestinian and Israeli sides requires cooperation and real desire from
the two sides."

A senior official in the Foreign Ministry said Abramovitch told Zaki that it
was essential to prevent Hamas's buildup in Gaza, and the terrorism
emanating from the Strip. The official said that Zaki's visit was a
reciprocal visit to one Abramovitch paid on him a few weeks ago.

Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz is expected to meet with Rice in
Washington on Monday, a day before he takes part in the quarterly
Israeli-American strategic dialogue.

That daylong dialogue is once again expected to focus on the Iranian threat,
and the ramifications of Teheran's nuclearization on the region.

Mofaz will head the Israeli team, and his counterpart on the US side will be
State Department Counselor Eliot Cohen, who has stepped in for Nicholas
Burns, the recently retired under secretary for political affairs.