I had my suspicion regarding Gilad's comments in Maariv when they were published in our newspapers. I mean I did not think that Gilad had said that we should fear the 85 million Egyptians , they were going to squash us in 1948 and they conquered us in 1973.At first I was happy , at last a confession that we conquered the Masada army but then I had my suspicion , because no Israeli official would say such thing , this is a historical dangerous confession
I searched the internet for the source of the leaked news and all I found that he really said so in Maariv
This is a country with 85 million citizens, it was almost going to exterminate us in 1948 and it gave us a blow in 1973. Look what happens in the region, they also have Muslim brothers, see Jordan, see Turkey. Do You want to lose them too ??And I wish that he said this only because before this he said the following which all our official newspapers ignored
"They gave us freedom of action, they are trying to be moderate.So what do we do? Mubarak showed courage - the Rafah crossing is closed, Hamas under siege. What do we think?? They do not work for us !!??I just wish that he did not defend us , seriously because in the end of the day Egypt turned to be their only ally beside the United States and we turned to give them the freedom of action to destroy Gaza and kill children.
I just wish that he did not defend us ,the 1948 close victory and 1973 victory moments are lost in front of previous words !!
I understand Gilad really cares for the relations with Egypt because he considers Mubarak regime is good to Israel in this particular time and that is all.
Olmert is using Shilat as a last attempt to appear as the national hero of Israel. He did not win anything from his crusade in Gaza and thus he is trying to find any card that enables him to preserve his dignity. He is using Shilat to tackle the emotions of the Israelis in order to justify the delay of the truce.
I think that the truce was too close last week but was not achieved because of the insistence of Olmert to include Shilat. I believe if the Israelis insist on including Shilat , the Palestinians should include their prisoners too. The price of one year truce is not cheap.
The Egyptian regime does not want to include Shilat in the negotiations with Hamas , may be because it knows that this would be too much to ask from Hamas. Do not forget you want them to stop launching rockets for one year without releasing their prisoners or even recognizing their existence in the sector or without lifting the siege.
Still the Egyptian regime surprised me when it called back our commercial delegation from Tel Aviv objecting the insistence of Olmert to include Shilat, it seems that Gilad reminded the Egyptian regime that it does not work for Olmert !! This is a very late decision I am afraid , why we did not do it in during the war, why we did not call back that delegation and leave the rest of our embassy there !!!
By the way I do not know if the Egyptian regime is insisting on its position from Shilat because Qatar interfered in this matter too !! The Qatari prime minister promised Sarkozy to work for Shilat’s release and thus the Qataris once more interfered with our role in the region, offering their services to take our place !!???
@Mo,oops I inserted the original Hebrew text instead of the translated text.regarding the translations , I think in both ways Gilad knew that he could not ask much from us after all what the Egyptian regime gave.
ReplyDeleteAbout the prisoners , you are right , I believe also it is from the benefit of Israeli politicians that they won't reach to a real truce with Hamas, they want to feed their war machine over and over