Four Israelis killed in West Bank

[CardSharp]

Palestinian gunmen have opened fire on an Israeli car in the West Bank and killed four passengers on the eve of a new round of Middle East peace talks in Washington. The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility.

Assailants firing from a passing car riddled the vehicle with bullets as it travelled near Hebron - a volatile city that has been a flash point of violence in the past. Some 500 ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers live in heavily fortified enclaves in the city amid more than 100,000 Palestinians.

One of the victims was pregnant, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Israel's national rescue service said the victims were two men and two women, and Israeli media said everyone in the car was killed.

Video broadcast live on Israel TV showed a white Subaru station wagon standing at an angle at the side of a road, its windows shot out and its doors dotted with bullet holes. The car was flanked by army and police vehicles and dozens of soldiers.

The attackers fled and Israeli forces set up roadblocks and carried out searches to try to catch them.

About 3,000 people joined a rally in Gaza to celebrate the attack. Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeida was among them and said: "The Qassam Brigades announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron."

Upon arriving in Washington for this week's talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack and said "terror will not determine Israel's borders or the future of the settlements." Borders and the fate of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians want for a future state are key issues in the negotiations.

President Barack Obama hopes to forge a peace agreement within one year

This is likely an attempt by Hamas to de-credit the Palestinian authority on the eve of talks in Washington. The attack occured in the West bank, at Kiryat Arba near Hebron, an area administered by the PA.

I think it's safe to assume some air-strikes are in the works for Gaza.

 

[Kambojaric]

and now the 0.00001% hope that existed that these upcoming peace talks might actually pay off is also gone!

 

[CardSharp]

and now the 0.00001% hope that existed that these upcoming peace talks might actually pay off is also gone!

The PA was sorta undermined IMO when they cozied up to Israelis. What's going to be more interesting to watch is not the peace talks but who's going to emerge as the leader of the Palestinian independence movement.

 

[Solomon2]

The PA was sorta undermined IMO when they cozied up to Israelis. What's going to be more interesting to watch is not the peace talks but who's going to emerge as the leader of the Palestinian independence movement.

and now the 0.00001% hope that existed that these upcoming peace talks might actually pay off is also gone!

...During the 1948 war, Palestinian leaders like Haj Amin al-Husseini insisted that the Arab citizens of Haifa and Jaffa had to leave, lest they help legitimize the Jewish state. Now, the descendants of those citizens are locked up in places like Balata and prohibited from resettling in the Palestinian-administered West Bank—again, lest they help legitimize the Jewish state, this time by removing the Palestinians’ chief complaint. Yet there is a certain perverse logic at work here. For if Israel and the Palestinians ever managed to hammer out the draft of a peace treaty, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, would have to go to Balata and explain to its residents that their leaders have been lying to them for 60 years and that they are not going back to Jaffa. Which, to state the obvious again, is one of the main reasons that there has been no peace treaty...the Nakba narrative precludes Middle East peace. But it’s also, as it happens, a myth—a radical distortion of history -

link

 

[DesiGuy]

nobody is less.

 

[CardSharp]

...During the 1948 war, Palestinian leaders like Haj Amin al-Husseini insisted that the Arab citizens of Haifa and Jaffa had to leave, lest they help legitimize the Jewish state. Now, the descendants of those citizens are locked up in places like Balata and prohibited from resettling in the Palestinian-administered West Bank—again, lest they help legitimize the Jewish state, this time by removing the Palestinians’ chief complaint. Yet there is a certain perverse logic at work here. For if Israel and the Palestinians ever managed to hammer out the draft of a peace treaty, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, would have to go to Balata and explain to its residents that their leaders have been lying to them for 60 years and that they are not going back to Jaffa. Which, to state the obvious again, is one of the main reasons that there has been no peace treaty...the Nakba narrative precludes Middle East peace. But it’s also, as it happens, a myth—a radical distortion of history -

link

This is relevant to the current situation how?

 

[Solomon2]

This is relevant to the current situation how?

The point is, regardless of the deeds of Jews and Israelis, the Arabs' leaders have huge disincentives to pursue conflict rather than peace. Lies and conflict ensure their personal safety, wealth, and power; truth and peace risks all that. That's been the story for Arab leaders since the end of WWI. The democratic foundations of Arab leaders are less than a decade old and have very shallow foundations by comparison.