Not Out Of The Goodness Of Their Hearts.

There is breaking news from the AP that Israel now seems open to conditionally accepting a truce proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Egypt.

JERUSALEM – A government spokesman says Israel "welcomes" a proposal from France and Egypt to end fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Mark Regev says Israel could accept the proposal if it halts "hostile fire" from Gaza and includes measures to prevent Hamas from rearming.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday that Israel and the Palestinian Authority accepted the proposal. Israeli officials will not confirm that.

The precise details of the proposal remain unclear.

Earlier today, Israel ordered a pause in its Gaza offensive for three hours to allow food and fuel to reach besieged Palestinians, and the country's leaders debated whether to accept an international cease-fire plan or expand the assault against Hamas.

Now don't get me wrong, this is a very good development. Whatever needs to happen for Israel to stop their military action and compels Hamas to stop the rocket launches, I am all for it. But I just want to make sure that you understand where this is coming from. Israel didn't all of a sudden have an epiphany that they were handling this wrong and they for damn sure have not been looking for any kind of truce up until now. Way down in the bottom of the AP story the real motivation for their newfound willingness to exercise diplomacy over miltary aggression is exposed.

The Franco-Egyptian plan was given increasing urgency by the Israeli mortar strike near a U.N. school that stained the streets with blood.

The United Nations said the school was sheltering hundreds of people displaced by the onslaught on Hamas militants. Israel said its troops returned fire on a Hamas squad that fired mortars at them from nearby.

Israel's military said its shelling — the deadliest single episode since Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza on Saturday following a weeklong air bombardment — was an attack on a military target and accused Hamas militants of using civilians as cover.

Christopher Gunness of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, responsible for the school, said the agency is "99.9 percent certain there were no militants or military activity in its school."
That would not necessarily contradict Israel's claim that the militants were just outside.
Gunness demanded an investigation, and punishment for anyone found to have violated international law.

Two residents of the area who spoke with The Associated Press by telephone said they saw a small group of militants firing mortar rounds from a street near the school. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. Gunness said 1,300 people were taking shelter from the shelling at the school.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said there were no militants there at the time.
The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights said the presence of militants did not justify Israel's response. "The presence of armed resistance does not justify in any way the use of excessive force that is disproportionate," the center said in a statement.

See you can kill women and kids in the Gaza strip and call them collateral damage or say Hamas is using them as human shields up and until you try to pull that shit at a UN facility. Then its a lot harder to sell the same story that you have sold in defense of bombing other regular Palestinian schools as well as mosques some of which were bombed during prayer time. Mind you its still the same story and in both instances people are dead but while a lot of people WANT to believe the human shield theory when it comes to Hamas because of course they are "dirty arab terrorists". But NOBODY is going to believe that they were hiding out or stockpiling weapons at a UN school. Now for serious people this might also call into question previous claims about why Israel targeted the regular schools and mosques. I don't imagine our MSM folks will pursue that angle but I think probably the rest of us should.

I also want to take the opportunity to applaud Congressman Dennis Kucinich who has called for an investigation into the bombing of the UN schools. He wrote a letter to Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice requesting a report on the incident ASAP. The letter reads in part:

I believe that with the current escalation of violence in Gaza, a legal threshold has been reached, warranting a Presidential examination and report to Congress. I hereby request an examination of Israel’s compliance with the provisions of the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA).

While neither the AECA nor the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (FAA) define “internal security” and “legitimate self-defense,” I believe that Israel’s most recent attacks neither further internal security nor do they constitute “legitimate” acts of self-defense. They do, however, “increase the possibility of an outbreak or escalation of conflict,” because they are a vastly disproportionate response to the provocation, and because the Palestinian population is suffering from those military attacks in numbers far exceeding Israeli losses in life and property

snip

The extensive destruction of such civilian institutions violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the wanton destruction of property and collective punishment of a civilian population. There have also been reports of bombings of United Nations (UN) schools, despite the fact that Israeli Defense Forces were allegedly given coordinates of the facilities prior to the current escalation in violence.

snip

I believe that Israel’s use of defense articles provided by the U.S in the current Gaza military attacks may constitute a violation of the AECA. At a minimum, the conflict is sufficient to warrant an immediate report to Congress as required by 22 U.S.C. §2753. Please contact my office by close of business on January 7, 2009 with the date the report will be submitted.

Kucinich is definitely one of the good guys and a believers in the rules of law. I will be very interested to see what comes of his letter though. Most of is fellow Congressman as well as our current President want nothing to do with finding any guilt on Israels part so I imagine this request just might be denied and the media won't cover it much if it all. But that would be par for the course right now.

So just remember as CNN, MSNBC, and FoxNews are trying to spin this as another example of Israel's "remarkable restraint" what the real impetus was for them to back down this time.