This is in the way of an "update" stemming from the CNN interview I just watched at about 3:38 PM with NY Times long time correspondent for military and foreign affairs, David Sanger. Now I'm not a big fan of Sanger, but he did add two points about Chuck Schumer's speech on the Senate floor last Thursday worth repeating. Not headline points but important qualifications. First, Schumer did not call for immediate elections to replace the current Prime Minister, he stated that they should take place after the war "winds down." That didn't change the huge outcry about the speech from Israelis and the Republican Right though; and the second point which ratchets down Schumer's speech a bit was that he didn't call for witholding aid, even American military aid until the anti-humanitarian policies of Israel change... And a third point I should add that Sanger did not mention is that Schumer was not calling for a permament "ceasefire," but rather a limited one to facilitate negotiations for the hostages and more aid flowing to Gaza.
Nonetheless, the speech still stands in my mind, and apparently a lot of others, as the type of precedent shattering public policy moves that will be necessary from both Israeli politicians and whomever steps forward to represent Gaza residents - and I'm discounting the chance it could come from Hamas itself. But one never knows and the historical track record of negotiations and settlements between seemingly intractable and polar opposite political movements and their policy stances calls for us to keep the door open at least at bit.
Here is what I just read this morning at breakfast from Martin Evans book: "Algeria: France's Undeclared War," (2012) an undeclared war which reminds me very much of the US in Vietnam and the Israeli conflicts with Hamas, if not beyond to other malevolent forces/conflicts in the Middle East:
We are talking about "Secret Contacts" between the Republican Front in France and the FLN militants fighting for complete freedom and national independence for the people of Algeria: "In public the language of the Republican Front and the FLN was bellicose. Both called the other instransigent. Both blamed the other for the bloodshed. But in secret there were contacts. .. But the author reminds us that "we must be absolutely clear, therefore, that these contacts never had the status of official negotiations." (page 176). Then on the next page the author states "that these contacts should continue as the war intensified was not contradictory. From Ireland to South Africa recent history is full of governments wo opened channels of communication with organizations they publicly vilified as 'terrorist.'"
This is in the way of an "update" stemming from the CNN interview I just watched at about 3:38 PM with NY Times long time correspondent for military and foreign affairs, David Sanger. Now I'm not a big fan of Sanger, but he did add two points about Chuck Schumer's speech on the Senate floor last Thursday worth repeating. Not headline points but important qualifications. First, Schumer did not call for immediate elections to replace the current Prime Minister, he stated that they should take place after the war "winds down." That didn't change the huge outcry about the speech from Israelis and the Republican Right though; and the second point which ratchets down Schumer's speech a bit was that he didn't call for witholding aid, even American military aid until the anti-humanitarian policies of Israel change... And a third point I should add that Sanger did not mention is that Schumer was not calling for a permament "ceasefire," but rather a limited one to facilitate negotiations for the hostages and more aid flowing to Gaza.
Nonetheless, the speech still stands in my mind, and apparently a lot of others, as the type of precedent shattering public policy moves that will be necessary from both Israeli politicians and whomever steps forward to represent Gaza residents - and I'm discounting the chance it could come from Hamas itself. But one never knows and the historical track record of negotiations and settlements between seemingly intractable and polar opposite political movements and their policy stances calls for us to keep the door open at least at bit.
Here is what I just read this morning at breakfast from Martin Evans book: "Algeria: France's Undeclared War," (2012) an undeclared war which reminds me very much of the US in Vietnam and the Israeli conflicts with Hamas, if not beyond to other malevolent forces/conflicts in the Middle East:
We are talking about "Secret Contacts" between the Republican Front in France and the FLN militants fighting for complete freedom and national independence for the people of Algeria: "In public the language of the Republican Front and the FLN was bellicose. Both called the other instransigent. Both blamed the other for the bloodshed. But in secret there were contacts. .. But the author reminds us that "we must be absolutely clear, therefore, that these contacts never had the status of official negotiations." (page 176). Then on the next page the author states "that these contacts should continue as the war intensified was not contradictory. From Ireland to South Africa recent history is full of governments wo opened channels of communication with organizations they publicly vilified as 'terrorist.'"