Atniel is 24 and from Tel Aviv

I like listening to alternative rock and hangliding on weekends and that’s basically who I am, just a regular guy.

I wanted to talk to you about some stuff I witnessed during the term I was in the military, in the army.
Some stuff that made me wonder about the Palestinian people and how they can improve their lives. I’m sure the Palestinian people want peace.

During my military time I used to talk to a lot of Palestinians in the check points and restaurants and places like this and I’ve seen their way of life there. Their daily routine, it’s hard, it’s not easy. And I don’t think the leaders really care enough so that the common “joe” will have a better routine day or better stuff for himself or better job, things like that. He doesn’t really care, he cares only for his political interests and political agenda. He doesn’t think of the common people.

This one time when I was stationed near Gaza there was a problem with the electricity and as you know the electricity in Gaza comes from Israel. The Israeli Electric company sent an Israeli technician to fix the electricity and he was climbing up the pole, you know of the electric lights, and a Palestinian sniper shot him down, and killed him. And I was thinking what the hell are they doing? Why are they doing it?

Its the terrorist organizations. They don’t care if the Palestinian people will be damaged for their actions. They just do it, like this example. If the technician was killed and for 2 days Gaza didn’t have electricity, not the hospitals not the students who wanted to surf on the internet they didn’t have electricity for their computers for 2 days. And eventually the electricity company sent another technician and he fixed it. I just wonder what the hell are those terrorists thinking?

The people of Gaza shouldn’t suffer, they’re regular people. I know a lot of them, they are common people, they have children, they have jobs, their own concerns. earning a living, health problems and whatever. You know, ordinary problems. You dodn’t need to add that to all the problems due to political conflict and stuff like that. They are using the civilian population in Gaza. They are abusing them by staying inside of them. If you want to fight us, you know I get it, get out of the civilian population and fight okay?

But when you inside a school and shooting from a school when you know that the IDF won’t bomb the school because there are children in there, you are actually endangering the children in the school. And that’s not fair to the children, that’s not fair at all, because the children will eventually will be hurt and that’s because of you. If you care aobut the children you won’t shoot from the school. You can’t use them as a human shield, it’s not fair for them.

Josh is from San Diego, California and currently studying in Israel. He hopes Israel’s operation in Gaza brings peace to both the people of Israel and Gaza. And for the citizens of Gaza he wishes prosperity, a long term solution and regional stability.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olment and Defense Minister Ehud Barak agreed to an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire with Hamas for the Gaza area.

Mr. Zahar, the Hamas leader, said Israel would open the commercial crossings as soon as the truce came into effect. Two weeks later, he said, Egypt would host talks aimed at reopening the Rafah crossing on its border with Gaza. Mr. Zahar suggested that the Shalit case would be dealt with separately.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister said “Words are important, but deeds are more so. If indeed there will be a total cessation of fire from Gaza, an end of the Hamas arms buildup and movement on Gilad Shalit’s case, then there will be a very new situation”.

Source: New York Times, 19-June-2008

Israel completed its eviction of more than 8,000 Israeli citizens, some having lived in Gaza for 38 years, in an effort to appease Palestinians and live in peace.

Source: New York Times, 12-September-2005

U.S. President Bill Clinton singled out Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, for his readiness to make hard compromises during negotiations with PLO leader Yasir Arafat at Camp David. ”I would be making a mistake not to praise Barak, because I think he took a big risk,” the president said. ”The prime minister moved forward more from his initial position than Chairman Arafat, particularly surrounding the question of Jerusalem.”

Barak laid the full blame for the setback on Arafat, and declared that Israel was prepared for ”every possibility.” And stated: ”The vision of peace suffered a major blow, but I believe that with good faith, good will on all sides it can recuperate.”

Source: New York Times, 26-July-2000

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signs Oslo Peace Accords (also known as the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements) with Palestinian Leader Yasir Arafat. Both men expressed their commitment to negotiating an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on a two-state solution.

Strongly opposed to the deal, Hamas stepped up a campaign of homicide bombings in Israel.

A letter on key issues of the PLO and Israel, addressed to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was signed by Yasser Arafat on September 9, 1993. The letter says specifically that:

The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security.

The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338

The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process… all outstanding issues … will be resolved through negotiations

… the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators

… those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel’s right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid

… the PLO undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant.

Rabin gave a letter in exchange to Arafat, also dated September 9, stating:

… Israel has decided to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and commence negotiations with the PLO within the Middle East peace process”

Despite Israel’s attempts at implementing the plan for peace, the PLO did not succeed in controlling it’s terror elements.

Sources: New York Times, 13-September-1993
PalestineFacts.org

Israel and Egypt agree on a framework for an accord to provide self-rule to more than one million Arabs living in areas of the West Bank of the Jordan River and Gaza Strip. Read the text of the Agreement.

Israel agreed to many concessions that would later cost them the security of their own citizens.

Source: New York Times, 27-March-1979

Israel completed the withdrawal of troops from Egypt. Troops remained in the Gaza Strip and the Gulf of Aqaba because the people residing there were not Egyptian citizens and still posed a threat to the security of Israel’s civilians.

Source: New York Times, 19-January-1957

In a gesture of peace, Israel, Britain and France withdrew forces from the Sinai Desert.

Source: New York Times, 24-November-1956

To meet the eventuality that Gaza might revert to Israel in the future by means of peace agreements, Egypt transferred her 38,000 to 48,000 Arab refugees from Ismailia to the Gaza-Rafa coastal strip, bringing the total Arab refugees living in the Gaza strip to approximately 300,000.

Ismailia is in the Suez Canal area where Egypt maintained a camp for German prisoners of World War II and later for refugees who had fled southward after the Israelis had recaptured Beersheba and the Negev. Some also came from the Gaza area, but many were nomadic Bedouins who traveled to the canal area because the Sinai Desert didn’t provide them with adequate grazing areas for their flocks; once in the canal area they became charges of the Egyptians.

Source: New York Times, 20-August-1949

Israel signed a series of truces with Arab countries that had declared war on the newly created nation on May 15, 1948.  Under the 1949 pacts, Egypt retained control of the Gaza Strip.

Source: New York Times, 6-January-1949