A three-day humanitarian truce came into force in the Gaza Strip on Friday. The truce should give Israel and Palestinian groups headed by Hamas to come to an agreement to end the current round of standoff. President of the European Council Herman van Rompuy and President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso urged the leaders of Israel and Palestine to end the violence in the Gaza Strip.
Ambassador Andrey Baklanov, deputy head of the chairman of the Russian Federation Council, views the conflict from a wider foreign political angle: “We have an intensified search for new clarified marks in our foreign political work and search for mechanisms that would work in every geographic direction. This concerns the Middle East and Palestinian-Israeli relations,” noted the expert.
“The concerns of the sides have slightly changed and seem as follows: the latest contacts we had with the Palestinian side show that the fears of the Palestinians that the Palestinian issue would be passed by the roadside, as global opportunities in the region and the world have become greater. According to the latest data, Palestinians are extremely irritated by the events in the region. In particular, the issue of the possible delegation of more state authority to Kurds. It is certainly very disappointing for Palestinians. There have been such agreements made for Palestine, deals signed, and nothing has been realized. On the contrary, it goes farther and farther from the level, in particular, of 1993 and 1994, the situation is moving,” supposes Baklanov.
Speaking of steps that could be made to settle the conflict, Baklanov said : “I suppose that the most effective way now is to try and reach and fix positives in unblocking the most acute and grave humanitarian situation, instead of inventing declarations and documents that would fail in the future. The second thing that should be done - I would help Palestine and Israel, officials would be satisfied with an authoritative contact group consisting of the public of Palestinians and Israelis, public representatives of other countries. I think that these elements should be enough at the moment to start our movement.”
In Baklanov’s opinion, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are used by the West to put pressure on Russia: “We all understand that the core of events is certainly not Ukraine, not the Middle East, it is an attempt to discipline us and stop us from regaining the status of one of the superpowers. That is the basis. But there should be no door-slamming. My negative analysis of the operation of the four-sided group of mediators [U.S., EU, Russia, UN] does not mean that such a mechanism should not be used. It should be used only after trying to gain benefit from it.”
“The Islamic Republic of Iran helped and will help the Palestinians. But it could not do so efficiently when Hamas (the strongest group in the Gaza Strip) started evading the help. In such conditions, of course, it was hard to organize collaboration between Hamas and Hezbollah. But ties between them could discourage Israel from such radical operations,” assures Vladimir Yevseyev, the head of the Caucasus section of the Institute of CIS Countries. In his opinion, the main mistake of Hamas was that it “was changing its partners too often. Initially, the Hamas movement was actively with the Islamic Republic of Iran that was actively helping Hamas. If the issue remained, it [conflict in the Gaza Strip] could have never happened. Why? Because it is very important for Israel to destroy its enemies separately.”
Yevseyev reminded that Israel had several primary enemies: Hezbollah (Lebanon), Hamas (Palestine), Islamic Jihad and some others. “If Hezbollah activated its position from the Lebanese side in response to the ground operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israelis would probably be less excited about taking such actions. But Hamas changed its partners and made a very unwise choice in Qatar,” supposes the expert.
“We can understand the motives of Hamas, because Hamas is a structural branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is clear why Qatar appeared. But Qatar is a state used as a weapon for U.S. national interests. In this aspect, putting bets on such an ally and financial partner is absolutely wrong. Iran would never betray, in these terms. But Qatar could help at the beginning and then reduce financing, then become aloof, then the murder that is happening in the Gaza Strip at the moment. It was a fatal mistake for Hamas to trust such an unreliable partner as Qatar,” insists Yevseyev.
Are the events in Gaza an attempt to hobble the rise of Russia’s role in the international arena?A three-day humanitarian truce came into force in the Gaza Strip on Friday. The truce should give Israel and Palestinian groups headed by Hamas to come to an agreement to end the current round of standoff. President of the European Council Herman van Rompuy and President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso urged the leaders of Israel and Palestine to end the violence in the Gaza Strip.Ambassador Andrey Baklanov, deputy head of the chairman of the Russian Federation Council, views the conflict from a wider foreign political angle: “We have an intensified search for new clarified marks in our foreign political work and search for mechanisms that would work in every geographic direction. This concerns the Middle East and Palestinian-Israeli relations,” noted the expert.“The concerns of the sides have slightly changed and seem as follows: the latest contacts we had with the Palestinian side show that the fears of the Palestinians that the Palestinian issue would be passed by the roadside, as global opportunities in the region and the world have become greater. According to the latest data, Palestinians are extremely irritated by the events in the region. In particular, the issue of the possible delegation of more state authority to Kurds. It is certainly very disappointing for Palestinians. There have been such agreements made for Palestine, deals signed, and nothing has been realized. On the contrary, it goes farther and farther from the level, in particular, of 1993 and 1994, the situation is moving,” supposes Baklanov.Speaking of steps that could be made to settle the conflict, Baklanov said : “I suppose that the most effective way now is to try and reach and fix positives in unblocking the most acute and grave humanitarian situation, instead of inventing declarations and documents that would fail in the future. The second thing that should be done - I would help Palestine and Israel, officials would be satisfied with an authoritative contact group consisting of the public of Palestinians and Israelis, public representatives of other countries. I think that these elements should be enough at the moment to start our movement.”In Baklanov’s opinion, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are used by the West to put pressure on Russia: “We all understand that the core of events is certainly not Ukraine, not the Middle East, it is an attempt to discipline us and stop us from regaining the status of one of the superpowers. That is the basis. But there should be no door-slamming. My negative analysis of the operation of the four-sided group of mediators [U.S., EU, Russia, UN] does not mean that such a mechanism should not be used. It should be used only after trying to gain benefit from it.” “The Islamic Republic of Iran helped and will help the Palestinians. But it could not do so efficiently when Hamas (the strongest group in the Gaza Strip) started evading the help. In such conditions, of course, it was hard to organize collaboration between Hamas and Hezbollah. But ties between them could discourage Israel from such radical operations,” assures Vladimir Yevseyev, the head of the Caucasus section of the Institute of CIS Countries. In his opinion, the main mistake of Hamas was that it “was changing its partners too often. Initially, the Hamas movement was actively with the Islamic Republic of Iran that was actively helping Hamas. If the issue remained, it [conflict in the Gaza Strip] could have never happened. Why? Because it is very important for Israel to destroy its enemies separately.”Yevseyev reminded that Israel had several primary enemies: Hezbollah (Lebanon), Hamas (Palestine), Islamic Jihad and some others. “If Hezbollah activated its position from the Lebanese side in response to the ground operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israelis would probably be less excited about taking such actions. But Hamas changed its partners and made a very unwise choice in Qatar,” supposes the expert.“We can understand the motives of Hamas, because Hamas is a structural branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. It is clear why Qatar appeared. But Qatar is a state used as a weapon for U.S. national interests. In this aspect, putting bets on such an ally and financial partner is absolutely wrong. Iran would never betray, in these terms. But Qatar could help at the beginning and then reduce financing, then become aloof, then the murder that is happening in the Gaza Strip at the moment. It was a fatal mistake for Hamas to trust such an unreliable partner as Qatar,” insists Yevseye
