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With Morsi, Obama Diplomacy Better than Under Bush, Mubarak (La Vanguardia, Spain)

"The role played by the Egyptian president, whose membership with the Muslim Brotherhood has facilitated relations with Hamas. But Morsi's military alliance with the United States has helped substantiate Obama's bid for newly-rejuvenated relations with the Islamic world, which were announced in his famous 2009 Cairo speech."

EDITORIAL

Translated By Neus Coll Ruiz

November 24, 2012

Spain - La Vanguardia - Original Article (Spanish)

President Mohammed Morsi: His apparent pragmatism in dealing woth the Gaza crisis has quieted his Western critics, but his assertion of sweeping powers which put him beyond the reach of the law, similar to those asserted by Rome's ancient dictators, has enraged the Egyptian opposition. AL-JAZEERA, QATAR: In wake of Gaza crisis, Egyptians polarized over President Morsi's assertion of sweeping powers, Nov. 24, 00:24:57

At last there is some good news coming from Gaza. After eight days of open conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, and with more than 150 Palestinians and five Israelis dead, both sides agreed to a truce on Wednesday. The agreement stipulates that Israel stop its targeted air attacks on Gaza, and the Palestinians will abandon hostilities and stop firing rockets into Tel Aviv. Moreover, both sides have agreed to undertake further negotiations to find a more durable peace.

This initial agreement, obtained through the mediation of Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is fragile. As in the case of the patient who underwent delicate surgery, any complications in the immediate postoperative period - in this case any violations of the ceasefire, can have lethal consequences.

The outbreak of violence triggered by the assassination of Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari in an Israeli military operation carried out in Nov. 14 in central Gaza has had devastating effects. Despite the precision of Israeli attacks, half the Palestinian fatalities were civilians, including 38 children. Israel has destroyed nests of rocket launchers and administrative facilities in Gaza City, where grisly scenes of corpses of alleged Israeli spies were dragged through the streets by motorcycles driven by Islamist militants. Despite a missile shield, some of Hamas' Iranian-made rockets fired from Gaza reached Tel-Aviv, where there was a bomb attack on a bus ...

Posted by Worldmeets.US

News of ceasefire is welcome, particularly given its immediate results. But there are other reasons. For example, the role played by the Egyptian president, whose membership with the Muslim Brotherhood has facilitated relations with Hamas. But Morsi's military alliance with the United States has helped substantiate Obama's bid for newly-rejuvenated relations with the Islamic world, which were announced in his famous 2009 Cairo speech. Thus, both the work of Mohamed Morsi, a new benchmark for diplomacy in the region, and Hillary Clinton, who left her Asian tour with Obama to fly to the Middle East, indicates that multilateral relations are perhaps going more smoothly today than when Bush Jr. presided over the U.S. and Hosni Mubarak over Egypt.

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SEE ALSO ON THIS:

Le Quotidien dOran, Algeria: 'Unequivocal Respect' for Palestine's Freedom Fighters

Zaman, Turkey: Arab and Israeli Extremists Teach Obama a Painful Lesson

The Independent, U.K.: Hamas, Israel Open 'Gates of Hell' in Gaza Yet Again

Le Monde, France: For Israel, Truce in Gaza is Worst of All Worlds

Debka File, Israel: U.S. Warships to Israel for the Possible Evacuation of Americans

Le Monde, France.: U.S. Republicans Learn Again: American Jews are Not Israelis

The Independent, U.K.: Hamas, Israel Open 'Gates of Hell' in Gaza Yet Again

The Economist, U.K.: For Netanyahu, Obama is 'Wrong American'

The agreement we celebrate today will eventually be revealed as a parenthesis or as the cornerstone of something more solid. For this to happen, more security and mobility must be provided Israelis and Palestinians, and we have to move toward ending the blockade Gaza has suffered under for the past five years. If anything has underscored the crisis, it is the volatility of the area, the vicious recurrence of mutual bombardment, and its explosive potential. It is a potential that has been manifesting itself for sixty years and that Iran's nuclear ambitions, the war in Syria and its manifestations in Lebanon only render more significant.

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[Posted by Worldmeets.US Nov. 27, 1:09pm]