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Day 20 – Fatah Rages, Kerry Upsets, Peres Takes Leave

by TheTower.org Staff |

The twentieth day of Operation Protective Edge and the ninth day of ground operations have concluded.

Today The Tower covered the recent anti-Israel protests in the West Bank.

The ensuing violence was the result of “a proclamation calling on Palestinians in the West Bank to escalate the violence” from Hamas. However, by Sunday morning Israeli authorities had prevented an escalation and “the situation had calmed.”

In the course of the rioting, shots were fired by the protesters; a terrorist group affiliated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah faction took credit for the gunfire. Fatah also called for a “day of rage” in support of Hamas.

Secretary of State John Kerry presented Israel with a non-starter of a ceasefire proposal on Friday night. The Israeli cabinet voted the proposal down unanimously and led the diplomatic correspondent for the left-leaning Haaretz to wonder why the proposal sounded as if it might “have been penned by Khaled Meshal” of Hamas. Authorship of the proposal was attributed to Qatar and Turkey, two of Hamas’ biggest patrons.

While celebrating the past and looking forward to the future, outgoing president Shimon Peres took a somber look at Israel’s present, observing, “I did not imagine that in the last days of my presidency I would be called upon, once more, to comfort bereaved families. Tears in their eyes. And faith in their hearts.” Peres left public life after 70 years of service to the state of Israel and before that, the Yishuv.

An op-ed Friday in The Wall Street Journal written by the former commandant of the Marine Corps asserted that “Israel’s military exists to protect its civilian population and seeks to avoid harming noncombatants, while its adversary cynically uses Palestinian civilians as human shields while deliberately targeting Israeli civilians.”

[Photo: Israel Defense Forces / Flickr ]

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