IDNS: A Change in Hamas Leadership?
September 24, 2012 17:30 by Pesach Benson
Everything you need to know about today’s coverage of Israel and the Mideast. Join the Israel Daily News Stream on Facebook.
Today’s Top Stories
1. Although his relative moderation is needed now more than ever, Hamas sources told Maan News that Khaled Mashaal will step down as the group’s overall leader. According to Arab media sources quoted by the Times of Israel, Musa Abu Marzouk will replace Mashaal atop the totem pole.
2. Palestinian leaders have balked at resettling refugees in the autonomous areas for fear of undermining “the right of return.” But Musa Abu Marzouk told Asharq al-Awsat that a number of Palestinian refugees living in Syria were being evacuated to Gaza.
If Hamas is anyway moving towards declaring Gaza’s independence from Palestine, I can see why they’d degrade “right of return” as well. It ain’t clear how many refugees Marzouk’s referring to.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] Has the problem regarding the Palestinian refugees who fled Syria and who are trying to return to Palestine been resolved?
[Abu-Marzuq] We have secured the entry of many of the Palestinians who fled Syria for Egypt into the Gaza Strip. A limited number remain in Egypt due to certain problems and issues, such as studying. They may remain in Cairo for up to one year, and then we will work to secure their entry into the Gaza Strip following this.
3. YNet rounds up the latest Israeli efforts to boost the Palestinian economy and help the PA avoid an unpleasant Palestinian Spring. We’re talking about raising the number of Palestinians authorized to work in Israel, moving up implementation of a recent economic agreement, and the construction of fuel pipelines.
Other Israeli measures to bolster the PA economy will benefit Gaza, reports The Media Line:
Israel agreed to permit a “moderate amount” of export of furniture an textiles from Gaza to the West Bank for the first time since Hamas took over in 2007. Israel also approved 16 internationally funded projects for Gaza, including the installation of a main swere line for the sewage treatment facility in Khan Yunis. Israel also agreed to update electricity transportation networks throughout Gaza.
Contrast that with this Reuters headline:
Hamas halves Israeli fruit imports to Gaza
Israel and the Palestinians
Female soldier training for the Caracal unit, 2006
• A thumbs up to the IDF’s co-ed Caracal unit from AP.
Women were barred from combat until 2000, the year Caracal was introduced as a way to ease females into combat duty. The unit was positioned in areas along Israel’s borders with Jordan and Egypt. For years, the territory was calm, largely because Israel has peace deals with both neighbors. Soldiers who were there mostly worked to prevent drug and weapons’ smuggling and while they were trained to neutralize an armed threat, they rarely faced one.
But in the last year and a half, since the fall of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak, Caracal’s usual patrolling area near Egypt has become a hotbed of militant activity.
• The line between fantasy and reality just got blurrier: This is a real review of a real book by Seth Freedman, an Israeli contributor to The Guardian whose name hasn’t been on my radar for quite awhile.
The plot involves a failed city worker being head-hunted by Mossad to carry out secret missions throughout the country. One of these missions includes acting as an anti-Zionist writer for the Guardian. The link between the various roles that the protagonist occupies, is ostensibly his ruthless streak and his amoral approach to life.
Funny, but I have an urge to psychoanalyze Seth . . .
• Montreal and Israel were feeling the love after Mayor Gerald Tremblay led a successful economic mission. But the BDS movement at McGill U. ruined the mood.
m
7:04 pm
Sep 24, 2012
“Israel also agreed to update electricity transportation networks throughout Gaza.”
Huh!?!??!?!
Whatever the fuck for?!?!?!?!??!
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
14 
1
jeb stuart
7:39 pm
Sep 24, 2012
It is hard to tell from this information whether or not Hamas is ready to create and act on a paradigm shift that would not be hostile to Israel and other non-Muslim entities. It is more likely Hamas by announcing its separation from “Palestine” may be introducing a new perspective on the same old problem merely stating that real change will arise from Gaza not the West Bank. It may also be the result of religious ideological differences with Egypt, and the Muslim Brotherhood; I have wondered if the latter retained any aspirations to recalim Gaza as Egyptian territory?
Agree or Disagree:
3 
0
M.Otero
6:25 am
Sep 25, 2012
Until as many people world wide are aware of the expulsion/flight of the Jews from Muslim countries 1948-67 and the expropriation of their assets and the fact that all their properties restored would amount to an area five times the size of Israel, then we are all wasting time and blood and endless words.
I have never met anyone in US who is aware of the plight of the Mizrahi Jews expelled from Muslim lands. Until we make this one fact clear, we are simply confusing further the minds of an already overwhelmed world public jaded with talk about the poor Palestinians. I appreciate the marvelous efforts of Israel’s UN Ambassador Prosor and VFM Ayalon, but these facts are crucial to peace
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
9 
0
Stephen
10:41 am
Sep 25, 2012
Regarding the article in the McGill Daily, it is of no surprise. There is little change to the Daily since my student years in the early 1970s.
It has always been a contrarian student paper since the 1960s, though prior to that it was a well respected example of student journalism on par with the Montreal Star (now defunct) and better than the Montreal Gazette (a waste of time).
For more than four decades the Daily has been a stalwart supporter of anything anti-Israel. Thankfully, exampled by the comments to this and other articles, most of the campus appears to be supporters of Israel and keep pointing out the inconsistencies, errors, and opinion-for-facts in these articles.
Agree or Disagree:
0 
0
IDNS: A Change in Hamas Leadership? | Blogs about Israel aggregation
9:58 am
Sep 27, 2012
[...] Continued on Page 2 [...]
Agree or Disagree:
0 
0
Walter Sieruk
4:47 pm
Sep 29, 2012
If there is a chance in the leadership of Hamas this Jihadist is still fated to fail in its agnenda to destroy the State of Israel. This is because ,eventhough they may not know it, they are striving against the Will of God. This also goes for other Islamic entities as well, such as Hezbollah. For it is written in the Bible that this land belongs to the Jewish people by Divine Right, Genesis 28:13-15. 35:10-12. Deuteromony 32:48,49. Psalm 105:7-11. 135:4. This Land also belongs to the Jewish people by historiic rights First Kings 4;20,21,24,25. 8:55,56.
So Hamas and other likeminded Islamic groups are in error , wrong and in darkness, Isaiah 8;20 Second Timothy 3:16.
Agree or Disagree:
0 
0
Walter Sieruk
4:57 pm
Sep 29, 2012
In all fairness there is one way that Hamas can convince God to turn His back of the State of Irrael and have that nation be no more. That way to to change the laws of astrophysics, including that of the sun, the moon and the stars. For God has declared in His Word, the Bible, in Jeremiah 31:35,36. “Thus saith the Lord, which givth the sun for a light by day and the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night…The Lord of host is His name, If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever.” [KJV]
Agree or Disagree:
0 
0
M.Otero
2:22 am
Sep 30, 2012
The Palestinian refugees were in many cases refugees as much as the US’s undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America are refugees. So many were simply rootless people following the job opportunities around the ME. The much twisted and exaggerated Dar Yassin event occurred a month AFTER most of the Arabs fled. What makes the Palestinian Arab situation so unique? 57,000,000 real, world wide refugees, between 1945-57, resolved their issues without UNRWA. There’s been a lot of major brain washing going on! ‘Much of it in colleges and liberal circles where facts are often irrelevant. Begin with an honest study of the history of Islam.
Agree or Disagree:
0 
0