Hamas disarmament is main condition of truce, negotiations futile - ambassador
MINSK. Nov 20 (Interfax) - Israeli Ambassador to Belarus Yosef Shagal doubts the success of mediating efforts to secure Israel from shooting from the Palestinian territory; he is confident that Israeli people will support a land operation in Gaza.
"No one can bring us peace, and no mediation can give us security guarantees. We ourselves can only keep our children safe," the Israeli diplomat told a Tuesday press conference in Minsk.
A journalist asked whether Minsk, which had good relations with the Arab world, could join the settlement negotiations. "Israel would be immensely obliged to any country for security, for which Israel has been fighting for many years," he said.
"Why wouldn't Russia, which has incommensurably bigger possibilities and influence on the Arab world, do that?" the Israeli ambassador wondered. "The post-Soviet space is lethargic: it is frozen in the 1980s. The world has changed drastically over the past two decades, but the reaction of present-day friends of the Arab world has not changed since the Brezhnev times," he said.
"The adamant response of Israel results from the non-stop" bombardments of the past twelve years, the diplomat said. "Israel is trying to minimize civilian casualties. The strikes target exclusively terrorists and militants, and the Israeli army acts with a surgical precision," he said. Shagal admitted deaths of civilians behind whose backs militants are hiding.
Disarmament of Hamas is the main condition of a truce, he said. "The second demand is a guarantee of no rearming," he said. "Israel does not want to start a land operation. It wants terrorists to put down their weapons, but if they don't, the land operation will become a must. We would like to avoid that because there will be inevitable casualties on both sides," Shagal stressed.
Referring to sociological surveys, the diplomat said that 90% of people in Israel supported the land operation. He said there was no link between the Gaza operation and the upcoming parliamentary election in Israel. "What difference does it make who wins office? Israelis just want it to stop. Political elites have no disagreement over this issue," the ambassador said.
Shagal doubts that Hamas would change its attitude toward Israel. "Negotiations will bring no results, because this problem has only a military solution. We do not need Gaza or the West Bank, we simply want to live," the Israeli ambassador stressed.
"The problem must be solved once and for all, and Israel is capable of doing that," Shagal said. He recalled that Israel earlier had to abandon its military plans under international pressure. "That is a double-standard policy. No any other country in the world would have tolerated such bombardments," he said.