French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner scurried from country to country this week to try to work out a ceasefire in Gaza, but the two parties who will decide - Hamas and Israel - still are determined to fight it out despite Hamas's severe beating. Even if Hamas were to agree to a truce, it still retains thousands of rockets and tons of explosives.
Iran and Hamas leaders in Damascus are considered to be manipulating the political strings in Gaza while local Arabs are caught in the vice between Hamas terrorists and Israel's counterterrorist campaign.
Kouchner reiterated that European Union (EU) monitors supervising the Egyptian-Gaza border at the divided city of Rafiah is a key element to any ceasefire. "There need to be European observers," he said, including military observers "to testify to the maintained cease-fire."
Egypt has balked at the idea of international forces on its territory, and Hamas has rejected the idea altogether. Israel, already burned by years of Egyptian blindness if not outright assistance to weapons smuggling, is not prepared to settle for anything less than ironclad measures that will prevent Hamas from stockpiling more weapons.
The French Foreign Minister also has been talking with Iran, which has been arming and financing Hamas, making the terrorist organization more dependent on Tehran.
Egypt has uttered optimistic statements about a positive attitude, but the Arabic language Al Hayat newspaper reported that Hamas has rejected conditions for a halt in its attacks on Israel. A delegation of senior Hamas leaders from Damascus is expected to arrive in Cairo Monday evening with details of its response and demands.
"There are still many details that need to be discussed before we can say that we have reached an agreement of principles," a Hamas official told the newspaper. Hamas's public statement the past two days show that it is willing to examine its position in light of the IDF's continuing successes that have caused heavy losses to its terrorist army and have driven leaders underground.
Khaled Mashaal, the exiled Hamas leader residing in Syria, continues to insist that Israel abide by Friday's United Nations Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.
The United States abstained in the 14-0 vote, but a Palestinian Authority official reportedly said that United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was set to vote for it until United States President George W. Bush intervened.
Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton wrote in the Wall Street Journal Monday morning that the PA foreign minister "said publicly Ms. Rice told him just before the vote that she had 'been given new instructions' (certainly from President George W. Bush) not to support the draft."
He called the resolution a "slap at Israel's self-defense" and that the abstention of a resolution by a permanent member of the Security Council, such as the U.S., "invariably reflects that it failed to achieve its objectives [and] also signals timidity.
"When the U.S. abstains, it cedes the field to others on the Security Council. And our global interests make losing the initiative unacceptably risky, especially on critical issues such as the Middle East.