Hamas Attacks on Israel an Act of Terror: Bush
Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 4:23 pm
WASHINGTON: President George Bush has branded the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel an “act of terror” and outlined his own condition for a cease-fire in Gaza, saying no peace deal would be acceptable without monitoring to halt the flow of smuggled weapons to terrorist groups.
Bush chose his weekly taped radio address to speak for the first time about one of the bloodiest Mideast clashes in decades. Israeli warplanes have rained bombs on Gaza, targeting militant group Hamas, which has traumatized southern Israel with intensifying rocket attacks.
“The United States is leading diplomatic efforts to achieve a meaningful cease-fire that is fully respected,” Bush said. “Another one-way cease-fire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable. And promises from Hamas will not suffice — there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end,” Bush said.
The White House released Bush’s radio address a day early. It airs on Saturday morning.
Despite Bush’s account of a U.S. leadership role, with time running out on his presidency, the administration seemed increasingly ready Friday to let the crisis in Gaza shift to President-elect Barack Obama. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice briefed Bush on developments in Gaza, and she continued telephone diplomacy to arrange a truce. Yet, she said she had no plans to make an emergency visit to the region.
More than 400 Palestinians and four Israelis have been killed in the latest offensive. The U.N. estimated Friday that a quarter of the Palestinians killed were civilians. In their waning days in power, Bush and Rice have been working the phones with world allies.
Bush offered no criticism of Israel, depicting the country’s air assaults as a response to the attacks on its people. The White House will not comment on whether it views the Israeli response as proportionate or not to the scope of rockets attacks on Israel.
“This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas — a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel’s destruction,” Bush said.
Hamas-run Gaza has been largely isolated from the rest of the world since the Islamic militants won parliamentary elections in 2006. Then Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, expelling forces loyal to Abbas.
The White House has cautiously said Israel must be mindful of the toll its military strikes will have on civilians. Here, too, Bush blamed Hamas for hiding within the civilian population. “Regrettably, Palestinian civilians have been killed in recent days,” he said.
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