Cease Fires Come and Go

Yahoo News posted an article at the top of their news page saying that the Palestinian government was announcing a cease fire with Israel

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert by telephone on Saturday that militant groups had agreed to cease attacks on Israel from the
Gaza Strip as of 0400 GMT on Sunday, an Abbas aide said.

A few hours later they had at the top of their news page that the Palestinians had violated their own cease fire.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants fired several rockets at
Israel from Gaza on Sunday just hours after the start of a ceasefire aimed at ending five months of bloodshed in the impoverished coastal strip.

The truce, which has raised the possibility that moribund Middle East peacemaking could be revived, is designed to end rocket attacks and halt a crushing Israeli army offensive.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the ceasefire may lead to "real negotiations" between Israel and the Palestinians. He also said Israel will "show restraint" in coming days over the ceasefire violations.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a moderate, ordered his security forces to ensure the ceasefire held, but it was unclear whether they would use force to prevent rocket fire.

Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for launching at least five rockets into southern Israel and said it would not agree to a ceasefire unless Israeli military activity also ended in the occupied West Bank. No one was hurt in the attacks.

"There is no way to talk about a truce as long as aggression continues on any of our land," the group said in a statement.

What is so amazing about this sequence is that Reuters (a Yahoo news service) rarely noticed the contradictions in the various Palestinian cease fires.

Small as it is, this sequence represents progress in the Lame Stream Media (LSM) understanding of the difficulties Israel is having in dealing with the Palestinians. The Palestinians are either liars or they have no control over their territory. It is possible that both are true.