After Hamas previously refused the Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire, Egypt’s President el-Sisi gave the PA some much needed straight talk; telling both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority they needed to (“both”) come to consensus *before* Cairo could/would mediate any agreement with Israel.   The approach worked:

[*we would be remiss if we did not note that el-Sisi will not be attending the African Summit in DC]

EGYPT – A Palestinian delegation including Hamas agreed joint demands Sunday to present to Egyptian mediators in Cairo for a truce with Israel, including an end to the Gaza blockade, officials said.
The delegation, which includes members of president Mahmud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority and Gaza’s Hamas rulers, will meet the Egyptian mediators later on Sunday.
Cairo will then relay the demands to Israel, which baulked at sending negotiators after accusing Hamas of breaching a 72-hour truce moments after it began on Friday.
The Palestinians, who met earlier on Sunday to hammer out a joint position, agreed on “a ceasefire; Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza; the end of the siege of Gaza and opening its border crossings,” said Maher al-Taher, a member of the delegation.
The Palestinian demands also include fishing rights up to 12 nautical miles off Gaza’s coast and the release of Palestinian prisoners demanded by Hamas and Abbas, said Taher, a senior official with the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
A Hamas official confirmed the agreement, saying: “These are the main points, but they must be discussed with the Egyptians. We hope things go smoothly.” (more…)

Just a little odd thing to point out when reading current Libya media stories.   You’ll note the media in the Middle East, Libya itself, and the entire region uses the words “civil war”.  But mainstream Western media never describe the fighting with those words.
It’s almost as if Western Media are covering for something, or someone’s failure…..

PIRAEUS – Libya is descending into a civil war spiral that is “much worse” than the unrest that toppled its dictator Moamer Gathafi in 2011, residents fleeing the country said Saturday.
“We have gone through (war) before, with Gathafi, but now it’s much worse,” Paraskevi Athineou, a Greek woman living in Libya, said.
“Chaos reigns. There is no government, we have no food, no fuel, no water, no electricity for hours on end,” she said.
Athineou was part of a group of 186 people evacuated from Tripoli by a Greek navy frigate which reached the port of Piraeus early on Saturday.
In addition to 77 Greek nationals, there were 78 Chinese, 10 Britons, 12 Cypriots, seven Belgians, one Albanian and a Russian.
Among them were several diplomats, including the Chinese ambassador to Libya.
(more…)

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Egypt’s Khalil el-Sisi just need to be left alone and they will ultimately deal with Hamas and The Muslim Brotherhood.   The U.S. and EU just need to butt out.  [And we are genuinely serious when we say that.]   Just let those two guys handle the radical islamists…. 

ISRAEL – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t mince words in a phone call with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro on Friday.
Netanyahu reportedly warned Shapiro that President Barack Obama and his administration was “not to ever second-guess me again,” according to sources that spoke on condition of anonymity with The Associated Press.
The phone call came hours after a proposed cease-fire in Gaza quickly crumbled, with one Israeli soldier taken hostage and two more killed during an attack. While the Obama administration did not blame the abduction on Hamas, officials did say they hold the group responsible for events occurring in the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu told Shapiro he “expected” the U.S., along with the U.N. and other international groups, to help him moving forward with a “strong and swift response,” because he knows best how to handle Hamas.  (read more)
Netanyahu speaks to Israel –  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Saturday to use as much military power as need and fight “as long as it will take” against terror group Hamas to restore peace in his country.
In a TV speech in Jerusalem that appeared in part directed at Israelis beleaguered by the fighting’s destruction and death toll, Netanyahu gave no indication of moving toward a cease-fire with Hamas, the Islamic militant group. (more…)

Gaza City (CNN)at least temporarily.  U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced Thursday that an unconditional humanitarian cease-fire will begin at 8 a.m. Friday in Gaza (1 a.m. ET).
It will last 72 hours — or three days — “unless extended,” the United Nations and United States said in a joint statement.

“During this time, the forces on the ground will remain in place,” the statement said.   Hamas accepted the cease-fire, a spokesman for the militant fundamentalist Islamic organization texted Thursday.

Speaking to CNN moments after the announcement, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat said it came “after careful deliberations with all the parties.”  (read more)

(more…)

No doubt the primary weapons they are using come courtesy of Hillary Clinton and President Obama via Operation Zero Footprint.

(Reuters) – Militant fighters overran a Libyan special forces base in the eastern city of Benghazi on Tuesday after a battle involving rockets and warplanes that killed at least 30 people.
A special forces officer said they had to abandon their main camp in the southeast of Benghazi after coming under sustained attack from a coalition of Islamist fighters and former rebel militias in the city.
“We have withdrawn from the army base after heavy shelling,” Saiqa Special Forces officer Fadel Al-Hassi told Reuters.
A separate special forces spokesman confirmed the militants had taken over the camp after the troops pulled out. Part of the area is Camp 36 in the Bu Attni district and the special forces school. (more…)

Given what we now know – THE BENGHAZI BRIEF – any congressional hearings seem like a total waste of time.  There’s really nothing left to discover.
What could possibly be learned ? What possible benefit/value could come as a result ?
Your Thoughts

A really odd dynamic surfaces yet again in the realm of the Obama administration’s remarkable list of “firsts”.   President Obama has become the first U.S. administration ever to factually side with radical islamists – like al-Qaeda, ISIS, The Muslim Brotherhood and HAMAS – over the more moderate Arab nations like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Even the Palestinian Authority, yes the Palestinian Authority, was shocked by the Obama/Kerry proposal for Gaza.

For years some people have claimed the Muslim Brotherhood actually has serious influence inside the White House.   Given jaw dropping recent events it seems almost impossible now to refute such a proposition.
(Via Newsweek) American diplomacy in the Middle East in recent days may have failed to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, but it has managed to reposition the United States on an unfamiliar side of the region’s complex web of alliances.
Israelis believe US Secretary of State John Kerry’s week-long ceasefire negotiations has firmly placed the US in the camp of Qatar and Turkey, both of which back the militant government of Hamas, while it has sidelined its traditional allies. (more…)

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama own this outcome !
(Via Fox News) The United States shut down its embassy in Libya Saturday and evacuated its diplomats to neighboring Tunisia under U.S. military escort amid a significant deterioration in security in Tripoli as fighting intensified between rival militias, the State Department said.
“Due to the ongoing violence resulting from clashes between Libyan militias in the immediate vicinity of the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, we have temporarily relocated all of our personnel out of Libya,” spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
The withdrawal underscored the Obama administration’s concern about the heightened risk to American diplomats abroad, particularly in Libya where memories of the deadly 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in the eastern city of Benghazi are still vivid and the political uproar over it remain fresh ahead of a new congressional investigation into the incident. A senior military official told Fox News the Pentagon has been advising the State Department leave the post for weeks.  (read more)

They needed a poll to determine this?    Most people already knew the anti-Israel crowd was always youngish, stupid, lo-fo, emotional moonbats -ie. Democrats-  without a scientific poll to define.

According to Gallup’s internals, self-identifying Republicans are the primary reason Israel’s actions attract plurality support in this poll.  GOP-leaners back Israel’s actions by a whopping 44-point margin; the numbers turn upside-down among independents (-10), and especially Democrats (-16).  The cohorts least likely to label Israel’s attacks against Hamas as “justified” are young people (-26), non-whites (-24), women (-11), and people with a high school education or less (-11) — namely, the Democratic coalition.
On a not-unrelated note, Americans who are under-informed about the issue tend to break heavily against Israel, whereas those who say they’re following developments at least “somewhat closely” back our democratic ally.  (link)

More evidence.   Just in case you were wondering what the current “trust level” is between Egypt and the U.S regime….

EGYPT – Secretary of State John Kerry defied a Federal Aviation Administration ban and flew into Israel’s main airport Wednesday in a sign of sheer will to achieve a cease-fire agreement in the warring Gaza Strip despite little evidence of progress in ongoing negotiations aimed at halting fighting that’s left at least 31 Israelis and 650 Palestinians dead.

Kerry: “me? you don’t trust me”?  el Sisi: “you do work for Obama, no”?

Kerry’s arrival in Israel came as Israeli troops battled Hamas militants near a southern Gaza Strip town as dozens of Palestinian families trapped by the fighting scrambled to flee the area.
It also came as Israel closed the border crossing into Gaza at Erez “until further notice,” citing the heavy fighting.
Kerry planned to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during what appeared to be a crucial day in the flailing talks. (more…)