When criminals ask for respect!

A criminal state that kills children, women and elderly, can it ask to be respected?

• A state that makes war on children armed only with stones. Does it deserve respect?
  A state which has sophisticated weapons and the atomic bomb, and pretends to defend itself against these same children armed with stones, using weapons such as phosphorus. Does it have the right to talk about respect? And does it know what respect is?
• 
  Barak: "Israel must be respected as a Jewish state"
  
  The Israeli Minister of Defence Ehud Barak said Sunday during a brief visit to Cairo, that more should be done to lead to the creation of a Palestinian state, including the need for Arabs to recognize Israel as Jewish state.
  
      Barak was speaking at the end of talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, his Egyptian counterpart Hussein Tantawi and intelligence chief Omar Souleimane leading mediation between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement controlling the Ghaza Strip, particularly on the issue of prisoners’ exchange.
  
      “More must be done to achieve a situation where it is possible for Israelis and Palestinians to live in two states side by side in peace and mutual respect,” said Barack to the press.
  
      “Intensive efforts must be made in the coming weeks to move forward,” he added.
  
      But the Israeli minister stressed that any final agreement on the Palestinian question should include “respect for the nature of Israel as a state for the Jewish people.”
  
      He however refused to comment on the fate of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, kidnapped three years ago by Palestinian groups in Ghaza.
  
      He said that issues such as the release of Shalit should be managed in “secret and away from media.”
  
      Citing Israeli sources, the pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat reported that “a new development has led to tangible progress”, without giving further details.
  
      “The most important topic to be discussed Sunday is the exchange of prisoners,” said this source.
  
      “Hamas realizes that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu will accept nothing that has not been accepted by the Government of his predecessor Ehud Olmert,” she said.
  
      There is a new list of prisoners that Hamas wants to see released.
      “The Netanyahu government also realizes that it must put an end to the blockade of Ghaza and stop using it as a means to overthrow the Hamas,” said the Israeli source quoted by the newspaper.
  
      The visit of Barack in Egypt in May was preceded by that of Benjamin Netanyahu in Sharm el-Sheikh on the Red Sea, where he met with President Mubarak.
  
      On this occasion, Israel and Egypt had agreed to resume contacts for an exchange of prisoners, according to an official Israeli source.
  
      This shift is also after the speech, in June, by U.S. President Barack Obama to Muslims and that of Mr. Netanyahu, head of a government dominated by the right, which has refused to freeze settlement in the West Bank.
  
      This speech was criticized by Cairo.
  
      Egypt with Jordan is the only country in the region to have signed a peace treaty with Israel (1979).
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ M. O.