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Recent Appearances...

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

On the outs with Qatar, Hamas appears to change tack at the top, but not in Gaza

2024-11-18

[IsraelTimes] The terror group is said to be led by five top officials representing its various components, but experts say that its war strategy and red lines in talks are unlikely to shift

This month, Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
announced the suspension of its mediation role between Israel and Hamas
Hamas

..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
concerning a potential Gazoo ceasefire and hostage release. At the same time, Doha refrained from confirming whether it would close Hamas’s office in the country, despite requests from the Biden administration to do so.

Qatar has hosted Hamas officials in Doha since 2012, when the terror group moved its headquarters out of Damascus amid the Syrian civil war; Washington had urged Qatar to serve as a conduit to the terror group, much as the Gulf state had done by hosting a Taliban
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
embassy.

Even if the group were expelled from Qatar, it’s not clear who the order would apply to, with Hamas’s leadership structure made suddenly opaque by the killings of its last two chiefs Ismail Haniyeh
...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank...
and Yahya Sinwar in recent months.

Following the losses, the terror group has reportedly opted against appointing an immediate successor. Instead, a five-member committee based in Doha is said to have taken over leadership responsibilities.

According to Hamas sources speaking to AFP, the committee was set up in August following the liquidation of Haniyeh in Tehran. While Sinwar was named head of the group, the fact that he was in hiding in Gaza made communication difficult, necessitating an alternative. When Israeli forces killed Sinwar on October 16, the quinquevirate stepped in.

The collective leadership structure could be a defensive strategy for Hamas, nominating five heads rather than a single chief who would immediately be in Israel’s crosshairs.

But the group also appears to want to present Paleostinians with an "inclusive" leadership committee, one that spans Gaza and the West Bank and includes both political and religious figures, as it navigates a period of profound crisis for its future.

"This appears to be mostly a symbolic decision to indicate that all components of Hamas are represented," said Hamas expert Guy Aviad, a former official in the IDF’s History Department, which maintains the military’s official annals.

"Joint leadership is not necessarily aimed at preventing assassinations. If Israel wanted to eliminate a number of leaders, it could do so," Aviad told The Times of Israel, adding that Israel is unlikely to conduct liquidations within Qatar or ~~The Sick Man of Europe~~ Turkey
...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor...
The current governance structure will be in place until the terror group holds elections for a new leader, which are scheduled for March next year, according to AFP.

There is also speculation that Hamas may have already secretly appointed a new leader but is concealing his identity, a tactic used in 2004 after the assassinations of leaders Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi within months of each other. A Hamas source told the BBC in October that the movement is likely to keep the identity of its new leader secret for security reasons.

PARTY OF FIVE
According to Hamas sources who spoke to AFP, the committee is composed of five politburo members:

Khalil al-Hayya: Previously Sinwar’s deputy, he currently acts as the liaison between Hamas in Gaza and abroad. He relocated to Qatar from Gaza shortly before the October 7 attack and is seen as a probable candidate to lead the organization in the future, chiefly because of his proximity to the Iranian regime.

Khaled Mashaal: Head of the foreign politburo abroad, he is the most well-known and experienced Hamas official alive, having led the politburo for 22 years between 1996 and 2017. Despite his credentials, he is not touted as a potential future leader — Yahya Sinwar himself reportedly rejected his candidacy. Mashaal has strained relations with Tehran, dating back to when he turned against Syrian President Bashar Assad, a close Iran ally, during the Syrian civil war. After Hamas was booted from Syria, Mashaal became persona non grata in Tehran as well, while most of the group’s politburo increasingly gravitated toward the Iranian regime. In early October, he met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Doha, where he currently resides, indicating a possible rapprochement.

Zaher Jabarin: In charge of Hamas in the West Bank since January, he lives in Istanbul and supervises the terror group’s finance department. Jabarin is believed to be behind attempts to revive Hamas’s strategy of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians in recent months. Israeli security officials indicated that an attempted suicide bombing in Tel Aviv in August had been overseen by Hamas in Turkey, suggesting Jabarin’s direct involvement in the plot.

Muhammad Ismail Darwish: Darwish heads Hamas’s Shura Council, a religious advisory body composed of about 50 clerics. Darwish was an unknown figure until reports in the Arab media in August claimed that he would succeed Haniyeh as the head of the terror group, though Sinwar got the nod in the end. Very little is known about him other than he lives in Qatar.

An unnamed fifth official: The identity of the fifth committee member is unknown, but it can be presumed that the group would appoint at least one member who is still inside the Gaza Strip. Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, told The Times of Israel that an anonymous source close to Hamas named the figure as Nizar Awadullah, a politburo member who was a runner up to Sinwar in internal elections in 2021. Awadullah is thought to still be living in the Strip.

Notably absent from the list is Yahya Sinwar’s brother Muhammad, considered to be the de facto commander-in-chief of military operations in Gaza, where he is believed to be. (Israel says it killed titular armed wing head Mohammed Deif.)

According to experts, Muhammad Sinwar is not a political figure, making him an unlikely choice for the leadership council. Nonetheless, he still wields sizable influence within Hamas thanks to his control of Hamas’s forces in Gaza and of the Israeli hostages.

STAYING THE COURSE
The ability of the leadership quintet to influence actions within Gaza remains uncertain due to ongoing communications difficulties between the Strip and the rest of the world. The IDF’s monitoring of mobile communications complicates Hamas’s coordination, leading the group to rely on encryption technology or hard-to-come-by satellite phones.

Despite the difficulties in communication, it appears that for the time being the new leadership has not enacted any major shifts in its strategy, whether on the military front or in negotiations for a ceasefire deal.

On the battlefield, experts expect the group to continue fighting a war of attrition against the Israeli military until there is an agreement that meets its conditions: an open-ended halt to hostilities, a full withdrawal of IDF troops from the Gaza Strip, the release of Palestinian detainees in return for hostages, and guarantees that it will not be wiped out after the hostages are freed.

Until those demands are met, the group is expected to keep conducting guerrilla operations with what forces it has left, while hanging onto the hostages both as a bargaining chip and a cudgel, “deepening the wound inside Israeli society” and the fracture between citizens and their political leaders, Aviad said.

“Hamas will not change its principles and will not accept a deal that diverges from its conditions,” he said. “Right now, it is in a win-win situation: if it gets its way in negotiations, all the better. If not, it will keep embittering the lives of Israelis, to hold the hostages captive and spill the blood of soldiers and reservists.”

The only area where the joint leadership might show some flexibility is in the details of a ceasefire deal, Milshtein said.

To advance negotiations, it might agree to a staged IDF pullout, with some troops remaining after some hostages were released, but the leadership committee won’t back off the demand for all IDF troops to leave Gaza by a final stage, the expert said. Under Sinwar, the terror group had already shown some flexibility on the timing of the IDF withdrawal.

A PARTIAL BREAKUP WITH HAMAS
Experts concur that the expulsion of Hamas leaders from Qatar currently seems unlikely – similar rumors have circulated before.

The Gulf petrostate has temporarily pulled back its involvement on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, but it benefits greatly from its role mediating between the US and groups Washington finds too odious to engage with directly. Doha is unlikely to risk surrendering that prestigious position, and will probably resume its mediating role on Gaza at some point in the future, Aviad said.

However, things might change under President-elect Donald Trump, whose administration may seek to flex its muscles in the Middle East.

Qatar’s recent suspension of mediation could signal its nervousness about Trump, Milshtein suggested, particularly recalling the country’s isolation during the 2017-2021 boycott by Saudi Arabia and four other Arab states.

It may also be a tactic to put pressure on Hamas and demand more flexibility while the getting is good.

“Doha knows that once Trump becomes president, it will be much tougher for them to mediate between the parties,” Milshtein said, referring to the pro-Israel slant that the Trump administration is expected to follow.

However, it will take “enormous pressure” for Qatar to ultimately expel Hamas, Milshtein said. For instance, the Pentagon could threaten to pull out of Qatar’s al-Udeid air base, the largest US military installation in the Middle East.

International pressure of this type has worked in the past. The Saudi-led boycott is considered to be the catalyst for Qatar’s expulsion of senior Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in 2017. Al-Arouri was assassinated in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut at the beginning of the year.

“The Qataris know how to be more flexible and take steps when they are under pressure,” Milshtein said. “But I don’t think right now that pressure is enough.”

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Nizar Rayyan: the obituary

2009-01-02

Nizar Rayyan, the Hamas military commander who was killed in Thursday's air raid on his home in the Jabalya refugee camp, was a sworn enemy not only of Israel, but also of the Palestinian Authority and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Rayyan, who had four wives and a dozen children, led the Hamas militiamen who defeated Abbas's security forces in the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007. He is the third most senior Hamas leader to be killed by Israel, after the targeted killings of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in March 2004 and his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a few weeks later.

Hamas leaders stressed that Rayyan's death, while a "painful loss" to their movement, would not affect its determination to continue the fight against Israel.

A Hamas spokesman said he did not rule out the possibility that the PA had asked Israel to kill Rayyan because of his role in the Hamas-Fatah clashes in 2007.

"Sheikh Rayyan was one of the main reasons why many of Abbas's men did not sleep well at night," he said. "They knew that as long as the sheikh was around, they would never be able to return to the Gaza Strip."

A few days before Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip, Rayyan, dressed in military fatigues and carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle, declared that he and his supporters were planning to hold Friday prayers inside Abbas's presidential compound in Gaza City.

Rayyan personally led the Hamas militiamen who seized the compound and PA security installations throughout Gaza. He later boasted that the Strip had been "cleansed" of "traitors" and "CIA agents" - a reference to Abbas and his former security chiefs.

A few months later, Rayyan again issued a threat against Abbas. This time he declared that he would soon lead Friday prayers inside Abbas's Mukata compound in Ramallah, an indication of Hamas's intention to extend its control to the West Bank.

That was why PA officials in Ramallah Thursday did not shed tears over his departure from the scene. In fact, some of them privately expressed relief, claiming that he was responsible for the killing of scores of Abbas loyalists in the Gaza Strip during the 2007 "coup."

Many Palestinians saw the killing of Rayyan, 60, as a severe blow to Hamas and its armed wing, Izzadin Kassam. Some Hamas supporters said on Thursday that Rayyan was more significant than Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh or senior Hamas leaders Mahmoud Zahar and Said Siam.

"He was one of the most popular figures in Hamas," said a Palestinian journalist who knew the slain Hamas leader for nearly two decades. "He was the type of leader who would go out with the fighters to confront Israeli tanks and fire rockets at Israel. He loved wearing the military uniform."

Apart from serving as a "spiritual" leader for Hamas's armed wing, Rayyan was also a teacher at the Islamic University in Gaza City. His students referred to him as "The Professor" and described him as a prominent Muslim scholar. One student said Rayyan was Yassin's real successor.

Rayyan was a leading authority on the sayings of the prophet Muhammad (Hadith), and the basement of his four-story house had been turned into a library of more than 5,000 books and documents on Islam.

After Islamic studies at universities in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Sudan, he returned to the Gaza Strip and worked as a preacher in several mosques. His fiery sermons and involvement in incitement and terrorism resulted in four years in an Israeli prison.

When the PA assumed control over the Gaza Strip in 1994, Rayyan was one of the first Hamas members to find himself in a Palestinian prison, together with Zahar and Rantisi.

At the beginning of the second intifada, Rayyan sent one of his sons to carry out a suicide attack in Gush Katif's Elei Sinai in 2001. Two Israelis were killed. Rayyan was also responsible for a series of suicide bombings and attacks inside the Green Line, including the suicide bombing in Ashdod Port in 2004 in which 10 Israelis died.

In recent years, Rayyan served as a liaison between the political leadership of Hamas and Izzadin Kassam. He is even said to have been one of the very few Hamas operatives who knew where IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit was being held in the Gaza Strip.

Link

Iraq

Saddam collected info on dozens of targets in Israel

2008-03-24

Saddam Hussein's intelligence service collected information on dozens of sites in Israel, including airports, other transportation centers, as well as scientific and religious centers that were thought to be potential targets for attacks. Among the sources providing intelligence to Saddam's regime was Force 17, the security force of Yasser Arafat, which planned and carried out from its Ramallah headquarters attacks against Israeli targets.

No surprise that Yassar and Saddam were working together ...

This information emerged following the release of documents captured during the American invasion in 2003 and made available as part of a West Point program to evaluate the lessons of the war in Iraq.

In addition to the detailed collection of intelligence on potential Israeli targets, the documents also show that Saddam's intelligence was following closely the links between Iran and Hezbollah and the potential that such ties could provide Iran to operate in the territories and in North Africa.

The captured documents also detail a 2001 plan to release Iraqis jailed for three- to 20-year sentences if they agreed to volunteer to carry out attacks on Israeli targets.

But containment was working just fine ...

The Americans captured more than 600,000 intelligence items, including thousands of hours of video and sound recordings, all of which have been scanned and summarized, but only 15 percent was fully translated into English.

A document from 2002, from the chief of staff of the Al-Quds Army, sent to the Karbala Division, orders each brigade to build a model of an Israeli town and practice taking it by force.

Whatever else we think of Saddam, this demonstrates a serious lack of reality testing. Just exactly how would an Iraqi brigade be presented with an opportunity to capture an Israeli town? How exactly would Iraqi armed forces survive in a fight against the Israelis?

Hamas representatives, including Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who was assassinated by the Israel Defense Forces in 2004, contacted Iraqi intelligence and asked to coordinate attacks against American and Israeli targets to delay the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The documents also show that Iraqi agents also followed the activities of Israel in Jordan, Qatar and the Philippines.

A video recording of a meeting between Saddam and Yasser Arafat on April 19, 1990, showed Saddam threatening to assassinate then president George Bush. "We may not be able to reach Washington, but we could send someone with an explosives belt to Washington," Saddam told Arafat, three months before the invasion of Kuwait. "We can send people to Washington. A man with an explosives belt could throw himself on Bush's car."

Saddam also told his Palestinian guest that he intended to launch surface-to-surface ballistic missiles against Tel Aviv and that he possessed chemical weapons that "have been successfully employed" against Iran - and he would not hesitate to also use them against Israel.

You get the sense that Saddam was a big talker, particularly with other Arabs.

The file listing potential targets in Israel covers 223 pages and was classified as Top Secret by Iraqi intelligence. It was found on April 13, 2003, in the headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service in Baghdad by a unit of U.S. Marines. The file was sent two weeks later to U.S. army intelligence and then to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon for translation and analysis. The decision to make the report available is part of a program to evaluate the lessons of the war in Iraq at West Point military academy. Five volumes of captured documents were disseminated a year ago throughout the American defense establishment, and are now being made available after censorship.

The file lists in its "main targets" the bridges over the Jordan River, the central bus stations in Be'er Sheva, Jerusalem, Ashdod, Dimona, Ashkelon, Kiryat Gat, Rehovot, Lod and Rishon Letzion and train stations in Tel Aviv and Haifa. Also in the file were road maps of Kiryat Shmona, Tel Aviv and Haifa, as well as maps of parking lots and taxi stations at the Tel Aviv train station.

In the table of contents it is noted that pages 42-76 contain a catalog of "main targets," listing 35 targets in Israel, including bus stations, pharmaceutical plants, medical centers and synagogues. Following pages note, on a map of Israel, main sports venues and are then followed by 20 more pages that include 35 other potential targets: mosques, synagogues, swimming pools, government offices and sports centers. Also included is the Weizmann Institute, "56 airports and 18 runways," air force bases, including squadrons, aircraft types and missiles, the names of companies working in civilian airports and the crossing points on the border between Israel and Jordan.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Israel may target Hamas heads

2008-02-08

If the Kassam rocket fire on the western Negev continues unabated, the government will have to decide whether to further ratchet up its reactions by targeting top Hamas political leaders, government officials told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.

According to the officials, Israel has in recent weeks gradually stepped up its response to the Kassams, first targeting only those involved in firing rockets, then targeting well-known terrorist commanders and officials, and then going after symbols of Hamas power in Gaza, such as the strike on a Hamas police installation in Khan Yunis on Thursday that killed seven people.

The next logical step, according to the officials, will have to be a decision whether to target the top political leadership, as Ariel Sharon did in March 2004 when, within the span of a month, Israel killed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and top leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

The official's comments came after IDF troops uncovered underground Kassam launch silos inside the Gaza Strip during an early-morning foray there on Thursday - underground silos similar to those from which Hizbullah fired rockets at Israel during the Second Lebanon War.

During Thursday's operation, the troops killed seven Palestinian gunmen affiliated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Pictures released by the IDF Spokesman's Office showed two underground Kassam rocket silos, a meter in diameter and two meters deep. The launchers, the IDF said, were big enough to hold a Kassam or Grad-model Katyusha rocket that could be launched by remote control.

The IDF estimates there are additional underground rocket silos throughout the Gaza Strip. Defense officials said the silos, discovered by the Golani Brigade's elite Egoz Unit, proved the need for continued ground operations inside the Gaza Strip.

Despite the escalation, senior government sources said that for the time being Israel's policies will be similar to what has been seen in recent days: a combination of military, economic and diplomatic pressure on the Hamas regime.

The sources said that at the top level of government there is an understanding that "there is no magic fix," and that any "quick fixes" could play into Hamas's hands.

The officials said while the army has drawn up numerous contingency plans, including plans to take over the Philadelphi Corridor, these currently fall within the realm of military plans, not government policy. "We have to have patience and be sensible," one government source said. "That doesn't mean there can't be innovations in our strategy, but there are no magic fixes."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said following an exercise at the Ze'elim Training Base in the south on Thursday that "if the Kassam rocket fire from Gaza continues, then we will escalate our operations. The IDF operations will bring results. This will not end today, and not tomorrow, but the continued military action on the one hand, with the sanctions on the Gaza Strip on the other, as well as the protective measures being taken in some of the [Gaza belt] communities, will in the end bring a stop to the Kassam rocket fire."

Meanwhile on Thursday, some 20 Kassam rockets pounded the western Negev. One rocket struck a direct hit on a garage adjacent to a home in Sderot, setting it ablaze and sending three people into shock. Two Kassams landed near a college in the Eshkol region. No one was wounded and no damage was reported. The other rockets all hit open areas. Terrorists also fired some 10 mortar shells from the Strip. No one was wounded and no damages were reported.

The IDF operation in Gaza, aimed against Kassam launch squads, started late Wednesday night when troops from Egoz, accompanied by tanks, armored bulldozers and IAF helicopters penetrated three kilometers deep into Gaza near the Jabalya refugee camp in the north.

Palestinian sources claimed that the IDF killed a teacher during the operations. Hamas security forces said that the teacher died and two other staffers were hurt when an Israeli missile struck an agricultural school in Beit Hanun. The group released no further details and school officials weren't immediately available for comment. However, the IDF said that it had fired in the area at a group of rocket launchers. "We definitely did not fire at a school," the army said, adding that it was looking into the report.

Also on Thursday, the Defense Ministry instructed the Israel Electric Company to begin reducing the flow of electricity in one of the power lines to the Gaza Strip by 5 percent during the evening, Army Radio reported. The initial power cut, part of the government's punitive measures against Hamas, was expected to be followed by further 5 percent reductions in two additional lines in the next two weeks. Gaza generates about a quarter of its own electricity at a plant run on fuel imported from Israel. The rest comes from over 10 electricity lines running directly from Israel and one from Egypt.

Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said the move was another step in the process to decrease Gaza's dependency on Israel. "We alerted Hamas and Egypt of the current step through diplomatic channels. They received very clear notification. "Israel's topmost interest is to stop its connection to the Strip. We won't supply electricity to Kassam production facilities. Eventually they need to start taking care of themselves - and they will take care of themselves."

The power cutback was made possible last week, when the High Court of Justice turned down appeals by several human rights groups against the planned sanctions.

The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday condemned the cuts in Israel's power supply to Gaza as collective punishment of the civilian population and a violation of the laws of war. "Israel views restricting fuel and electricity to Gaza as a way to pressure Palestinian armed groups to stop their rocket and suicide attacks," said Joe Stork, Middle East director of HRW. "But the cuts are seriously affecting civilians who have nothing to do with these armed groups and that violates a fundamental principle of the laws of war." HRW added that indiscriminate Palestinian rocket and suicide bomb attacks against Israeli civilians constituted war crimes, but Israel's attempts to suppress those attacks must not also violate international humanitarian law.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Experts: Terror suspects not brainwashed, poor, uneducated

2007-07-04

Light dawns. A bit late, but we'll take it.

Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2. George Habash of the PLO. Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas strongman in Gaza. All trained as doctors as did at least seven suspects in the failed bomb attacks in Britain. The ~~Society of Professional Journalists~~ general public often is shocked to see that doctors the world's healers can become militants or even terrorist killers. But some experts believe it is part of a socio-economic trend in which wealthy families highly educate their sons, who sometimes become radical and have the education they need to become leaders.

"People often assume that terrorists are poor, disadvantaged people who are brainwashed or need the money. But the ones who actually perpetrate violence without handlers and manipulation are highly intelligent by necessity," said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm. "It's only the smart ones who will survive security pressures in a subversive existence. Sometimes they are doctors, a profession that provides a brilliant cover and allows entry to countries like Britain," he ~~sagely~~ said in an interview Tuesday.

Academia best clean its own house, 'cos eventually the proles will realize all these twisted fantasies are nurtured at...university.

At least five of the eight suspects in the failed terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow, Scotland, were identified as doctors from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and India, while staff at a Glasgow hospital said two others were a doctor and a medical student.

"It sends rather a chill down the spine to think that people's values can be so perverted," said Pauline Neville-Jones, former head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which advises the British government. "It means obviously that you can't make any assumptions, or have any preconceptions about the kind of people who might become terrorists. It does mean that you widen the net, obviously," she said on BBC-TV.

If doctors were leading the cell that plotted the attacks which Prime Minister Gordon Brown said were "associated with al-Qaida" it wouldn't be a first. Al-Zawahri, an Egyptian who trained as a doctor, is Osama bin Laden's top deputy, and he often speaks out in audio tapes on behalf of al-Qaida in favor of groups such as Hamas in Gaza. Three doctors have played prominent roles in militant Islamic groups in Gaza in recent years. Mahmoud Zahar, one of the main Hamas leaders, was the personal physician of the founder of the group, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Zahar became a Hamas spokesman and leader in the late 1980s alongside his mentor. Yassin, a paraplegic, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2004.

Yassin's successor was Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a pediatrician. He was killed by an Israeli airstrike shortly after Yassin. He was introduced to radical Islam during his medical studies in Cairo. Also, the founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Mohammed al-Hindi, received his medical degree in Cairo in 1980. He returned to Gaza and formed the militant group a year later.Habash, who trained as a pediatrician in a family of Christian Palestinian merchants, founded and led the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was behind a spate of aircraft hijackings in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Martin Kramer, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said people often wrongly conclude that a good education and prosperity works against development of terrorists. "The Sept. 11 bombers were better educated than the average person," said Kramer, who also is a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem think tank. "Educated people have long been drafted to fight in jihadi causes. For example, many mujahadeen fighting the Russians in Afghanistan were highly educated engineers and doctors."

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

PCHR's Wonderful World of Gaza: Gaza Drowns in Blood Edition

2007-06-12

Gaza Drowns in Blood Because of the Conflict between Fatah and Hamas Movements
Worth it just for the headline...
For the 3rd consecutive day, Gaza City has witnessed unjustifiable violent internal fighting, and an atmosphere of tension has spread over Gaza that is not less violent than that which has spread as a result of the offensive that has been launched by Israeli Occupation Forces for nearly a month.
I think they're calling that "the good old days"...
Since Monday evening, violence has extended to most areas in the Gaza Strip from the north to the south, and militants have deployed in the streets, at the entrances of towns and near governmental headquarters and security compounds. Militants from Hamas and Fatah movements have used various kinds of weapons and have occupied a number of official buildings belonging to the Palestinian presidency and government. The attacks have even targeted the house and the office of Prime Minister Ismail Haniya and the presidential compound. Militants have been more violent than ever before as they have stormed hospitals and forced medical crews out. They even fired inside hospital and killed a number of persons. Moreover, mutual kidnappings and field executions have been reported. The two movements have even threatened to escalate the situation and extend the fighting to the West Bank.
I guess we'll have to airlift in C-130 loads of popcorn if that happens...
In this atmosphere of terror, approximately 67,000 students have attended the exams of the General Certificate of Education (Tawjihi), in addition to thousands of university students who have attended their final exams. The current situation threatens the overall educational process.
Cease fire. It's...for the children.
PCHR strongly condemns such fighting which is not of the ethics, sacrifices and struggle of the Palestinian people, and warns that it threatens the overall national aspirations and lives of innocent Palestinian civilians, whose daily activities have been paralyzed.
Sure. It's not like this happens all the time, right?
PCHR would like to apologize for not being able to report on many details of this fighting as its staff members have not been able to move freely and it's office in Gaza City has been besieged by the exchange of fire.
Jeez, that's not very "human righty" of the boys...
Branch offices have also worked with a limited capacity and under severe challenges. According to information available to PCHR so far, 21 Palestinians have been killed and at least 150 others have been wounded in the past 72 hours.
That's okay, boys. Keep your heads down.
At approximately 16:00 on Monday, an exchange of fire erupted between members of the Executive Force and armed members of the al-Masri clan near Beit Hanoun Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip. A member of the Executive Force was killed. Members of the Executive Force pursued members of the al-Masri clan and killed 3 of them: 'Eid Mahmoud al-Masri, 51; his son Ibrahim, 21; and his nephew Faraj Fadel al-Masri, 22.
Oh, look, it's our old friends the al-Masri's. Looks like they came out on the short end this time. Stay tuned...
At approximately 16:20, the fighting extended to the vicinity of the house of Jamal 'Abed Rabbu al-Jedian, 50, Secretary of Fatah movement in the northern Gaza Strip. Abu al-Jedian, his brother Majed, 38, and a member of the Executive Force, Mohammed Mehjez, 24, were killed and at least 50 persons, including 2 women, were wounded.

Over night, fighting erupted throughout Gaza City, especially in al-Shati refugee camp, al-Maqqousi housing project near security sites. Eight Palestinians, including 5 civilians, 2 of whom are women, were killed. In addition, 53 persons, mostly civilians, were wounded.

In the early morning on Tuesday, militants stormed the transmission station of Palestine Television in Abu Rahma building in the center of Gaza City.
Oh, no! I hope Farfur's okay! Unless these guy's were Disney mercenaries sent in to take him off the board...
Mutual kidnappings and arsons of houses were reported. The houses of the Palestinian President and Prime Minister were also attacked. In addition, fierce fighting erupted near the house of Maher Miqdad, the spokesman of Fatah movement, in al-Maqqousi housing project.

Also on Tuesday, militants deployed in the streets in the central Gaza Strip. They closed a number of roads and stopped and checked people. A number of Hamas militants also seized a number of sites of the Palestinian National Security Forces. At approximately 10:00, Mohammed Rezeq Safi, 35, a member of the Palestinian National Security Forces, was killed in an exchange of fire near a security site near Gaza Valley. At the same time, Eihab Sa'id Nassar, 19, a member of the Executive Force, was killed in an exchange of fire in Deir al-Balah. In addition, 16 persons were wounded.

In Khan Yunis, at approximately 22:30 on Monday, 11 June 2007, a number of militants traveling in a civilian car kidnapped 'Amru Nabhan al-Rantissi, 21, a member of the 'Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades (the armed wing of Hamas). His body was found later on Khan Yunis Rafah road.
Says he was a cousin of Abdel Aziz Rantisi, who's face adorns that poster with Yassin that Mashall likes to sit in front of.
Say hello to your cuz for us,'Amru.
At approximately 09:30 on Tuesday, hundreds of members of the 'Izziddin al-Qassam Brigades deployed in the streets and near sites of security services in Khan Yunis. Later, they called on security men to get out of their sites threatening to shell those sites. They also seized 5 of those sites and the building of Khan Yunis Governorate. An exchange of fire erupted between those militants and those of Fatah movement in various areas in Khan Yunis. As a result of the exchange of fire, 11 persons were wounded.
From Sunday:
Tension has spread all over Gaza City in light of internal fighting that has taken place over the past 24 hours, which have taken the lives of 3 Palestinians and have left 14 others, including 7 children, wounded. These bloody incidents coincide with the initiation of the exams of the General Certificate of Education (Tawjihi). Thousands of students have gone to their exams in an atmosphere of terror, passing through checkpoints erected in the streets and being placed under gunfire.
Maybe might wanna postpone the tests? Call it, like, a Snow Day, Palestinian version...
According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 11:00 on Sunday, 10 June 2007, unknown militants kidnapped 2 members of Force 17 when they were near their work place at Gaza beach: Mohammed Salama al-Swairki, 27; and Ibrahim al-Hatu. Three hours later, militants also kidnapped 2 members of the Palestinian Presidential Guard near Gaza Harbor: 'Abdullah Mohammed Abu Hassira; and Mohammed 'Eid Abu Hassira. At the same time, militants kidnapped Hamada Mohammed al-Qerem, 28, a member of Force 17 from Khan Yunis, and 'Aatef Mustafa Abu Dahi, 25, a member of the Preventive Security Service from Rafah, near Doula building in the east of Gaza City. At approximately 01:00 on Monday, al-Qerem and Abu Dahi were brought into al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah town as they were shot to the feet.
I knew that was comin...
At approximately 17:00 on Sunday, the kidnappers of Mohammed Salama al-Swairki pushed him down from the 13th floor of al-Ghefari tower building near Gaza Harbor. He was instantly killed.
When he landed, did they go down and shoot him in the feet?
At approximately 17:30, masked gunmen besieged the house of Dr. 'Alaa' al-Rafati, Dean of Commerce School at the Islamic University near the Blood Ban in Gaza City. They kidnapped al-Rafati's brother, 36-year-old Mohammed, the Imam of al-'Abbas Mosque in the city. They took him to a place near Ansar seceurity compound in the west of Gaza City, where they shot him dead with several gunshots to the chest, the abdomen and the limbs.
Holy Man Filled With Holes: Coming up next on Gaza Action News...
Soon after, the situation in Gaza City deteriorated and armed clashes broke out between Fatah and Hamas movements. A number of people were also kidnapped by militants who erected checkpoints in the streets. A number of those who were kidnapped were fired at, whereas the destiny of the others has remained unknown.
Probably a big argument about whether the Koran says it's okay to whack a "Holy Man". And I'm sure both sides have ample quotations to back up their positions...
At approximately 18:00 on Sunday, militants who erected a checkpoint in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood kidnapped 'Omar Zakaria al-Sharif, 20, and Mahmoud Abu Rabee', members of the Palestinian National Security Forces. At approximately 21:00, the militants dumped al-Sharif near the car market in the east of Gaza City, after they had fired at his feet, whereas Abu Rabee's destiny has remained unknown.
They probably didn't fire at Abu's feet...
At approximately 18:30 also on Sunday, militants positioned near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City kidnapped Eihab Ibrahim al-'Absi, 23, a member of Fatah movement from al-Shati refugee camp. They transported him to al-Nasser Street where they fired at his feet and pushed him out of their car.
Idiots! Out of the car, then shoot him in the feet. Whatta buncha maroons!
At approximately 19:30, a number of militants kidnapped Mohammed Ahmed al-Khaldi, 23, a worker at Dar al-Arqam Press, in al-Remal neighborhood. They took him to al-Saraya intersection, where they fired at his right leg.
I'll bet they wuz aiming at his feet though...
At approximately 21:00, militants kidnapped 3 persons in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in the south of Gaza City: Mohammed Ziad Zaqqout, 22; Anas Fu'ad al-Haj, 20; and Hussam Abu Qainas, 35. The militants took Zaqqout and al-Haj to Gaza Beach and fired at their feet. They took Abu Qainas to the roof of Haniya building near the Ministry of Finace. They shot him to the head and pushed his body down onto the street.
They must shoot you in the feet if they like you. If they don't, you get a double tap and a dixie ride off the roof...

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Security Cabinet approves deeper incursion into Gaza

2006-07-05

Posted in full because it sounds like they really mean it (this time) The Security Cabinet called for prolonged and graduated military action in Gaza and the West Bank, at a meeting Wednesday morning to discuss the Shalit crisis and how to respond to Tuesday's rocket attack on Ashkelon.

A communiqu issued after the meeting said that in light of the kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Shalit and the continuation of the rocket fire on Israel, "preparations will be made to bring about a change in the rules of the game and mode of operating with the Palestinian Authority and Hamas."

The security cabinet approved the following steps:

Striking out at Hamas in Gaza and Judea and Samaria, with an emphasis on hitting institutions and infrastructure that "serve terrorism."

Continuing operations against Kassam rocket fire.

Reducing terrorists' freedom of movement by "bisecting" the Gaza Strip.

Maintaining diplomatic pressure on Syria to ensure Shalit's release.

The statement said this would be done while trying to prevent Palestinian civilian casualties as much as possible and ensuring that the humanitarian needs of the population will be met.

Immediately after the security cabinet meeting, Olmert held consultations with Defense Minister Amir Peretz and top security officials to approve the operative steps to achieve these goals.

Simultaneously, the IDF was gearing up for large incursion into northern Gaza through the Erez crossing. Armored vehicles were stationed at Mefalsim and were being loaded on to trucks. The IDF has been given the green light to enter residential areas, but will not reoccupy the Gaza Strip, an official at the meeting said. A buffer zone will be created in the northern part of the Strip in order to prevent Kassam fire.

Prior to the meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert issued a warning to the Hamas-led government. "[The firing of a Kassam at Ashkelon] is a major escalation that Hamas is responsible for," said Olmert. "The criminal attempt to hurt Israeli citizens will be met with an extraordinary response and the Hamas movement will be the first to feel it," added the prime minister. The rocket fired Tuesday night traveled 12 kilometers before landing in Ashkelon.

Ashkelon Mayor Roni Mehatzri said that the city's 120,000 residents could not continue to be under threat. "This is a new situation," said Mehatzri, adding, "Although we knew there was chance this would happen, it still surprised us. Our circumstances have now changed," he added.

The security establishment was set to decide whether to comply with the requests of the Ashkelon Municipality and introduce a Kassam rocket early warning system modeled on the Red Dawn system currently used in Sderot. The IDF had previously turned down the request, claiming it was liable to create unnecessary panic among residents.

Defense Minister Amir Peretz ordered the IDF to increase its activities in the Gaza Strip as part of "Operation Summer Rains." Peretz stressed that one of the goals of the operation was to "remove the threat of Kassams."

Ze'ev Boim, a member of the cabinet said, "as far as I'm concerned, the people of (northern Gaza towns) Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya can start packing."

Security Cabinet member Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said the only solution to the Kassam crisis is continued targeted assassinations, while speaking to Army Radio on Wednesday morning. "The only thing that changed the picture was when we went to the terror leaders - when we removed Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi - then the picture began changing. Then they understood that no one is immune."

MK Ephraim Sneh (Labor), former deputy defense minister, said that there was "no escape from prolonged ground presence at the launch sites." Responding to a comment by his Army Radio interviewer that the Palestinians had been launching Kassams in spite of an IDF presence in the Gaza Strip, Sneh said that the government must provide Israel with maximum protection. "If you want to tell your citizens: I did the maximum," he said, "then this is the maximum."

As for the target of Israeli pressure, Sneh noted that the Hamas leadership in Damascus was behind the recent attacks. He asserted that the Hamas military wing did not listen to Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, but rather to Khaled Mashaal in Syria.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas' choice for PM seen as pragmatist

2006-02-21

This headline could only be written by the Seattle PI.

The 43-year-old Hamas activist tapped by the Islamic militant group to form a new Palestinian government has a reputation as a pragmatist who prefers compromise to conflict with Palestinian rivals. Ismail Haniyeh, a former university administrator and student organizer for Hamas, was presented as the group's choice for prime minister in a meeting Monday with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who was expected to hand him a written request to form a government in a second round of talks on Tuesday.

Haniyeh, who ~~unfortunately~~ escaped an Israeli assassination attempt in June 2003, rose to prominence after Israel killed Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin and his successor as Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a year later. He is married with 11 children and lives on a narrow street overflowing with sewage in the same beachfront refugee camp on the edge of Gaza City where he was born in January 1963.

Haniyeh's parents fled the village of Jourra in what is now southern Israel during the 1948 war that accompanied the founding of the Jewish state.

And naturally Ismail thinks he deserves to get it back.

He studied in U.N. refugee schools in the coastal strip and graduated from the Islamic University there in 1987, with a degree in Arabic language.

Which is like getting a degree in English Lit from Enormous State University here at home.

He was active in student politics, became a close associate of Yassin and was expelled by Israel to south Lebanon in 1992 along with more than 400 other Hamas activists. He returned to Gaza a year later, becoming dean of the Islamic University, and in 1998, he took charge of Yassin's office.

A tall man with an imposing presence, Haniyeh is known as an able ~~terrorist~~ negotiator. He served as a liaison between Hamas and Palestinian Authority, established in 1994 and dominated by Abbas' Fatah movement until its electoral defeat last month. He is said to enjoy good relations with Abbas.

Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and remains committed to Israel's destruction, but Palestinian political analyst Talal Okal says Haniyeh believes that political goals can also be achieved by nonviolent means. "He is not a believer in violence all the way," Okal told The Associated Press. "He understands that there are other means of struggle that can be followed."

He just wants all the Joooos killed, that's all.

Hamas has observed a yearlong truce with Israel and says it would consider a long-term armistice if Israel follows last year's Gaza pullout with a withdrawal from the West Bank.

Nevertheless, after the party won 74 of 132 seats in the parliament - the Palestinian Legislative Council - Haniyeh dismissed Western calls for Hamas to disarm and renounce violence. "The Europeans and Americans want to tell Hamas that you can keep one of two: weapons or the legislative council," he said. "We say weapons and the legislative council, and there is no contradiction."

Somewhere, up in the sky, a drone is watching, watching ...

See also: The Pragmatist of Hamas. (via LGF)

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Hamas' first new law: shari'a, of course

2006-01-30

JERUSALEM -- The incoming Hamas government will move quickly to make Islamic sharia "a source" of law in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and will overhaul the Palestinian education system to separate boys and girls and introduce a more Islamic curriculum, a senior official in the movement said yesterday.

Spelling out the domestic agenda of Hamas for the first time since the group's stunning victory in a legislative election this week, Sheik Mohammed Abu Teir also said Hamas would not go to foreign donors on bended knee if they withdrew aid to the Palestinian Authority.

That's okay, bended knee wouldn't work anyways.

Mr. Abu Teir, who was No. 2 on the Hamas list of candidates for Wednesday's election, said introducing sharia -- a controversial moral and legal code based on the Koran -- would be the first act of the new Hamas-controlled Palestinian Legislative Council. "The No. 1 thing we will do is take sharia as a source for legislation. Sharia has a soul in it and is good for all occasions," Mr. Abu Teir said in an interview with The Globe and Mail over a lunch of traditional Palestinian dishes supplemented with Coca-Cola. The table was set under photographs of Sheik Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi, past Hamas leaders who were assassinated in Israeli air strikes.

Which didn't seem to educate anyone present.

The current Palestinian legal system is based on Western-style jurisprudence and a hodgepodge of Jordanian, Egyptian and Ottoman laws. It's questionable whether Hamas could push through legislation introducing sharia as the basic law, since any such bill would have to be signed by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a social moderate.

Well, not as long as he's alive.

However, having won 76 of the 132 legislative seats in what observers billed the best-run election the Arab world has seen, Hamas -- which campaigned on the slogan "Islam is the solution" -- can argue that it has more popular support for its program than Mr. Abbas does for his.

Abu Teir was quick to clarify that the introduction of sharia didn't mean that alcohol would be banned, or that it would be made mandatory for women to cover their heads when outdoors, two fears raised by the group's liberal opponents.

Not this week, anyway.

Mr. Abu Teir's wording -- that sharia would be "a source" of law -- mirrors the language adopted in the new Iraqi constitution. Iran and Saudi Arabia use a strict interpretation of sharia as the only source of law and employ religious police to enforce it. That's not what Hamas has in mind, the sheik said. "We are centrists, we are against any kind of extremism. The motto that we operate on is that in religion, you cannot force people."

"Until we have total control and all the Jooos are dead. Then watch us."

Palestinian Christians, many of whom have expressed concerns about being ruled by Islamists, have nothing to fear, he added.

"As long as they behave themselves, pay their higher taxes and let us have our way with them, they will be fine," he noted.

The sheik, a resident of the Um Tuba neighbourhood of East Jerusalem, did say that he believes the consumption of alcohol is wrong, and that the Koran indicates women should dress modestly. He said Hamas hoped to lead by example and thus persuade people to change their ways and follow the teachings of Islam more closely. "We will not force a woman to wear the hijab [Islamic head scarf]; we hope that decision will come from inside her. I don't care to have women put on the hijab and then take it off when no one is looking," he said.

He made it clear that one way Hamas planned to encourage the next generation to follow sharia was to revamp the Palestinian education system, separating girls' and boys' classes and introducing a more Islamic curriculum. "We will take such measures because we look at examples in the West, like Sweden. They have the highest level of co-education and the highest level of suicides," he said. "We would like our children to have a protected environment. We don't want any distractions for our boys or our girls."

"And that way we can make the girls wear the hajib."

On external affairs, Mr. Abu Teir gave no hint that Hamas would adjust its hard-line stand of refusing to recognize, or negotiate with, Israel. He said that instead of pressuring Hamas to disarm, the West should be demanding that Israel leave the West Bank, release all Palestinian prisoners and allow the return of the 4.1 million Palestinian refugees.

If they all want to live in Gaza, no problem. It can look like the south Bronx used to look.

Mr. Abu Teir expressed dismay at how news of Hamas's victory was received in the West, saying he didn't understand why the West, after years of giving money to a Palestinian Authority run by the corrupt Fatah movement, was now considering withholding aid. "Why is the West worried? We're not thieves. Had that money been given to us, it would have found many good uses."

"I mean, we're careful stewards with money, look at all the guns and ammo we've bought. We're shrewd bargainers when it comes to rockets, not like those Fatah guys who can't even get a rocket to land in Israel."

However, he said Hamas would not go begging if aid were slashed. "Our people would rather live in poverty than live in humiliation with Israeli and Western aid."

Right now you have both poverty and humiliation.

Palestinian political analysts said Mr. Abu Teir's remarks reveal the political immaturity of Hamas. The responsibilities and realities of being in power, several have predicted, would require them to abandon much of their ideological rhetoric. "When Hamas starts doing these things, they will get into all kinds of trouble. Politically, socially, economically, they will not be able to do the kinds of things they are talking about," said Basem Ezbidi, a political scientist at Birzeit University in Ramallah. "Many people are truly worried right now."

Especially the ones standing next to Teir.

He said it is "insanity" for Hamas to say that it would not talk to Israel or that it does not need foreign aid. Palestinians regularly use Israeli hospitals, roads and the Israeli electricity grid, and the Palestinian Authority relies on Israel to collect sales taxes on its behalf.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

History of Hamas Murderous Attacks

2006-01-26

16:46 Jan 26, '06 / 26 Tevet 5766
By Hillel Fendel

Hamas has set the destruction of Israel as its goal. Between September 2000 and April 2004, Hamas perpetrated 425 terrorist attacks against Israel and murdered 377 Israelis - nine every month.

Hamas was founded by Islamic militant extremists in the Gaza Strip in 1988, shortly after the first intifada broke out. The word Hamas is an acronym for the Arabic words for "Islamic Resistance Movement."

Though it is also involved in social and welfare programs, the organization is devoted chiefly to the obliteration of Israel. Its charter states, "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."

The charter further states, "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. Hamas is responsible for 24 murders before the Oslo Accords, 156 more before the Oslo War began in September 2000, and at least another 377 since then - a total of at least 557.

The organization's first mass attack was a car bomb that blew up at a bus stop in Afula in April 1994, murdering 8 and wounding 51. Among the most horrific Hamas attacks were the following:

* 22 people killed and 56 wounded in a suicide bombing attack on the No. 5 bus on
Dizengoff St. in Tel Aviv, Oct. 1994

* 26 killed by suicide bomber on a #18 bus near the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, Feb. 1996

* 16 killed in the Mahane Yehuda open market in Jerusalem in a double suicide attack, July 1997

* 23 dead and 115 wounded when a Hamas suicide bomber blew himself up on a No. 2 bus line coming from the Western Wall in Jerusalem, August 2003

* 45 murdered within the space of five days in March 2002: a suicide Hamas terrorist blew himself up in a Haifa restaurant, killing 15, and another one did the same in the Park Hotel in in Netanya during a Passover Seder, murdering some 30 and wounding 144.

The ten worst Oslo War Hamas attacks, in which a total of 186 were murdered, also included the following:
* June 1, 2001 - Dolphinarium in Tel Aviv, 21 killed - mostly new-immigrant teenagers from the former Soviet Union

* Aug. 9, 2001 - Sbarro's Pizzeria in Jerusalem, 15 killed, including the parents and three children of the Schijveschuurder family

* Dec. 2, 2001 - Haifa bus, 15 killed

* May 7, 2002 - Rishon Letzion hall, 16 killed

* June 18, 2002 - #32 bus from Gilo, Jerusalem, 19 killed

* March 5, 2003 - #37 bus in Haifa, 15 dead

* June 11, 2003 - #14 bus, Jerusalem, 17 murdered

Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was killed in an Israeli missile attack in March 2004, and less than a month later, the same fate befell his successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi.

Published: 16:27 January 26, 2006
Last Update: 16:46 January 26, 2006

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Does Hamas still want you dead?

2006-01-26

With the Islamic Jihad, you know where you stand.

They want you dead.

It's part of a worldwide movement of wanting you dead. They take orders from people in Damascus who want you dead, people in Tehran who want you dead, people south of Beirut who want you dead.

With Hamas, knowing where you stand is less cut and dried. With infinitely more support, personnel, sitzfleisch, than the Jihad, with more ideological independence, and a network of free medical clinics and free schools, it almost makes you wonder about the Death to Israel and Death to America and the second graders they dress up and parade around in fatigues and miniature M-16's and garlands of plastic grenades.

Now as Hamas prepares to enter the Palestinian parliament, and perhaps the cabinet, it's time to ask - Will the real Hamas please stand up?

Forget the learned punditry. It all comes down to this: Does Hamas, in fact, want you dead?

On the one hand, there's Nouvelle Hamas, Hamas Lite, the latter-day Islamic Resistance Movement of conciliatory if studiously ambiguous statements.

The poster boy for the New Hamas is Sheikh Mohammed Abu Tir, he of the leprechaun orange beard, who dispenses homespun medical advice as he chats amicably, disarmingly with reporters on the Palestinian campaign trail. The color of his beard and hair? Henna. It's proven itself good for dandruff, he observes. Even seems to have helped ease the migraines he once suffered.

Then there's Hamas Classic. The Hamas of Khaled Mashaal. No negotiations. No clever wording. No part of "No" to misunderstand.

"We don't have to make concessions to satisfy Israel," Mashaal said this week, "Our position now is not to negotiate with Israel. We will not kowtow."

There was a time, starting with Hamas' founding at the very outset of the first Intifada, when it was no problem to know where you stood with them. They wanted you dead and/or gone from here. They had decided that we were all either from Russia or America, and we could all go back there now, thank you very much.

At first they weren't prepared to do anything about it. They were later on, though. With a vengeance.

Either because we killed their master bombmaker with an exploding cell phone to the ear, or in order to show their continued explosive capability, or both, they decided to decide the 1996 election and put Benjamin Netanyahu in power. It took them nine days. Four bombs, Ashkelon, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv. Sixty deaths. Hundreds and hundreds of injured.

Feeling somewhat guilty about having helped them in the early 1980s, when we thought them to be apolitical, anti-Marxist, useful, we tried everything to stop them. Exiling 400 of them to a snowy, windblown hilltop in south Lebanon, including their pediatrician/president Abdel Aziz Rantisi, did nothing to deter them. We tried assassinating them, pressing the PA to jail them, pressing the PA to stop releasing them soon thereafter, assassinating them and assassinating them and assassinating them.

Now we're at a loss. They're about to join the cabinet next door, and there's nothing we can do about it.

Can we trust them? The question is academic. We won't trust them. We'll give good reasons why not. Take Sheikh Abu Tir. Now 55, he's spent most of his adult life in Israeli administrative detention or otherwise jailed for weapons possession, membership in a terrorist organization, and/or directing activities of Hamas' armed wing, Iz al-Din al-Qassam.

"Israel respects us when we are strong," Khaled Mashaal told a television interviewer. "This requires a long battle."

Any way you look at it, however, the battle has changed. The last time Hamas launched a suicide bombing was in August, 2004.

The tone has changed as well. Even the unbending Mahmoud Zahar, whose son was killed in an Israeli air strike and who narrowly escaped assassination himself, has given a measure of ground in recent statements.

"Negotiation is not a taboo," Zahar told reporters this week. "Negotiations are a means. If Israel has anything to offer on the issues of halting attacks, withdrawal, releasing prisoners... then 1,000 means can be found."

But a campaign is a campaign, and Zahar couldn't resist a dig at the rival Fatah party. "The political crime is when we sit with the Israelis and then come out with a wide smile to tell the Palestinian people that there is progress, when in fact, there is not."

Oddly, the only moderating influence that seems to have consistently worked on Hamas is Palestinian public opinion.

The group has entered politics, and even for those unafraid of a martyr's death, there is little more terrifying for a politician than his own constituents.

"You are about to enter the Authority. We welcome you," Fatah Gaza leader Mohammed Dahlan told Zahar on the eve of the elections.

"It's time for you to discover the suffering of being in government."

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

New-look Hamas spends Â£100k on an image makeover

2006-01-21

Hamas is paying a spin doctor $180,000 (Â£100,000) to persuade Europeans and Americans that it is not a group of religious fanatics who relish suicide bombings and hate Jews.

"We're not a bloodthirsty genocidal power-mad faction of extremely close relatives (if you know what we mean); we only play one on teevee."

The organisation, also known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, has hired a media consultant, Nashat Aqtash, to improve its image at home and abroad because it expects to emerge from next week's Palestinian general election as a major political force, and wants ~~money~~ recognition and ~~money~~ acceptance by the US and EU.

Also a blind eye for the dead rat on the living room rug. The one that's bloating, with maggots.

"Hamas has an image problem. The Israelis were able to create a very bad image of the Palestinians in general and particularly Muslims and Hamas. My contract is to project the right image," said Mr Aqtash, who also teaches media at Birzeit University in Ramallah. "We don't need the international community to accept Hamas ideology, we need it to accept the facts on the ground. We are not killing people because we love to kill. People view Hamas as loving sending people to die. We don't love death, we like life."

The facts on the ground being the subjugated, seething population of Gaza, and bits of dead Jooos decorating the buses in Tel Aviv.

Mr Aqtash, who describes himself as opposed to violence and "believing in the Gandhi route", has advised Hamas leaders to change their image by explaining that they do not hate Israelis because they are Jews. And he is attempting to persuade influential foreigners that Hamas is essentially a peaceful organisation that was forced to fight, but is now committed to pressing its cause through politics, not violence.

"Hamas does not believe in terrorism or killing civilians."

Be careful what you say, Nashat. The Prophet (PBUH) never cowered behind the skirts of a woman like you. He bravely took the fight to his enemies and prevailed every time. Even if his enemy looked a lot like a girl out for a walk with her fiancee. The djinns were all about her, and Mohammed took them all on! It was too bad about the girl, really, but there are always losses in Dar-al-Harb. And Allan acquired one more brave warrior that day.

"But Ariel Sharon pressed buttons to make people angry. Sometimes we are innocent enough to react in a way that the Israelis use the reaction against us," he said.

"Pure as the driven snow, that's Hamas!"

Next week Mr Aqtash says he will address the former US president Jimmy Carter and former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt, and other prominent foreigners monitoring the election.

"You've been a lovely audience, I'll be here all week."

But he admits he and his small team working from an office in Ramallah have their work cut out. Hamas is responsible for scores of suicide bombings, killing and maiming hundreds of civilians (many of them children), although not for yesterday's attack in Tel Aviv.

Polish that halo a liitle more, Nashat.

Hamas's founding charter calls for the destruction of Israel and it wants to impose an Islamic state on all Palestinian territory.

Mr Aqtash, who says he is not a member of Hamas and does not know where it got the money to pay him but frequently refers to the group as "we", says he has told the leadership it has to change its rhetoric. He says Hamas has not helped itself by celebrating suicide bombings; he advises against celebration. And he has told Hamas leaders not to talk about destroying Israel.

"The f'ing infidels are listening, Mahmoud. Keep a lid on it."

"Abdel Aziz Rantisi [the former Hamas leader killed by Israel two years ago] was on television saying things that foreigners cannot accept, like we will remove Israel from the map. He should have talked about Palestinian suffering. He should have said we need this occupation ended. Foreigners will accept this," he said. Mr Aqtash has also advised Hamas leaders to emphasise that they are not anti-semitic or against Israelis because they are Jews. Hamas has taken the message on board. In an interview earlier this week, Muhammad Abu Tir, who is second on the Hamas election list, twice (and unprompted) offered an assurance that he is not a Jew hater. "Loving others is part of our religion. We are not against Jews as Jews, we are against oppression," he said.

Mr Aqtash also told Mr Abu Tir to rid himself of a red beard, coloured by henna, because it makes people laugh.

Drat. He caught that. Nothing sez comedy like the hennaed beards of the Learned Elders of Islamâ¢.

The PR man wriggles away from questions about whether Hamas has more than an image problem when it sends bombers on buses and into cafes. "I'm personally against killing. All civilians should not be killed. Killing Israeli civilians is not accepted by the international community. They think it is a terrorist act," he said.

"Stupid international community. What do they know?"

"But Sharon was responsible for killing civilians too. During this intifada Hamas killed a thousand Israelis, some of them civilians, some of them soldiers. But the Israelis killed 4,000 Palestinians. It's a war. The Israelis use F16s; Hamas uses people. Anyway, Hamas hasn't sent a suicide bomber in a year."

Hamas is also attempting to soften its image at home with the launch of a television station in Gaza that includes a children's show presented by "Uncle Hazim" and men in furry animal suits. The station, named Al Aqsa Television after Islam's third holiest site, says it intends to put across the group's message "but without getting into the tanks, the guns, the killing and the blood". It will instead focus on religious readings, discussion programmes and a talent show.

Mr Aqtash, however, is not entirely confident in his powers of persuasion. "How did I do?" he asked as the interview ended. "Did I make you think differently about Hamas?"

The advice Nashat Aqtash gave to Hamas:

Â· Say you are not against Israelis as Jews

Â· Don't talk about destroying Israel

Â· Do talk about Palestinian suffering

Â· Don't celebrate killing people

Â· Change beard colour (if red)

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