Palestinian Islamic Jihad

by Alden Oreck

Harakat al-Jihad al-Islami al-Filastini, better known as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), was formed in 1979 by Islamic fundamentalist Fathi Shaqaqi and other radical Palestinian students in Egypt who had split from the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza Strip whom they deemed too moderate. The 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran influenced the group's founder, Shaqaqi, who believed the liberation of Palestine would unite the Arab and Muslim world into a single great Islamic state. Today, PIJ is committed to the creation of an Islamic Palestinian state and the destruction of Israel through a jihad (holy war).

The Egyptian government expelled the PIJ to the Gaza Strip after learning of their close relations with radical Egyptian students who assassinated President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Still, PIJ members remained active in Egypt, attacking a tour bus in Egypt in February 1990 that killed 11 people, including nine Israelis. PIJ agents were arrested in Egypt in September 1991 while attempting to enter the country to conduct terrorism.

The PIJ began its terrorist campaign against Israel in the 1980s. In 1987, prior to the intifada, it carried out several terrorist attacks in the Gaza Strip. In August 1988, the faction`s leaders, Shaqaqi and `Abd al-`Aziz `Odah, were expelled to Lebanon, where Shaqaqi reorganized the faction, maintaining close contacts with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards unit stationed in Lebanon and with Hizballah. Although several other factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad were formed in the 1980s, the main faction remains the group founded by Shaqaqi. After the 1993 Olso Peace Accords between Israeli and the Palestinians, Shaqaqi expanded the political connections of the organization to become a member of the new Syrian influenced Rejection Front.

PIJ and Hamas (The Islamic Resistance Movement), a separate Palestinian terrorist organization, were regarded as rivals in the Gaza Strip until after the foundation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in 1994 when Hamas adopted the strategy suicide terrorist bombings. Since then, there has been some operational cooperation between the two organizations in carrying out attacks like the one in Beit-Lid, in February 1995, where two suicide bombers killed eight Israelis and wounded 50.

When PIJ leader Shaqaqi was killed in October 1995 in Malta, allegedly by Israeli agents, the PIJ position among Palestinian terrorist organizations dipped because his successor, Ramadan Abdallah Muhammad Shalah, who lived in the United States for several years, lacked Shaqaqi's charisma and intellectual and organizational skills. That did not stop PIJ's terror campaign, however, which included the March 1996 suicide bombing of the Dizengoff Center in downtown Tel Aviv, which killed 20 civilians and wounded more than 75, including two Americans.

The group is currently based in Damascus and its financial backing is believed to come from there and Iran. PIJ also has offices in Beirut, Tehran and Khartoum. It has some influence in the Gaza Strip, mainly in the Islamic University, but not in a way that can endanger the dominant position of Hamas as the leading Islamic Palestinian organization. Unlike Hamas, PIJ has no social or political role in the PA.

Aside from Israel, PIJ also considers the United States an enemy because of its support for Israel. The PIJ also opposes moderate Arab governments that it believes have been tainted by Western secularism and has carried out attacks in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.

Since September 2000, PIJ has been responsible for scores of terrorist attacks, including 15 suicide and car bombings, which have claimed the lives of more than 25 Israelis and wounded almost 400. On December 22, 2001, despite a declaration by Hamas to halt suicide bombings inside Israel, in response to a crackdown on militants by Yassir Arafat, PIJ vowed to continue its terror campaign. PIJ's representative in Lebanon, Abu Imad Al Rifai, told Reuters, "Our position is to continue. We have no other choice. We are not willing to compromise."

Pictured above is the emblem of Islamic Jihad. In the center, on a background of the Dome of the Rock, the map of greater Palestine is represented flanked by assault rifles. Above it and between the rifles appears the inscription Allah huAkbar [“Allah is Great,” the famous Islamic battle cry and usually the last words of a suicide bomber]. It is an excellent example of the radical Islamic religious message promulgated by the organization, whose goals are the destruction of the State of Israel (which they refer to as “the full liberation of the Palestinian lands”) by means of an armed and uncompromising jihad (holy war) and the establishment of a religious Islamic Palestinian state in its place.



Jewish Virtual Library

Debunking the 2-State Myth

Counting on Palestinian state to improve our security situation is absolute madness.

by: Yoel Meltzer

One of the assumed benefits of the proposed two-state solution is that the creation of a Palestinian state will finally make the Palestinians fully accountable for their actions. Thus, any acts of aggression from the new entity against Israel will be considered an attack on Israel from a sovereign country rather than from a terrorist organization. Moreover, it is this distinction, so we are told, that will not only allow Israel to forcefully respond to any acts of Palestinian aggression but also do so with the full support and understanding of the international community.

Although such line of reasoning sounds very enticing and has even managed to win over some former skeptics, we shouldn’t buy it. In fact, a quick survey of the last 20 years seems to indicate otherwise.

At the height of the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq launched scud missiles at Israel in an attempt to draw it into the conflict. This was a classic case of a sovereign Arab country attacking Israel with powerfully destructive missiles, aimed at some of its most populous regions. Nonetheless, despite the numerous missiles that landed in Israel, due to various geopolitical considerations and behind-the-door pressure Jerusalem did not respond.

Roughly 10 years later, Israel speedily removed all of its troops from southern Lebanon. At the time we were promised that Israeli positions would be taken over by the South Lebanese Army (SLA) in order to prevent Hezbollah forces from stationing themselves within spitball range of Israel’s northern border. In addition, we were assured by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak that should Hezbollah ever commit an act of aggression against Israel our response would be very painful.

Like usual, Israel fulfilled its side of the agreement while the Arabs failed to uphold their part. As a result, rather than having the SLA parked across the border we received Hezbollah. This change of events afforded Hezbollah the opportunity to closely watch our troop movements, something they quickly cashed in on. After a mere few months of up-close surveillance, Hezbollah men dashed across the border and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers.

Israeli restraint

However, despite our hard-earned justification to retaliate to such an unprovoked act of aggression and even the prime minister's own guarantee to respond with might in such situation, in the end we did very little. Thus, the promises meant nothing and unfortunately the kidnapped soldiers were killed.

Five years after the tragic kidnappings in Lebanon, Israel removed all Jewish presence from Gaza. At the time we were told that the removal of Israeli troops from the Strip would shift the burden of accountability to the Palestinian Authority, thereby forcing it to rein in the various terrorist organizations. This, like every other promised benefit, turned out to be false as attacks against Israel only increased.

While Israel did eventually reenter Gaza at the end of 2008 as part of Operation Cast Lead, this happened only after thousands of missiles were fired at Jewish communities close to the Gaza border. Moreover, the promised admiration of the world we supposedly were to acquire following our unilateral pullout quickly melted away, as many in the international community hypocritically condemned Israel for its actions in Gaza.

Although there were times when Israel responded forcefully to cross-border attacks, such as in the Second Lebanon War, the growing trend through the years has been for a limited Israeli response or total restraint. Moreover, rather than winning the world's approval based upon our polite and considerate behavior, this trend has been accompanied by the growth of an increasingly hostile anti-Israel environment worldwide.

This being the case, why should we believe that things will be different next time? It is far more plausible to assume that acts of aggression emanating from a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria will be met with the usual limited Israeli response. Moreover, even in the rare instance where Israel responds more forcefully, it is safe to assume that the world will quickly condemn the Jewish state regardless of the circumstances.

In light of the above, how on earth can we use an unproven assumption as the basis for severely weakening our national security, something which is sure to happen if a Palestinian state is created in Judea and Samaria? Indeed, it's absolute madness.



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Palestine Betrayed

Palestine Betrayed......The truth about the nakba!

"None of the 170,000–180,000 Arabs fleeing urban centers, and only a handful of the 130,000–160,000 villagers who left their homes, had been forced out by Jews."

Efraim Karsh's new book, "Palestine Betrayed"

Nakba, the Arabic word for "catastrophe," has entered the English language in reference to the Arab–Israeli conflict. As defined by the anti-Israel website The Electronic Intifada, Nakba means "the expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands [of] Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948."

Those who wish Israel to disappear actively promote the Nakba narrative. For example, Nakba Day serves as a mournful Palestinian counterpart to Israel's Independence Day festivities, annually publicizing Israel's alleged sins. So established has this day become that Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations — the very institution that created the State of Israel — has sent his support to "the Palestinian people on Nakba Day." Even Neve Shalom, a Jewish-Palestinian community in Israel claiming to be "engaged in educational work for peace, equality, and understanding between the two peoples," dutifully commemorates Nakba Day.

The Nakba ideology presents Palestinians as victims without choices and therefore without responsibility for the ills that befell them. It blames Israel alone for the Palestinian "re MORE..fugee" problem. This view has an intuitive appeal, for Muslim and Christian Palestinians had long formed a majority on the land that became Israel, whereas most Jews were relative newcomers.

Intuitive sense, however, does not equal historical accuracy. In his new tour de force, Palestine Betrayed, Efraim Karsh of the University of London offers the latter. With his customary in-depth archival research — in this case, relying on masses of recently declassified documents from the period of British rule and of the first Arab–Israeli war, 1917–49 — clear presentation, and meticulous historical sensibility, Karsh argues the opposite case: that Palestinians decided their own destiny and bear near-total responsibility for becoming refugees.

In Karsh's words: "Far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, it was Palestinian Arab leaders who, from the early 1920s onward, and very much against the wishes of their own constituents, launched a relentless campaign to obliterate the Jewish national revival which culminated in the violent attempt to abort the U.N. partition resolution." More broadly, he observes, "there was nothing inevitable about the Palestinian–Jewish confrontation, let alone the Arab–Israeli conflict."

Yet more counter intuitively, Karsh shows that his understanding was the conventional, indeed the undisputed interpretation in the late 1940s. Only with the passage of time did "Palestinians and their Western supporters gradually rewr[i]te their national narrative," thereby making Israel into the unique culprit, the one excoriated in the United Nations, university classrooms, and editorials.

Karsh successfully makes his case by establishing two main points:

(1) the Jewish-Zionist-Israeli side perpetually sought to find a compromise while the Palestinian-Arab-Muslim side rejected nearly all deals; and
(2) Arab intransigence and violence caused the self-inflicted "catastrophe."

The first point is more familiar, especially since the Oslo Accords of 1993, for it remains today's pattern. Karsh demonstrates a consistency of Jewish goodwill and Arab rejectionism going back to the Balfour Declaration and persisting throughout the period of British rule. (To remind, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 expressed London's intention to establish in Palestine a "national home for the Jewish people," and the British conquest of Palestine just 37 days later gave it control of Palestine until 1948.)

In the first years after 1917, Arab reaction was muted, as leaders and masses alike recognized the benefits of the dynamic Zionist enterprise that helped revive a backward, poor, and sparsely populated Palestine. Then emerged, with British facilitation, the noxious figure who would dominate Palestinian politics over the next three decades, Amin al-Husseini. From about 1921 on, Karsh documents, Zionists and Palestinians had many choices to make; while the former invariably opted for compromise, the latter relentlessly decided on extermination.

In various capacities — mufti, head of Islamic and political organizations, Hitler ally, hero of the Arab masses — Husseini drove his constituents to what Karsh calls "a relentless collision course with the Zionist movement." Hating Jews so maniacally that he went on to join the Nazi genocide machine, Husseini refused to accept their presence in any numbers in Palestine, much less any form of Zionist sovereignty.

From the early 1920s, then, one witnessed a pattern still in place and familiar today: Zionist accommodation, "painful concessions," and constructive efforts to bridge differences, met by Palestinian anti-Semitism, rejectionism, and violence.

Complementing this binary dramatis personae, and complicating its stark contrast, stood the generally more accommodating Palestinian masses, the disgracefully anti-Semitic British mandatory authority, a Jordanian king eager to rule the Jews as subjects, feckless Arab state leaders, and an erratic American government.

Despite the radicalization of Palestinian opinion by the mufti and despite the Nazi rise to power, Zionists kept seeking an accommodation. It took some years, but the mufti's zero-sum policy and eliminationism eventually convinced reluctant Labor leaders, including David Ben-Gurion, that good works would not facilitate their dream of acceptance. Still, despite repeated failures, they continued the search for a moderate Arab partner with whom to strike a deal.

In contrast, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the forerunner of today's Likud party, already in 1923 understood that "there is not even the slightest hope of ever obtaining the agreement of the Arabs of the Land of Israel to 'Palestine' becoming a country with a Jewish majority." Yet even he rejected the idea of expelling Arabs and insisted on their full enfranchisement in a future Jewish state.

This dialectic culminated in November 1947, when the United Nations passed a partition plan that nowadays would be termed a two-state solution. In other words, it handed the Palestinians a state on a silver platter. Zionists rejoiced but Palestinian leaders, foremost the malign Husseini, sourly rejected any solution that endorsed Jewish autonomy. They insisted on everything and so got nothing. Had they accepted the U.N. plan, Palestine would be celebrating its 62nd anniversary this May. And there would have been no Nakba.

The most original part of Palestine Betrayed is the half that contains a detailed review of the flight of Muslims and Christians from Palestine in the years 1947–49. Here Karsh's archival research comes into its own, allowing him to present a uniquely rich picture of the specific circumstances of Arab flight. He goes one by one through the various Arab population centers — Qastel, Deir Yassin, Tiberias, Haifa, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Safad — and then takes a close look at the villages.

Israel's war of independence divides into two parts. Ferocious fighting began within hours of the United Nations vote to partition Palestine on Nov. 29, 1947, and lasted till the eve of the British evacuation on May 14, 1948. The international conflict began on May 15 (the day after Israel came into being), when five Arab state armies invaded, with hostilities lasting until January 1949. The first phase consisted largely of guerrilla warfare, the second primarily of conventional warfare. Over half (between 300,000 and 340,000) of the 600,000 Arab refugees fled before the British evacuation, and most of them in the final month.

Palestinians fled in a wide range of circumstances and for varied reasons. Arab commanders ordered noncombatants out of the way of military maneuvers; or they threatened laggards with treatment as traitors if they stayed; or they demanded that villages be evacuated to improve their standing on the battlefield; or they promised a safe return in a matter of days. Some communities preferred to flee rather than to sign a truce with the Zionists; in the words of Jaffa's mayor, "I do not mind destruction of Jaffa if we secure destruction of Tel Aviv." The mufti's agents attacked Jews to provoke hostilities. Families with the means to do so fled danger. When agricultural tenants heard that their landlords would be punished, they worried about being expelled and preempted by abandoning the land. Bitter internecine enmities hobbled planning. Shortages of food and other necessities spread. Services like water-pumping stations were abandoned. Fears spread of Arab gunmen, as did rumors of Zionist atrocities.

In only one case (Lydda) did Israeli troops push Arabs out. The singularity of this event bears emphasis. Karsh explains about the entire first phase of fighting: "None of the 170,000–180,000 Arabs fleeing urban centers, and only a handful of the 130,000–160,000 villagers who left their homes, had been forced out by Jews."

The Palestinian leadership disapproved of a population return, seeing this as implicitly recognizing the nascent State of Israel. The Israelis were at first ready to take back the evacuees but then hardened their position as the war progressed. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion explained their thinking, on June 16, 1948: "This will be a war of life and death and [the evacuees] must not be able to return to the abandoned places. . . . We did not start the war. They made the war. Jaffa waged war on us, Haifa waged war on us, Beisan waged war on us. And I do not want them again to make war."

In sum, Karsh explains, "it was the actions of the Arab leaders that condemned hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to exile."

In this book, Karsh establishes two momentous facts: that Arabs aborted the Palestinian state and that they caused the Nakba. In the process, he confirms his status as the preeminent historian of the modern Middle East writing today, and extends the arguments of three of his earlier books. His magnum opus, Empires of the Sand: The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789-1923 (with Inari Karsh, 1999), argued that Middle Easterners were not, as usually thought, "hapless victims of predatory imperial powers but active participants in the restructuring of their region," a shift with vast political implications. Palestine Betrayed applies that book's thesis to the Arab–Israeli conflict, depriving Palestinians of excuses and victimhood, showing that they actively, if mistakenly, chose their destiny.

In Fabricating Israeli History: The "New Historians" (1997), Karsh exposed the shoddy work, even the fraudulence, of the school of Israeli historians who blame the 1948–49 Palestinian refugee problem on the Jewish state. Palestine Betrayed offers the flip side; if the earlier book refuted mistakes, this one establishes truths. Finally, in Islamic Imperialism: A History (2006), he showed the expansionist core of the Islamic faith in action over the centuries; here he explores that drive in small-bore detail among the Palestinians, connecting the supremacist Islamic mentality with an unwillingness to make practical concessions to Jewish sovereignty.

Palestine Betrayed re-frames today's Arab–Israeli debate by putting it into its proper historical context. Proving that for 90 years the Palestinian political elite has opted to reject "the Jewish national revival and [insisted on] the need for its violent destruction," Karsh correctly concludes that the conflict will end only when the Palestinians give up on their "genocidal hopes."



This article is originally appear at May 17, 2010, Daniel Pipes.Org

Mr. Pipes is a columnist for National Review Online, director of the Middle East Forum, and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Daniel Pipes

The Iron Dome Mentality

Instead of fighting terror through offensives, State of Israel increasingly fortifying itself
by: Hagai Segal

History has a thin sense of humor. Last Thursday, where the Iron Dome system passed its first test, was also the day where a Kornet anti-tank rocket hit a civilian bus around here for the first time. Seemingly, it was a random coincidence of two combat-related events, yet it provided us with some food for thought: By the time we solved one fortification problem, assuming we indeed resolved it, a new fortification problem emerged.

Will we now start to fortify every school bus near Gaza? The Kornet’s range is some five kilometers, so this is not a problem that can be resolved by slightly modifying bus routes near the border. If another missile or two hit a school bus, heaven forbid, parents in the western Negev may raise a hue and cry similar in scope to the one that demanded the Iron Dome until authorities caved in.

The authorities always cave in. Only a month ago, the State objected to the deployment of an Iron Dome battery near Beersheba, and now officials are already preparing to position a battery in every municipal region south of Palmahim. It’s hard to see the State rejecting a firm parental demand for the fortification of school buses against missiles.

In this case there is even no need to develop a new system; we have one ready: Windbreaker. RAFAEL engineers developed it in order to protect tanks, and there is no problem to modify it for civilian protection purposes. It will cost us a fortune, about NIS 1 million per Windbreaker (roughly $300,000), yet the Iron Dome case proves that money is no object under such circumstances.

A solution for every citizen

If the residents yell loud enough and our political leadership in any case prefers to fortify instead of taking over Gaza, the Treasury eventually signs the check. Hence, soon we shall be reaching the day where the State equips every southern bus with the Windbreaker system, just as in the past it fortified Judea and Samaria buses against stones and later against gunfire.

The terrorists will then convene an emergency session with all their engineers and come up with a more advanced system to kill Jews. Next, RAFAEL’s engineers will again be urged to develop a winning Israeli response to the advanced Palestinian tactic, and so on and so forth.

The State, which once upon a time promised a solution for every settler, will one day have to fortify every citizen. Perhaps they will implant some kind of genius chip into our ears that will warn us of approaching stabbing attacks and explosive devices. It will cost us a fortune, but we are willing to do anything here to fight Hamas.

In the past, we argued that the best defense is offence. Today, we put our trust in Iron Domes. Indeed, while the enemy charges, the people of Israel go into the trenches.

Iron Dome in action

Ynet News

Gaza Rockets Suffering Quality Control Problems

The GANSO website that I mentioned earlier has bi-weekly reports of various dangerous things that happened in Gaza.

One interesting thing that they mention in these reports are the number of rockets and mortars that either explode prematurely or that fall short in Gaza.

According to their figures, over the past month, Gaza terror groups fired 19 rockets (that these NGO's call "homemade") and 14 mortars towards Israel. Out of those, 8 rockets and 8 mortars fell short or exploded prematurely.

That's a 42% failure rate for rockets, and 57% failure rate for mortars.

No wonder Hamas and their NGO partners want to import more raw materials into Gaza. The quality of weapon components they are getting from the tunnels is abysmal!

"Hush! You're putting yourself at risk."

AND,

NGO's admit how they help Hamas

GANSO is the Gaza NGO Safety Office, run by CARE International, to help NGOs in Gaza stay safe.

Their website describes incidents that jeopardize the safety of internationals in Gaza, both from IDF incursions and from militant actions (like mortars or rockets that fall short.)

Last February, there was an (apparently Islamist) attack on a Red Cross convoy in Gaza, and GANSO wrote a special report about the ramifications.

This report describes, incidentally, how much the NGOs in Gaza help Hamas, and it makes clear that this is considered a desirable political goal.

Here's how NGOs in Gaza think - in their own words:

The presence of the international community in the Gaza Strip is vital to the stability of the de-facto government; over 60% of the Gazan population is food insecure, according to UN sources, and unemployment surpasses 50%; thus, a majority of the population is either partially or entirely dependent on humanitarian aid. The assistance provided by the international community, particularly by UNRWA and WFP. eases the burden on the de-facto government of managing the needs of its impoverished and dispossessed population, enabling the de-facto government to achieve a modicum of legitimacy. Thus, even the partial reduction or suspension of humanitarian aid activities in the Gaza Strip as a consequence of a disintegrating internal security environment would have devastating consequences for both the population and the de-facto government's legitimacy.

The presence of the international community in the Gaza Strip is also a major political benefit to the de-facto government. The willingness of international governmental and non-governmental organizations to send diplomatic delegations and expatriate staff into the Gaza Strip demonstrates a level of trust in the security infrastructure of the de-facto authority.

Moreover, the presence of expatriate staff in Gaza implies that expatriates do not feel threatened by the de-facto government itself a boon to the credibility of the Hamas movement in the international arena, in which the movement has for years been labeled as a terrorist organizationh by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.

The skepticism of regarding Hamas as a terror organization is evident in this report, as well as the pride in how NGOs prop up Hamas as a political force.

In other words, NGOs in Gaza are acting at odds with EU and US policies by knowingly and eagerly propping up Hamas' Islamist rule in Gaza.



Elder Of Ziyon

Getting the Story Wrong

Western media paint distorted picture of Mideast realities irrelevant to real conflict

by Anav Silverman

It becomes more apparent that with each passing year, the Arab-Israeli conflict seems to get a new facelift in the media headlines. Many notable news sources seek to demonize Israel in the most "objective" manner possible, concentrating always on angles irrelevant to the real conflict.

Subsequently, when foreign journalists come to Israel with their notebooks, pens and preconceived notions, there is very little chance that their audience back home will have the opportunity to understand the conflict in an unbiased way. So much misinformation and shoddy reporting place Israel and her citizens in a very vulnerable position.

On the day that the settlement freeze expired, CNN featured the following headline in big bold lettering on its news site: “Palestinians: We fear Violent Israeli Settlers.” The article focused on one Palestinian family, using them as the only example to support the story’s sensational title. What the article did not point out was that that for many Palestinians, settlement construction is a major part of their livelihood and that many are currently out of work due to the freeze.

Even more sadly, stories highlighting friendly relations that do exist between Israeli settlers and Palestinians rarely appear in western media networks. The first West Bank team in Israel’s amateur American football league, which includes Israeli settlers and Palestinians, has largely been ignored by most mainstream news outlets including CNN.

This sort of misrepresentation of the conflict is further strengthened with such articles, as “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace” published in Times on September 2. The author, Karl Vicks, writes that “The truth is that Israelis are no longer preoccupied (with peace,)” rather they are busy “making money and enjoying the rays of late summer,” Vicks asserts. Photos of Israelis smoking hookah on the Ashdod beach appear alongside the article.

Vicks bases his argument primarily on two Israeli real-estate agents, Eli and Heli from Ashdod, whose viewpoints he uses to represent the opinions of close to six million other Israeli Jews.

But media networks aren’t the only ones assigning wrongful and misdirected blame as to who is at fault for Mideast tensions; government officials are also echoing their sentiments. Former US President Bill Clinton recently seized the opportunity to also assign blame on Israelis, but to a more specific sector-- the Russian immigrant population in Israel. Clinton recently told US press that Israeli Russians “are the hardest-core people against the division of the land,” and “present a staggering problem” to peace.

In truth, the staggering problems facing the Middle East peace process have nothing to do with Israeli Russians, nor with the settler community.

Threats are very real
The obstacles have all to do with the rising nuclear power of Iran and the Republic’s fervent financial and military support for terrorist organizations in Gaza and Lebanon as well as in other areas across the world.

Without the financial support of Iran, Hamas’ network could not exist and keep Gaza under its hold. With a $540 million budget for 2010, of which Iran provides the largest share, Hamas’ connection with Ahmadinejad’s government is rooted not only in money but in guns as well.

On the military front, Iran provides Hamas fighters with top military training and instruction from the commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC.) The Islamic Republic also engages in delivering weapons in single components to the Sinai, paying the Sinai Bedouins for transferring the weapons through the Gaza tunnels.

The results of the Iran-Hamas connection were revealed this past summer when Egyptian police took control of nine weapons caches across hideouts in the Sinai Peninsula. The weapons caches, which were hidden in Rafah City and the port city of al-Arish, were about to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip.

Nearly 200 anti-aircraft missiles, 90 artillery shells, 200 bullets of varying sizes and anti-tank landmines, machine guns and ammunitions were among the weapons found according to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency. Egyptian security forces also seized 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of TNT explosives. The large number of missiles indicates that Palestinian terror groups in Gaza may possess a higher number of projectiles than originally assumed.

Both Iran and Syria continue to be the chief sources for weapons bound for the Gaza Strip, as Hamas builds a stockpile of rockets targeting close to one million Israelis in range.

But readers of the Newsweek article (June 1), “Gaza is about Butter, Not Guns,” by Dan Ephron, would have gained a completely different understanding of this situation. Ephron highlights what he believes to be the economic benefits that Israel elicits from the blockade, while completely downplaying any security threats that Gaza terror groups pose to Israelis.

And the threats are very real. This past September alone, the number of Gaza rocket attacks on southern Israel sharply increased, with close to 20 Qassams and mortar shells fired at residential areas in the western Negev and Ashkelon. One rocket struck between two day-care centers on a southern Israeli kibbutz in the morning of September 12, right before children were scheduled to arrive. No one was injured although one nursery sustained damages.

As articles blaming Israel for failed Mideast peace continue to stream into the headlines, it is clear that Mideastern reality will continue to play out as usual - with Iran as an increasingly mobilizing force. With statements like that of Ahmed Jaabari, the leader of Hamas’ military wing, who threatened a wave of violence intended to derail the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks just two weeks ago, Israelis have no choice but to prepare themselves for war. For Israel, terror and war are always a few steps behind peace, whether mainstream media chooses to document this angle or not.



Anav Silverman, a native of Maine, writes from Jerusalem, Israel where she is an educator at Hebrew University's Secondary School of Education. She also works as an international correspondent at Sderot Media Center.

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