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Wednesday, April 25, 2007
PLO CHIEF FEARS WAR AFTER BOMBING ISRAEL

PLO CHIEF FEARS WAR AFTER BOMBING ISRAEL

Palestinians 'celebrate' Israeli Independence Day with Rockets-on Israel

By Michael Widlanski 25 April 2007

Palestinian terrorists helped Israelis celebrate their Independence Day
Tuesday with an usually massive series of rocket and mortar attacks along
Israel's southern border, and Palestinian officials tried to blame Israel,
though some warned of a danger of full-scale war.

More than 80 Qassam rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel along
a front from the Egyptian border to Israeli port city of Ashkelon in an
apparent attempt to abduct another Israeli soldier as a way of forcing
Israel to release convicted Palestinian murderers.

"I take this opportunity to appeal to Israel to show the necessary
self-control so that this will not happen again," said Mahmoud Abbas, the
Palestinian Authority leader who likes to travel abroad and made his
comments in a press conference in Rome after meeting the Pope Benendict and
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi.

It was a sign of Abbas's concern that his Voice of Palestine radio
station repeatedly broadcast calls Wednesday morning (April 25) for
Palestinians to view peace with Israel as something positive, but it did not
publish any condemnation of the rocket attacks carried out by the Hamas
organization of PA Prime Minister Ismail Hanniyeh.

"The violation of the truce is an exceptional event that will not last,"
said Abbas, whose previous predictions of cease fire observance and
prisoner release have all proven unfounded, and he has shown no ability and
not much desire to disarm Hamas.

"The ceasefire has been over for some time," announced Abu Zubeida, the
spokesman for the Hamas Islamic terror organization, and he explained that
his organization was behind the more than 80 mortar and rocket impact points
stretching from Sufa Junction on the Egyptian border to the Israeli port
city of Ashkelon, south of Tel Aviv.

Hamas religious spokesman Sheikh Ismail Radwan called for more attacks
on Israel in a message that was broadcast in Hamas's own media and then
repeated on VOP radio.

Abu Zubeida, speaking with a green mask on his face, told a press
conference that Hamas wanted to force Israel to release hundreds of
convicted Palestinian terrorists.

This Hamas position has also been supported by the Fatah organization of
Abbas, who is the head of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the PLO.

Hamas officials said they were responding to Israel's killing Palestinian
gunmen and explosives experts in the last few days-a series of successful
anti-terror operations that has been bemoaned and condemned by Abbas and his
media.

"Nine of our martyrs have risen to the heavens," declared VOP radio two
days ago, referring to Israeli interdiction of a Hamas rocket squad firing
from Gaza, as well as several armed members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in
the West Bank.

Through its press statements and propaganda messages, the Palestinian
Authority has been cheerleading the increasing terror attacks of the last
three weeks in Gaza and the West Bank, and this same approach was evident
after Tuesday's attack.

"This is not a Palestinian problem but an Israeli problem because of the
general Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people," declared PA
Prime Minister Ismail Hanniyeh, who is also a leader of Hamas.

Official Palestinian broadcast media have sharply increased anti-Israeli
propaganda in recent days, including explicit and implicit calls for suicide
attacks on Israeli civilians and kidnappings of Israeli soldiers.

"Oh, Lord, martyrdom is [being done] for you," crooned a singer, while
pictures of prominent Palestinian women suicide bombers, clad in white,
floated beatifically across the screen.

Programs on Abbas's official PBC telelvison channel and Hamas's
Al-Qassam satellite channel have championed "'amaliyyat"-"operations" in
Arabic-to grab Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips.

Music videos, film montages and mosque speeches have stressed the
message, too, but Abbas's toughest criticism of rocket attacks has not been
beamed to his own people, but reserved for foreign press conferences.
Even in the West Bank, where Abbas is stronger than in Gaza, his largely
ineffective approach to stopping violence has been evident.

A Palestinian truck bomb laden with more than 100 kilograms of explosives
blew up accidentally in the West Bank town of Qalqilya early this month,
after the suicide bomber drove into Tel Aviv and returned for no apparent
reason, according to Israeli security officials.

Israeli forces subsequently arrested 19 members of the Hamas movement
that was allegedly behind the planned attack.

Israeli Army intelligence reported that during the second half of March
there was an increase in the number of rockets fired at Israeli settlements
in the western Negev (22 confirmed rocket strikes), following a relative
reduction in attacks of the first two weeks of March (12 confirmed rocket
impact points).

=========
Dr. Michael Widlanski is a specialist in Arab politics, terror and
communication who has served as a special advisor to Israeli delegations to
peace talks in 1991-1992 and as Strategic Affairs Advisor to the Ministry of
Public Security, editing secret PLO Archives captured in Jerusalem.

Dr. Michael Widlanski
30 Midbar Sinai Street,
Jerusalem 97805
Local Phone: 02-5322-868/ 5322-582
Local Fax. 02-5322-657 Mobile: 050-214-3191
International phone-011-972-2-5322-868/ 011-972-2-5322-582
International mobile 011-972-50-214-3191
NY Mobile 917-532-1218
E-mail: mikewid@netvision.net.il

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