Israel Update For April 2006

Adding weight to the Hamas government spokesman's officially authorized, if absurd, statement, several other Hamas officials echoed his distorted contentions in the wake of the Tel Aviv attack. "We think that this operation is a direct result of the policy of the occupation and the brutal agression and siege committed against our people," said Khaled Abu Helal, spokesman for the new Hamas-led PA Interior Ministry which controls the Oslo-sanctioned PA security forces. New PA Interrior Minister Sa'ed Siam had already stated upon taking his oath of office two weeks before that PA security forces would not attempt to thwart terror assaults upon Israeli civilians. "We will not put our sons in prison for political membership or resisting occupation," he said, despite the fact that cracking down on Palestinian terrorist groups was a major component of the 2003 Road Map peace plan, which was officially accepted and endorsed by PA leaders and the Palestinian legislature.

Moments after the powerful Tel Aviv explosion was reported, Moussa Marzouk, a Hamas leader living abroad, told the Arab satellite Al-Jazeera television news station that, "The Israeli side must feel what the Palestinian feels, and the Palestinian defends himself as much as he can." Again, how sending an obviously indocrinated young Palestinian man to indiscrimately slaughter civilian Israeli and foreign restaurant patrons, transforming some Israeli children into orphans, bolsters "Palestinian defenses" was hardly clarified.

Even the spokesman for the so-called "moderate" Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh refused to renounce the Tel Aviv attack, terming it "a result of the continuing Israeli occupation."

Israeli officials were at least relieved to hear overall Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas denounce the attack, even if rather feebly and indirectly. He himself refused to issue a verbal statement, but did ask one of his senior aids, former Oslo peace negotiator Saeb Erekat, to release a public condemnation of the suicide outrage. Erekat mouthed the standard post-attack verbiage, noting that homicide bombings against civilian targets mainly result in "harming Palestinian interests."

Israeli officials were comforted by the fact that American and European officials upbraided the new Hamas PA administration for attempting to justify the Tel Aviv attack. The White House spokesman called it "a despicable act of terror for which there is no excuse or justification."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack asked all foreign governments who have maintained public contacts with Hamas-mainly Russia-to use those connections "to urge the group to abide by the formula outlined by the Quartet of Middle East peace brokers three months ago: to renounce violence, to recognize Israel and to abide by the Palestinian Authority's previous international commitments." Kremlin leaders earlier admitted that they had tried, and failed, to pursuade jihad-obsessed Hamas leaders to alter their radical practices and goals.

Gathering War Clouds

Israeli officials are increasingly worried over growing signs that a new full-scale Middle East war may be drawing near, instigated by the Muslim fundamentalist country of Iran with backing from Syria, the burgeoning Lebanese Hizbullah militia, the Al Qaida international terrorist network, and the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups. Such a conflict, they warn, could plunge the entire region into utter chaos, possibly resulting in the overthrow of pro-West regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. More immediately, most regional oil supplies to the world would probably be quickly cut off at the outbreak of such a war-an action that Iran has repeatedly threatened to take in recent weeks, launching small submarines that can lay mines in the gulf outlet. Such a conflict would probably also spark a severe international economic crisis that could end up pitting Russia and China (an increasingly close ally of the Iranian regime, whose oil is essential to the dazzling Chinese economy) against the United States and the European Union.

During a United Nations debate which began just hours after the Tel Aviv attack, Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman said the new Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, backed by Syria and Iran, had issued a "declaration of war" against Israel. He warned that "a dark cloud is looming above our region, and it is metastasizing as a result of the statements and actions by leaders of Iran, Syria and the newly elected government of the Palestinian Authority." Gillerman went on to urge his fellow UN ambassadors to "listen carefully and take at face value these recent statements, which are clearly declarations of war."

Israeli analysts said Ambassador Gillerman was especially referring to recent hostile statements by Iran's extremist Shiite Islamic leaders, especially radical President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He told a mid-April "Conference on Palestine" in Tehran that his regime would insure that Israel is quickly annihilated in the near future, alluding to the use of nuclear weapons to accomplish that horrendous goal. He said the Jewish State would meet its doom during one single "storm" that would swiftly strike it. This came after another speech in which he pledged full support for a renewed Palestinian attrition war, saying such terrorist assaults would set the stage for Israel's final destruction.

During a meeting at the conference with overall Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, Ahmadinejad pledged to send 50 million dollars of immediate aid to shore up the crumbling PA. He urged other Muslim governments to contribute as well in order to "support the Palestinian government as it works to liberate Jerusalem." It was the first time that Iran has offered open funding to the cash-strapped PA, which has witnessed its foreign US, EU, Canadian and other tax-based donations dry up in the wake of the Hamas takeover. Israeli leaders are also continuing to withhold around $55 million in taxes and customs payments that are collected on behalf of the PA each month (the money has been placed in an interest bearing account in hopes that Hamas will not be long in running the PA).

One day after the Tehran conference ended, the small US-allied Gulf state of Qatar announced that it would also send $50 million of emergency aid to shore up the Hamas-run PA, which some analysts said was probably "protection money" that Qatari leaders hope might help pacify growing Al Qaida-fanned Islamic fundamentalist sentiments in their own land. This came as the Baathist Assad regime in Damascus pledged to open bank accounts to accept public donations for the Palestinian people.

Media reports said earlier pledges of financial support from most Arab League member states have mostly not been forthcoming, probably because regional Arab dictatorships do not really wish to bolster a radical Muslim fundamentalist government that was freely elected into office by Palestinian voters. Meanwhile officials in Russia-busy restoring its once solid ties in the Arab world-announced that they would send an unspecified amount of emergency aid to the PA. Several days later, the Kremlin added to growing Israeli anxieties about Russia's ultimate ambitions by announcing the sale of 29 mobile air defense missiles to Iran, which could be used to knock down Israeli or American aircraft attempting to strike at the country's burgeoning nuclear program.

Israeli analysts say a new Mideast conflict could be sparked off by growing chaos and poverty inside the Palestinian zones, which would then be highlighted by Iran and others as an excuse to ratchet up assaults upon Israel. As a result of foreign aid donations drying up in recent weeks, the PA is already unable to pay monthly salaries to over 140,000 PA employees, nearly half of them "security" personnel serving in the regular police forces or in one of several undercover agencies set up by the late Yasser Arafat. The lack of PA paychecks, which feed nearly one in three Palestinian families, led to increasingly violent demonstrations during April. The largest, in the Gaza Strip town of Khan Yunis, saw dozens of masked PA policemen briefly seizing a government building on April 15, demanding immediate payment of their overdue salaries.