Re: Will Hamas and Jihad do it?
I do not think so.
Hamas will do it if Yasser Arafat falls into the Judeofascists' trap.... This morning I heard a radio newscast reporting that, following the house arrest of Hamas' spiritual leader Yassin, some of his supporters openly threatened to kill Arafat himself if he yields to Israel.
Indeed, Sharon's ploy is all too evident: under pressure from the US, Zinni, even Jordan, Arafat will obligingly clamp down on Hamas and Jihad topsiders... and guess what he'll get in return for his willingness? LOL! Another salvo of laser-guided missiles on Palestinian children --at that point, Arafat will be done for.
Here's a clue:
washingtonpost.com
Excerpt:
A short while later, mosques around Gaza City, whose 500,000 residents make it the largest Palestinian population center in the seaside strip, began calling Hamas supporters onto the streets.
"Attention! Attention!" the mosques blared from their minarets' loudspeakers, usually used for the call to prayer. "To all Hamas members! Go and rescue Sheik Ahmed Yassin. The Hamas movement calls on all its members and supporters and loyalists of Sheik Yassin to go immediately to his house to rescue him from from the Palestinian police."
With that, people took to the streets and converged on Yassin's house.
Arafat has cracked down on Hamas previously, in 1996, when he arrested scores of the group's members. He has even placed Yassin under house arrest once before, after a wave of Hamas attacks on Israel in late 1998.
But Arafat was stronger then, still basking in an afterglow of popularity following the 1993 Oslo peace agreements and his triumphant return to Palestinian territories. Now his Palestinian Authority is scorned as weak and corrupt, and support for Arafat himself has been substantially eroded by 14 months of violence.
The chief beneficiary of the violence has been Hamas, which is widely admired by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza for fighting what they regard as Israel's brutal military occupation. Confronting Hamas directly, and Yassin in particular, is a risky strategy for Arafat.
"Arafat is like a zoo manager who opened all the cages of tigers and lions," said a senior Israeli military official. "And they've begun to kill whoever they meet on the way and now it is his problem to find a way to put all these animals back to their cages."
The Palestinian leader has told reporters this week he was doing his best to round up militants following three Hamas suicide bombings last weekend, plus a shooting attack, that left 26 Israelis dead and dozens wounded. But he said Israeli attacks Monday and Tuesday and the Israeli military stranglehold on Palestinian towns and cities had undercut his attempts to crack down. The Israelis "have to cool down to give me the chance," Arafat told ABC News.
However, Israel's government was disinclined to give Arafat much leeway. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres suggested that Wednesday's letup in airstrikes against Palestinian government and security targets was temporary, and officials said Arafat had been given 12 hours, until Thursday morning, to show he is serious about squashing groups that have carried out terrorist attacks.
Peres also said Israel had submitted to Arafat a list of 36 suspected terrorists.
"You have no time, you have to act now," Peres said he had told the Palestinian leader in a phone call today. "You have lost your credibility."
A spokesman for Sharon said Israel would resume attacking Palestinian targets very soon unless Arafat reined in militant groups. "We stopped making declarations and threats," said the spokesman, Raanan Gissin. "In order for us to stop acting militarily, they know very well what they have to do."
[...]
___________________ |
