Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

A new venue for my writing

I have started to write original material for the NewsRealBlog site, in a new pro-Israel section they created called "Right To Exist."

My first post there is called "Palestine Papers Show One Way the Anti-Israel Media Sets the Agenda."

Feel free to check it out!

Meanwhile....Iran hangs two protesters

From Naharnet:

Iran hanged on Monday two activists it said were members of an exiled group opposed to the 2009 presidential poll result, despite U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging that they be freed.

The executions were the first reported hangings of protesters who staged demonstrations against the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a poll they said was rigged.

The Tehran prosecutor's office named the pair as Jafar Kazemi and Mohammad Ali Hajaghaei. It did not say where the two men were hanged.

"Two elements of the Monafeghin (hypocrites) cell named Jafar Kazemi... and Mohammad Ali Hajaghaei... were executed early today," the prosecutor's office said on its website, referring to the Iranian exiled opposition group, People's Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI).

Mid-day links

Raymond Ibrahim on how the media downplays Christian persecution (h/t Daled Amos)

Czech PM tells JPost that Israel's outreach in Europe is "miserable."

A YNet op-ed shows, again, the anti-Israel bias of Human Rights Watch.

Major protests in Egypt today.

Archaeologists finally completed a dig of an ancient tunnel that goes alongside the Temple Mount and to the City of David. it was originally a drainage channel. The tunnel will be open to tourists.

Al Jazeera's show trial (Toameh)

Hamas logic: Palileaks proves Arafat was assassinated

A Hamas leader, Salah al-Bardawil, told a Jordanian newspaper that the "Palestine Papers" prove that Arafat was assassinated.

The weird logic goes like this: Since Arafat refused to negotiate over Jerusalem, and since the documents show that the PLO was negotiating Jerusalem, it proves that Arafat was killed so that others who were more flexible could take his place.

Doesn't it seem that the Arab mind is hardwired to find conspiracy theories?

Burning an Israeli flag with "Al Jazeera" written on it

Here's a nice glimpse into how Arab leaders think.

Egyptian newspaper al-Mesryoon is being quoted as saying that Abbas asked Egypt to intervene with Qatar in order to stop what he considered an attempt to tarnish the image of the Palestinian Authority before Arab public opinion, despite the fact that he has briefed all Arab countries on all developments in negotiations with the Israelis at all stages.

Sources reported that Egypt expressed support for the position of the Palestinian Authority in seeking ways to contain the crisis.

An Egyptian official, Rakha Ahmed Hassan, told the newspaper that Arab parties, including Egypt, might intervene in order to prevent the escalation of tension between Qatar and the PA.

The implication, of course, is that there isn't even a pretext of freedom of the press in the Arab world. It is simply common knowledge that a government can dictate what any newspaper may or may not publish.

But it's a cultural thing. To criticize it betrays Western imperialistic thinking about non-Arab concepts such as "freedom."

Erekat: "If memos are true, why is there no agreement?"

Saeb Erekat gave a rambling, sputtering statement slamming Al Jazeera for publishing the so-called "Palestine Papers" that show an inside look at the negotiations between the PLO and Israel.

Besides his conspiracy theories about Al Jazeera, he rhetorically asked more than once, "If our positions are as they claim, why didn't Israel agree and why we did we not reach an agreement with them?" In other words, Erekat is admitting that Israel would have taken the offers seriously, as opposed to how The Guardian is spinning it!

Most of his rant is aimed at Al Jazeera and the vast conspiracy that is behind the channel.

Some highlights:

Al Jazeera's shame is unprecedented in Arab history....

The Palestinian Authority cannot solve the refugee issue; it is up to the refugee to decide to return to the territories of 1948, or the State of Palestine, or to accept compensation. This is the official Palestinian position, we do not agree with Israel on anything concerning this.

Al Jazeera is part of a terribly serious criminal act, planning to destabilize the Palestinian people, whether in Jordan or Palestine or Lebanon or Saudi Arabia...such incitement is serious.

What is going on is the process of punishment for our steadfastness and our positions, especially after we went to the UN Security Council and our refusal to negotiate with Israel without a halt to settlement activity, which has always been what we insisted and we will continue to uphold our rights as approved by international law.

Everything published so far does not exceed two or three pages that were cherry-picked with malicious intent to destroy the position of the steadfast Palestinian negotiators on our inalienable rights according to international law.

[Al Jazeera's] aim is to topple the Palestinian Authority because we refuse to return to negotiations and refuse to continue the negotiations while there is continued settlement [construction] and we insist on going to the UN Security Council and we wants the world to recognize the state of Palestine.

Al-Jazeera planned this...The selectivity and distortion, alteration, and forgery is apparent in every aspect.

We will reveal all our documents and challenge them to publish them.

A group of lawyers is now considering how to deal with the theft of these documents.

The media machine (referring to Al Jazeera) and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to tarnish our reputation.

If our positions are as they claim, why didn't Israel agree and why we did we not reach an agreement with them?

Al Jazeera calls for a... revolution against the Palestinian Authority to bring down the Palestinian political system.

This region is moving toward a more dangerous situation .. not only in Palestine...there are plans in Washington and elsewhere for this region and this tool (Al Jazeera) has a very large role to play in this direction.

These documents are incitement to murder and assassination, this may lead us to go to what is more than an ordinary court.

What is being done by Al Jazeera is done on behalf of Benjamin Netanyahu and Lieberman and Washington as a nasty incitement....

This incitement comes from the administration of Al Jazeera and those who stand behind them. We have lots and lots of documents that will show who is behind this channel .. these documents are not forged, but the truth .. [showing] what is going on between them and the Americans and Israelis.

Et tu, YNet?

I've been showing how Al Jazeera and the Guardian are purposefully misinterpreting the leaked "Palestine Papers" to make Israel look as bad as possible.

Even though they link to the actual memos that prove their distortions, their false spin is what gets into print. And most people dont bother to check the original.

Apparently, "most people" even includes Israeli reporters!

From YNet:

Leaked confidential documents published by Al-Jazeera and the Guardian reveal that during her tenure as Israeli foreign minister in Ehud Olmert's government, Tzipi Livni pressed for the "transfer" of some of Israel's own Arab citizens into a future Palestinian state as part of a land-swap deal that would exchange Palestinian villages now in Israel for Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Here is the talkback I gave to YNet:

If you actually read the memos, you will see that Livni was asking that villages that straddle the Green Line be unified, one way or the other. She didn't want another Ghajar.

The anti-Israel Guardian and Al Jazeera said she meant "transfer." And now a YNet reporter evidently believed them and didn't bother reading the memo itself and do real reporting.

This could have been a story of anti-Israel distortion in the left-wing media. Instead, it adds to the distortion.

It is very disheartening that an Israeli publication would parrot the lies of those newspapers rather than simply read the memos and see the truth.

Hamas imam: "Please, Allah, kill all the Jews"

Richard Millett watched a new two-hour anti-Israel documentary claiming that Israel targeted children in Gaza. The film is now being shown on college campuses. It included this lovely clip:

Allah is the greatest.

He who thanks Allah will be rewarded.
Oh Allah, loosen your power and strength on the Jews. (Amen.)
Please Allah, kill them all…
And don’t leave any of them alive. (Amen.)
Oh Allah, with your great power. Allah!
We are asking you with your infinite power, dear Allah. Allah!
Please dear Allah, take revenge for our martyrs’ blood. Allah!
Please Allah, get rid of the Jews.
Bring them down.
They are not as powerful as you.
Please Allah, make the earth shake and destroy the pillars of their civilisation.
Please Allah, cast fear and terror into their hearts.
Oh Allah disperse them so they become lost once again.
Oh Allah, show us a sign.
Oh Allah, surprise them in a way they don’t expect.
Oh Allah, cast fear and terror into their hearts.

Wikileaks: Israeli plans to get restitution from Poland, Arab countries

A Wikileaks cable from 2005 discusses German reparations to Israel for the Holocaust:

A GOI working group charged with developing a five-year plan on Holocaust-era reparations, pensions and restitution is considering a recommendation that the GOI ask Germany for about $500 million -- possibly in the form of new German-made submarines -- in compensation for what the GOI says is that portion of the 1953 German-Israeli reparations agreement that had been attributed to East Germany, but never paid.

The end of the cable is intriguing:

Finally, xxxxxxxxxxxx noted that Poland would likely be the next area of focus of the GOI restitution efforts, and that the GOI would work in close coordination with the World
Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) and the other main survivor and restitution bodies in Israel and abroad. All of the above are in addition to the GOI Ministerial Committee,s continuing research into expanding pursuit of restitution claims for Jewish property and assets from Arab lands.

Peru recognizes "Palestine" - but no mention of borders

Peru has just announced it recognizes "Palestine," but, like Chile, it refused to say that it recognizes the 1949 armistice lines as borders of the state.

After the first set of South American countries made that nonsensical claim, it is significant that the last two steered away from that issue.

UN Sec. General condemns Richard Falk for "truther" statements

From UN Watch:

In reply to UN Watch’s protest, which led to this NY Daily News editorial, we just received the following letter from the U.N., in which — for the first time ever – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemns U.N. Palestine expert Richard Falk for his denial of the 9/11 terror attacks:
UNITED NATIONS   NATIONS UNIES
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY GENERAL
24 January 2011
Dear Mr. Neuer,
In response to your letter to the Secretary-General dated 20 January 2011 on the subject of a recent blog post by Mr. Richard Falk, the Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967:
You are aware, no doubt, that the Special Rapporteurs and other independent experts who represent the Human Rights Council are appointed by the Council, not by the Secretary-General. Their continuance in their jobs is thus for the Council to decide.
That said, I feel very strongly that these representatives, however eminent they may be in their fields, have a clear responsibility to uphold the high standards of the United Nations and the Council.
You specifically refer to Mr. Falk’s allegations of an “apparent cover-up” related to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. The Secretary-General condemns these remarks. He has repeatedly stated his view that any such suggestion is preposterous — and an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in the attack.
                                                                     Yours sincerely,
                                                                     Vijay Nambiar
                                                                     Chef de Cabinet

Did Livni say she is against int'l law? Another AJ lie.

Al Jazeera writes:

It was business as usual at the United Nations in New York on November 13, 2007 when yet another discussion took place in the General Assembly about Israel's dealings with the Palestinians.

The UN Special Observer for Palestine cited from a report in which Israel was portrayed as an "extraordinary violator of human rights" and called upon the international community to hold Israel accountable.

On the same day, halfway around the world, Tzipi Livni, the then-Israeli foreign minister, told Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and Ahmed Qurei, the former PA prime minister, that she is "against international law".

In one of the most candid statements that Livni made during the meeting about the framework of the negotiations at the upcoming Annapolis summit, she told the Palestinian negotiators what she really thought of the subject:

Livni: I was the Minister of Justice. I am a lawyer… But I am against law - international law in particular. Law in general.

Given the imbalance of power between the occupied and the occupier, international law and concepts of justice are the last refuges for Palestinians. However, in that November 2007 meeting Livni made clear she values neither.

Livni, who is often perceived as more "moderate" than the current Israeli government, was by that time the preferred interlocutor for the Palestinians. But during the negotiations in the following months, Livni’s propositions clearly reflected her stated disregard for concepts of justice.

Did Livni really say that?

Let's look at the memo, which was entirely about what issues should be included in a joint statement at the Annapolis summit (and remember - this is the Palestinian Arab version of the minutes of the meeting):

Livni opens the meeting: I would like to suggest that we will continue according to what I tried to at the beginning of the session yesterday, but unfortunately while doing so we ended up in some sort of a discussion. At the end of today’s meeting the minimum that is required is some sense of the six or seven points that you stated that need to be in the document. Just [a] list [of] what is agreed or not agreed. Put aside the core issues for now, just have a list of agreed and not agreed, in points. If we have this agreement… let’s not include the areas of disagreement now.

...

Ahmed Qurei: We can finish tonight the subjects – the preamble. What are the components. Not the language or the nice words etc. We should focus on three things in the preamble. One is the terms of reference [“TOR”]. The three core elements in addition to the [nice] language. One is the TOR. Second is the 2 state solution. Third is the Roadmap [“RM”]. Is there anything to be added to the preamble?

Livni: No – it’s ok. And what we called before some good words. The basic idea of where we are going. End of conflict, [the goal is] to find a way to do so… something like this.

So if you want to summarize the positions, this is something we did in our former conversation. When it comes to the TOR we want reference to 242, 338, the RM and other agreements agreed between the two sides. You added, and this is the problem, the API [Arab Peace Initiative], international law, 1515, 1397, and 194. And we wanted the three principles of the Quartet.

[more discussion of what should be included in the Terms of Reference and Preamble for the document]

Qurei: International law?

Livni: NO. I was the Minister of Justice. I am a lawyer…But I am against law -- international law in particular. Law in general.

If we want to make the agreement smaller, can we just drop some of these issues? Like international law, this will make the agreements easier.

When Livni says "I am against law" she is saying she does not want any reference to legal issues, or international law, in the joint statement. Just like the Arab side did not want the three principles of the Quartet.

That's it. She is not saying she is against international law, the notes are just a shorthand for her saying she doesn't want it mentioned in this largely ceremonial statement.

Al Jazeera is, once again, lying. And they assume that their readers are too stupid to look at the actual paper.

Unfortunately, for 99% of their readers - they are right.

More Guardian lies about "Palestine Papers"

The Guardian writes:

Palestinian negotiators accept Jewish state, papers reveal

But did they?

Read on:

Palestinian negotiators privately accepted Israel's demand that it define itself as a Jewish state, the leaked papers reveal, while Israeli leaders pressed for the highly controversial transfer of some of their own Arab citizens into a future Palestinian state as part of a land-swap deal.

[B]ehind closed doors in November 2007, Erekat told Tzipi Livni, the then Israeli foreign minister and now opposition leader: "If you want to call your state the Jewish state of Israel you can call it what you want," comparing it to Iran and Saudi Arabia's definition of themselves as Islamic or Arab.

Erekat's quote continues on in the actual memo, "This is their issue, not mine."

The Guardian is purposefully mischaracterizing what Erekat said. He's even said the exact same thing in public! Israel, he says, can define itself as it wishes, but the Palestinian Arabs will not accept it.

So he was not in any way accepting Israel as a Jewish state, unlike how the Guardian phrases it.

The Guardian also tries to spin Livni as wanting to "transfer" Arabs:

The-then Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, repeatedly pressed in 2007-08 for the "transfer" of some of Israel's own Arab citizens into a future Palestinian state as part of a land-swap deal that would exchange Palestinian villages now in Israel for Jewish settlements in the West Bank

What did the Israelis really say?

Tzipi Livni: We have this problem with Raja in Lebanon. Terje Larsen put the blue line to cut the village in two. [This needs to be addressed.] We decided not to cut the village. It was a mistake. The problem now – those living on Lebanese soil are Israeli citizens.

Udi Dekel: Barka, Barta il Sharqiya, Barta il [Garbiya], Betil, Beit Safafa…

Ahmed Qurei: This will be difficult. All Arabs in Israel will be against us.

Tal Becker: We will need to address it some how. Divided. All Palestinian. All Israeli.

Tzipi Livni: We will need to address it one way or another.

Ahmed Qurei: Of course – it is in borders and territory.

Livni was saying that it is unacceptable to have villages divided arbitrarily, and what a nightmare it is for Ghajar in Lebanon. She, and Tal Becker, are saying that the villages should be in one state or another, not to continue to be divided. She is not advocating "transfer" in the way that the term is used, as ethnic cleansing. Since there would be land swaps anyway, this was an idea she floated, and that the PLO rejected out of hand. (Which indicates how much they want "Palestine" to be the state of "Palestinians.")

Al Jazeera is even worse.

From reading the memos it is clear that both sides were just floating ideas, looking for reactions, trying to get an idea of how the other side thinks about a variety of issues. The talks are very informal. To characterize them on either side as saying that "one side offered this" and "one side rejected that" is ridiculous; the memos reveal (from the Palestinian Arab perspective) the mindset of the players and which "red lines"are pinker than others, but one cannot conclude from them that anything was really up for grabs.

Arab protests intensify. Must be Israel's fault.

Over the weekend, there were more violent protests in Algeria (where a second person died from putting himself on fire,) Yemen, Jordan, (and Albania.)

Today there were protests in Tunisia and Lebanon.

And Egypt is bracing for a major protest tomorrow.

Those damn Israelis!

UPDATE: No, I have no idea why HuffPo chose this old post of mine to link to. I have stuff about the protests from, like today.

Palestinian Arabs really mad at Al Jazeera for "Palestine Papers"

The fallout from Palileaks continues....

Besides Yasser Abed Rabbo's attack on the Emir of Qatar this morning for supposedly being behind the "Palestine Papers," we have...

A mob - no doubt "spontaneous" - attacked the Al Jazeera offices in the West Bank. They broke in and vandalized the office.

Hani al-Qawasmi of Fatah said that Al Jazeera was working to create discord among Palestinian Arabs. He questioned the timing of the news, at the same time that the PLO is trying to get a Security Council resolution to condemn Israeli communities across the Green Line. He then went on a general rant about Al Jazeera's supposed Zionist bias, by interviewing Israelis, and saying that the channel was dedicated to "destroying the social fabric of the Arab nation."

PLO executive committee member Ahmed Qurei called for an emergency meeting of the movement to condemn the "organized and directed campaign" of Al Jazeera against the Palestinian Arab people. He reiterated that the network is only serving Israeli interests.

A spokesman for the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades also slammed Al Jazeera, noting the draft Security Council resolution and saying that just when the Palestinian Arabs had the Us and Israel on the ropes, along comes the "Palestine papers" to royally screw everything up.

Schadenfreude!

The Guardian, the PalArabs, Israel and the truth

The divergence between how the Guardian is spinning the Palestine Papers release and how the actual leaders of the Palestinian Arabs are reacting teaches us volumes.

So while the Guardian decries supposed Palestinian Arab weakness in recognizing what every sane person does, that Israel will never give up the major Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem...

Palestinian concessions roll on. The Israeli settlements around East Jerusalem? Sold, two years ago...

..the Palestinian Arabs are decrying the idea that they would even consider compromise. Erekat:

In the past few hours, a number of reports have surfaced regarding our positions in our negotiations with Israel, many of which have misrepresented our positions, taking statements and facts out of context.

Other allegations circulated in the media have been patently false. But any accurate representation of our positions will show that we have consistently stood by our people’s basic rights and international legal principles.

Indeed, our position has been the same for the past 19 years of negotiations: We seek to establish a sovereign and independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and to reach a just solution to the refugee issue based on their international legal rights, including those set out in UNGA 194.

Even though many ideas have been discussed by the two sides as part of the normal negotiations process, including some we could never agree to, we have consistently said any proposed agreement would have to gain popular support through a national referendum.

No agreement will be signed without the approval of the Palestinian people.

And Mahmoud Abbas is even saying that any hint of flexibility in the leaked documents actually reflect Israeli positions, not PalArab positions!

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Monday that leaked Palestinian negotiation documents deliberately confuse the positions of either side, according to Reuters.

"There was an intentional mix-up. I have seen them [Al-Jazeera] present things as Palestinian but in fact they were Israeli... This is therefore intentional," Abbas said in Cairo.

PLO executive committee member Yasser Abed Rabbo, who was in the negotiations, echoes his pride at Palestinian Arab intransigence:

We did not agree to any proposal regarding east Jerusalem. The only position to which we adhere is Abbas' position that east Jerusalem, according to the 67 borders, belongs to us.

So we are left with two possibilities. Either the Palestinian Arabs were the flexible parties and Israel the intransigent ones, which means that Abbas, Abed Rabbo and Erekat are lying now, or Israel was always the more flexible party and the Guardian is lying now.

We also see from the Guardian's screed that the newspaper is not interested in a real peace, but in forcing Israel to make all the concessions and rewarding the Palestinian Arabs for their decades of terror and refusal to accept Israel as a reality.

Of course, while some details about what Tzipi Livni offered might raise an eyebrow or two, everything Israel has said about the negotiations has been very consistent through the years, and consistent with what the leaks say. The Israeli leadership has repeated the mantra often enough: "We will have to make painful compromises for peace."

Those words about compromise were never uttered by any Palestinian Arab leader or negotiator, because the entire idea of compromise is foreign to them. Especially when they have cheerleaders like the Guardian ready to support their intransigence (and insult the very idea of compromise.) Behind closed doors, perhaps, they float an idea or two, but they can rest assured that their people who they themselves have indoctrinated to hate will reject any plans they pretended to accept to make the US happy.

Israel's position towards compromise has been vindicated. The Abbas regime's intransigence has been verified. And the only side that has nothing to hide is Israel.

Not that the Guardian would ever admit that.

Elliott Abrams on "Palestine Papers"

It is always nice to see some analysis from someone who was there....

First, some of the papers seem inaccurate to me, going solely by memory. They put into people’s mouths words I do not recall them saying in meetings I attended. This is not shocking: written records of meetings can be inaccurate even when there’s a serious effort at accuracy. Moreover, Palestinian officials reviewing the documents after the meetings may have “improved” them, putting words in their own mouths (rather in the way our own members of Congress can “revise and extend” their remarks to improve them) or with less friendly objectives putting words in the mouths of others. Or, I may have missed parts of meetings or simply not be recalling accurately. But I would not take every one of these documents as necessarily 100% accurate.

Second, these negotiations over possible compromises will surprise no American and no Israeli. In the United States and in Israel there have been twenty years of discussions of the compromises needed for a final status agreement. This has not been the case among Palestinians, where the debate has been far less free. There are still constant calls among Palestinians and in Arab capitals for a complete return to the 1967 “borders,” which are in fact the 1949 armistice lines and to which there will never be a return. Palestinians may be surprised to learn that their negotiators understood this quite well and that the negotiations were actually about how far from the 1949 lines a final deal might go.

Third, what some newspapers are calling “offers” or “agreements” made in the 2007-2008 negotiations are far less than that–are in fact most often preliminary probes or efforts to smoke out the other side. The Israelis and Palestinians never reached an agreement and in many areas, as the papers so far published show, were very far apart. It is often said that “everyone knows what a final status agreement will look like” but these documents powerfully undermine that conclusion; a good example here is the Palestinian refusal to accept that Maale Adumim, a “settlement” with a population just short of 40,000 that is actually a suburb of Jerusalem, will remain part of Israel. It may be true that the range of options is limited, but the negotiators never concluded on agreement and the proposal made by then-prime minister Olmert in 2008 was not accepted.

The release of these “Palestine Papers” may be healthy. Anything that helps Palestinian public opinion move toward greater realism about the compromises needed for peace is useful. The impact on specific individuals is a different matter, one to be played out in the coming days.

Israeli diplomat strike over

From YNet:

After four weeks of disruptions, strikes and protests – the Foreign Ministry employees committee has put an end to the diplomats' strike.

Chairman of the Professional Union Department in the Histadrut Avi Nisankorn said: "The Foreign Ministry employees stand at the forefront of the international stage and as representatives of Israel carrying out essential work, they are entitled to fair and suitable salary provisions.

"Among other things, the agreement creates incentives for employees to take on positions in difficult countries and to serve with excellence. This is an important step in strengthening and promoting the Foreign Service in Israel."

The employees are set to resume work immediately. The visit of Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to go ahead as planned in spite of previous concerns.

This is the best news of the day.

While it is easy to deride Israel's outreach efforts, the Wikileaks cables tells us that there is a lot that diplomats do behind the scenes. They are the eyes and ears of the nation abroad and they are relied upon to make the correct recommendations and speak with the right people at the right times.

It may not be coincidental that it was during this strike that many of the South American countries recognized "Palestine." This is something that the Foreign Ministry might have been able to forestall or at limit damage from.

Welcome back.

Egyptian man confesses to role in church bombings

From Al Arabiya:

Egypt’s Interior Ministry announced Sunday that an Egyptian man helped the Palestinian Army of Islam group in the bombing of Alexandria church on New Year’s Eve.

According to a statement issued by the Egyptian Interior Ministry during the ceremony to mark Police Day, the man the group recruited is called Ahmed Lofti Ibrahim, born in 1984 in Alexandria and a graduate of the Faculty of Arts, Library Science Department.
Lotfi, who was arrested and is currently in detention, admitted in writing that he sneaked in to the Gaza Strip in 2008 after subscribing to the ideologies of al-Qaeda and deciding to take part in Jihad, or holy war, for which the group calls.

During his stay in Gaza, Ibrahim got in touch with the Palestinian Army of Islam and its members convinced him that targeting Christian and Jewish places of worship is part of the Jihad he is seeking to take part in.

After returning to Egypt, the statement added, Ibrahim stayed in contact with members of the Palestinian Army of Islam and in 2010, they asked him to watch several churches and synagogues in preparation for carrying out terrorist attacks.

In October, Ibrahim suggested to members of the group two churches next to where he lives, one of them was the Two Saints Church that was targeted on New Year’s Eve. He also suggested a synagogue, also in Alexandria and took several pictures of the Two Saints Church, which he sent to the group.

According to the statement, the group asked Ibrahim to find accommodation for members of the group who would come to Alexandria to carry out the operation and to provide them with a car.

Ibrahim, the statement said, was the one who suggested that the operation be suicidal. Then he left the country to undergo a surgery in his ear.

In December, the group contacted Ibrahim and told him the militants who were to carry out the operation were ready. The head of operations in the Palestinian Army of Islam later called him and congratulated him after the bombing took place and thanked him for the role he played.

I find this part interesting:

Hamas denied the presence of any link between al-Qaeda and resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip and called upon Egypt to provide proof of the involvement of the Palestinian Army of Islam in the Alexandria church bombing.

Hamas spokesman Taher al-Nounou told Reuters earlier that al-Qaeda has no operatives in the Gaza Strip and that all Palestinian groups only direct their attacks against Israel.

The Palestinian Army of Islam also issued a statement denying the group’s involvement in the bombing and its spokesman Abu Muthana accused the Mossad of planning the attack in a statement to AFP.

I don't think that anyone is saying that the Palestinian Army of Islam directly reports to Osama Bin laden, just that they subscribe to the same jihadist philosophy as Al Qaeda.

So why is Hamas so adamant to insist that a group, supposedly not associated with Hamas, is not aligned with Al Qaeda?

The reason can be found in the other part of Hamas' statement: "all Palestinian groups only direct their attacks against Israel." If Egypt considers Gaza a source of terror (which, of course, it already did, blaming Gaza groups for the rockets in Aqaba and other attacks) then Hamas' problems are doubled. They need to maintain relatively friendly relations with Egypt, the ability for their members to travel there, and the ability to smuggle in goods and weapons while maintaining deniability. Hamas certainly does not want the Rafah border crossing to be hostile.

But Hamas does have close ties to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which would love to see a Tunisia-type uprising in Egypt. In fact, the Hamas takeover of Gaza gave the Brotherhood hope for something similar in Egypt. The Egyptian leadership is, of course, quite sensitive to that possibility.

This being Al Arabiya, of course the idea that this is all an Israeli plot cannot be dismissed:

According to Dr. Samir Ghattas, expert on al-Qaeda and its affiliated groups, the Interior Ministry statement clarifies that the involvement the Palestinian Army of Islam is a fact and argued that the group has a presence in Egypt as well as other countries.

“The fact that the group recruited someone from Egypt means that it managed to infiltrate the country and form terrorist cells there,” he said. “The minister said Egyptian authorities have proof of that and we will know about this proof within a few days.”

Ghattas added that the group carried out this operation for other regional powers like Iran, Hamas or perhaps Israel.

“The Palestinian Army of Islam is just a tool in the hands of these powers.”