West Bank Qassams caught by PA?

Given the PA's track record for the truth, this seems equally likely to be true as it is to be a way to make the PA look like an effective security force against those other terrorists.

From YNet:

Palestinian security forces uncovered two rockets ready to be launched in the town of Beit Jala near Jerusalem. A large amount of explosives were also discovered.

Palestinians news agency Ma'an reported that the Bethlehem commander said the rockets seized were a meter-and-a-half long and carried the words "Allah hu akbar".

Ma'an Arabic adds:

It should be noted that attempts to manufacture home-made missiles is not new to the Bethlehem area, and earlier attempt commander Nasser Saladin Brigades martyr Jabr Mute production of such missiles, but the Israeli army arrested the group that helped him and the then Israeli commando unit shot him dead in an assassination.

It seems the sensitivity of the subject in the area of Beit Jala, near the Aida camp, Bethlehem is because it is near the city of Jerusalem and the Western matters, which would not protect the Knesset (parliament headquarters) only ten kilometers away, and there are places important and sensitive political and Israeli away only several kilometers from Beit Jala and north of the city.

For his part, Abu Abir told Ma'an: that the security organs of power (have the ability) to prevent the plans of the bold resistance in the West Bank and surroundings.

That last sentence make me wonder whether it really happened or whether this was staged. The worst terrorists know that a single rocket towards Jerusalem would not be treated with the same relatively hands-off approach that those aimed at Sderot have. The relative autonomy the PA has in most of the West Bank would be gone.

Rockets are terrorist tools, terror is a political act and decisions to shoot or not shoot rockets must be looked in that context. The PalArabs have already managed to gain a great deal because they know how to use terror to get what they want - the world has rewarded them again and again for their terror acts.

The reason that you no longer see Palestinian Arab airplane hijackings as in the 1970s is because while the initial attacks gained them political points, continued terror against the world became counterproductive. Once they changed to exclusively Israeli targets the world heaved a sigh of relief and decided that sacrificing Israel is not such a bad price to pay to avoid themselves being terrorized, and in a very short time Yasir Arafat addressed the UN. Terror is the Palestinian Arabs' best tool to gain their goal of destroying Israel - but it is not that terror hurts Israel so much as terror keeps pressure on Israel to give up yet more "pieces" of land for "peace."

A rocket from Beit Jala would be counterproductive politically so it is unlikely to happen by an organized terror group. Daily Sderot rockets, on the other hand, have been a goldmine - mostly from the perspective of Arab honor, therefore keeping terrorists in power in Gaza. The Israeli response so far has not been strong enough to change that equation. A credible threat of a permanent return to Gaza would, and so would targeting Hamas leaders after every rocket attack.

See this post from 2005, "Pavlov and the Terrorists."