Where is Islamic Jihad's leader while his group is shooting scores of rockets to Israel?
Iran.
Ramadan Shallah was already in Iran discussing ways to strengthen Islamic Jihad's ties with the regime. Interestingly, there were reports before this escalation that Hamas leader Khaled Meshal was snubbed in his attempt to meet Iranian leaders while Shallah was already there and being feted. (The article was in the anti-Hamas Palestine Press Agency, and I cannot find it today.)
From all indications, IDF responses to the rocket attacks have been aimed exclusively at Islamic Jihad, not at Hamas targets. Even so, Hamas leaders have abandoned their headquarters.
But what is remarkable is Hamas' ambivalent response to the Israeli attacks.In Palestine Times, one of their media outlets, they do a "survey" of Gazans' reactions to the Islamic Jihad rocket barrage, and they find that some people think that a military response at this time is unwise! Moreover, at the Qassam Brigades website, a Hamas MP is quoted as saying that a "limited resistance does not mean weakness."
In the past, Hamas and Islamic Jihad worked hard to paper over their differences and when one decided to shoot rockets at Israel the other would join in. This is the first time I have seen such a large split between the two, although no one has started insulting the other one yet. It is also the first time I have ever seen Hamas publicly speaking against "resistance" while Israel is targeting sites in Gaza.
It is clear that Iran is fomenting this split, trying to increase Islamic Jihad's importance in Gaza at the expense of Hamas. It also proves that even those (like the EU) who pretend that Hamas will ever unite with Fatah don't have a plan for how to handle other terror groups in Gaza dedicated to destroying Israel, especially state-backed terror groups like Islamic Jihad.
Three other groups have decided to join with Islamic Jihad, including Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah. The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades announced that they shot 8 rockets towards Israel, and they were joined by the National Resistance Brigades of the DFLP and the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades. Fatah's joining shows yet again that Fatah is not the "moderate" party that Westerners pretend it is. For years, Abbas has refused to dismantle that group, and yet clueless Wetsern diplomats still consider Abbas a moderate.
Finally, all those people who pretend to care about "international law" when discussing Israel never seem to want to apply that standard to Israel's sworn enemies.
Which shows that they never cared about international law to begin with.
