Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, November 18, 2004

The moral sickness of the world

Melanie Phillips

The degradation and corruption of British and western society, not to mention the United Nations, are now on sickening display for all with eyes to see from the disgusting response to the death of Arafat. This man, the godfather of modern terrorism, who caused the deaths of thousands of souls, who preached death and destruction towards the Jews, who terrorised and swindled the Palestinian Arabs he purported to lead and kept them trapped in penury, servitude and squalour, is being feted in death as a world statesman. The Jerusalem Post reports that the UN lowered its flag to half-mast, while UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was 'deeply moved' by the news, according to a UN statement, and he 'conveyed his condolences to Suha Arafat and the Palestinian people'.

'President Arafat will always be remembered for having led the Palestinians, back in 1988, to accept the principle of peaceful coexistence between Israel and a future Palestinian state," the UN statement said. "It is tragic that he did not live to see it
fulfilled.'

'Peaceful coexistence'? From the man who spearheaded barbaric acts of mass murder against the Israelis until the end? 'Tragic' that he did not live to see a Palestinian state, when Arafat was the man who turned it down in 2000? What kind of madness is this?

French President Chirac was as usual genuflecting before terror:

'French President Jacques Chirac visited the Percy military hospital to bid a final farewell to Arafat, whose body was to be flown to Cairo later in the day."I came to bow before president Yasser Arafat and pay him a final homage," he said after the 25-minute visit, pledging France would continue to work for Middle East peace.'

While Nelson Mandela showed his true colours as an enemy of decency:

'Yasser Arafat was one of the outstanding freedom fighters of this generation, one who gave his entire life to the cause of the Palestinian people,' said former South African president Nelson Mandela in a statement.

And then let us not forget our own pygmy Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, who on the Today programme (8.10 am) yesterday shockingly and unbelievably called 'President' Arafat a 'towering figure', said it was difficult to imagine the Middle East without him and announced that he would be representing the Britsh government at his funeral. Since when did the British government feel the need to represent itself at the funeral of a mass murderer? How can Tony Blair pose as a noble defender of civilised values against terror when his government honours in this way one of the world's principal terrorists?

On National Review Online, Tom Gross expresses revulsion at the moral corruption of such responses:

'Yet until the very end, some prominent Western journalists never stopped heaping praise on him, or covering up for his countless crimes and misdeeds. It didn't matter how many Jews, Arabs, and others died on his orders, or how many times he let down his own people, or stole from them. For these journalists, as well as for many European governments, he remained a worthy Nobel peace-prize winner and the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people. To judge by some of the reporting as he lay on his deathbed in Paris — the hushed tone of the television newsreaders, the flattering touched-up portrait photos on the cover of the London Times — Arafat was a figure who deserved to be deeply revered, a kind of ailing pope. There was little mention of the fact that he played a central role in the growth of modern terrorism, and continued to instigate it until the end. That his hijacking of airplanes inspired al Qaeda, that he ruined the modern Olympics by gunning down athletes, that he had a wheelchair-bound American pensioner shot and thrown into the Mediterranean, or that the PLO's massacre of 21 young Israeli children in their school pre-dated Beslan.'

The reaction of the free world to Arafat's death, along with the opprobium heaped daily upon his victims in Israel, illustrates the decadence that now rewards evil and punishes those whom it terrorises. It is a horrifying indication of a world that has simply lost its fundamental understanding of right and wrong. All who value life, liberty and justice should take careful note and shudder at this moral -- and mortal -- sickness. This is the way a civilisation dies.

Israel Navy acquires three new fast-class ships

The Israel Navy has commissioned three Israeli-made Super Dvora Mk-III fast patrol ships in a generational leap for its protection of the coast.

The 27-meter-long craft boast a top speed of 50 knots, making them the fastest interdiction ships in the navy's fleets. They are to replace the venerable Dabur patrol craft that have been in service for 30 years.

The Super Dvora Mk-IIIs are manufactured by Israel Aircraft Industries' Ramta Division in Beersheba.

NATO invites Israel to joint military, anti-terror exercises

BRUSSELS - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has suggested that the Israel Defense Forces, for the first time, take part in multinational military exercises and participate in anti-terror activities such as patrols in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
NATO is also considering sending forces to the Gaza Strip after Israel implements the disengagement plan, if Israel and the Palestinian Authority reach an agreement on the withdrawal and ask for NATO help.

A military summit was to be held in Brussels on Wednesday, with the participation of the chiefs of staff of 26 NATO members and countries that have ties with the organization. For the first time, Israel will send a senior IDF representative to the summit: operations directorate chief Major General Yisrael Ziv, who was sent at the last minute in place of Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Moshe Ya'alon.

NATO plans to upgrade what it calls the 'Mediterranean dialogue' it is conducting with Israel and six Muslim nations: Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauretania. This means that policy discussions will be conducted by leaders of a higher rank, and that the level of joint military operations will be raised through coordinated military exercises, the war on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, and joint planning for civilian disaster readiness.

The IDF's first-ever role in NATO military exercises is part of the organization's decision to invite the armies of the 'Mediterranean dialogue' countries to take part in the exercises.

Seven exercises were proposed to the IDF, including training that will take place in Ukraine in June. NATO sources said experience has taught that it is worthwhile to start with sending officers from countries new to alliance activities to view multinational operations as a way of learning the methods.

Diplomatic, not just military, dialogue is also on the agenda. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was invited to participate with his colleagues from the other 'dialogue' nations, in a meeting with the NATO foreign ministers council which will meet in Brussels next month.

"Syria responsible for deaths of Americans in Iraq"

For more than a year, Washington has been pressing Syria to seal its border with Iraq. Two months ago, senior American officials delivered that message to President Bashar Assad in Damascus and expressed concern over Syria's longtime support of anti-Israeli terrorist groups. William Burns, a State Department official who was accompanied by Peter Rodman of the Defense Department later said that Assad was told that 'Syria should not be used as a platform to undermine Iraqi stability.' In an interview, a senior Defense Department official complained that 'elements in the Syrian' government 'are actively colluding with our enemies.' He says that 'extremists in Iraq are using Syria as a place to organize and to get support and to flow back and forth across the border, and we believe this is tolerated by the Syrian government. . . . This means they share responsibility for the killing of Americans, and this has to stop.'

Creating a state the moral way

....We must no longer put up with the notion - prevalent not only in the Third World but also, unfortunately, in European countries - that the weak and occupied are not subject to any moral restrictions. The Jewish people and the State of Israel possess the utmost moral justification for such a demand: It is doubtful whether in the course of human history there has been another people like the Jewish people in the 20th century for whom achieving sovereignty was not just a matter of national honor and identity, but an existential question.

From a moral standpoint, the Jewish people's struggle for independence could have justified more far-reaching means than those employed by any other people. Despite that, most Jews chose to focus their efforts on constructive building of a nation and its defense, and the pre-state organizations that subscribed to 'armed struggle' (Etzel and Lehi) limited their terror to attacking British soldiers and institutions.

The only period in which the Etzel deviated from that rule was in the waning days of the 1930s 'Arab revolt,' when revenge attacks were launched against Arab civilians following attacks on Jews. Not only was that a strictly reactive policy, but those attacks were condemned by the vast majority of the Jewish public, and the Etzel itself ultimately desisted its attacks after a brief period.

Israel is fully within its moral rights to demand that the Palestinians restrict the methods of their struggle and to insist that the nations of the world address that demand with the Palestinians. Certainly, Israel should require the international community to accept its right to fight terrorism forcefully in line with the world's legitimate demand that Israel stop ruling over millions of Palestinians.

Egyptian columnists did not mourn Arafat (MEMRI)

'I Do Not Care at All Whether He Remains Unconscious'

Anwar Wagdi, a columnist for the Egyptian government weekly Akhbar Al-Youm, wrote on November 6, 2004:

"I do not know what will become of the Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, and I do not care at all whether he remains unconscious in the recovery room of a hospital in Paris or whether he suddenly awakens, dons his military uniform, and boards the plane to return to Ramallah, with a broad grin on his face and his two famous fingers reaching the skies in [his] traditional sign of victory, a victory that never was throughout the long decades that have gone by…

"My lack of interest in Arafat's fate does not stem from a lack of humanity toward a poor, sick person, who is suffering the agony of dying, but [stems from the fact] that I have not forgotten, and will not forget, as long as I live, how Arafat jumped for joy, dancing, singing, and praising [the killers] as soon as he learned of the death of the late Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat on October 6, 1981.

"The picture of Yasser Arafat exchanging congratulations with those surrounding him on the occasion of the death of the 'traitor' and the 'agent' – as they had the audacity to describe the Egyptian president … prevents me from expressing solidarity with Abu Ammar [i.e. Yasser Arafat], whatever his fate may be." [1]

'We in Egypt will Never Forget how Yasser Arafat Broadcast the Song 'Rejoice My Heart' in the [West] Bank and the [Gaza] Strip when President Al-Sadat was Assassinated'

In a similar vein, columnist and former editor Anis Mansour wrote on November 10, 2004 in the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram:

"Life is in the hands of Allah, O Abu Ammar. and one must not gloat over a death. [However,] we in Egypt will never forget how Yasser Arafat broadcast the song 'Rejoice My Heart' in the [West] Bank and the [Gaza] Strip when President Al-Sadat was assassinated, [nor will we forget] the exclamations of joy regarding 'the fall of the Zionist traitor, agent, criminal, and exterminator Anwar Al-Sadat!'

"What has passed is dead. And the dead has already paid his debt and must not be beaten. Yasser Arafat has left the Palestinian people facing a difficult choice and a test. This opportunity must not be missed. The Palestinian people must prove to the world that it can have one stand and one leadership in order to renew the struggle in a different form…

"In the event that the Palestinians are divided in their opinions regarding who should be their leader and in the event that they direct their guns toward themselves and there is a civil war – they will give Israel, the U.S., and the entire world a strong justification to cease all negotiations, because there is no one [Palestinian leader] with whom an understanding can be reached, but [instead there are] many.

"If the absence of such a person continues for a long time, Israel will shelve the road map plan and there will be no map and no road, but anarchy

in Palestine, and that will constitute a danger to Israel's security. [In such an event,] there will be no escape, and the U.N., the U.S., the European Community, and the Arab League will publish a resolution concerning Palestine, and in the future there will be those who [talk] about the need to occupy Palestine or make it a protectorate.

"In order to avoid such a thing, the Palestinian people must quickly choose a wise leadership – otherwise, there will be thousands of bad scenarios that will take us back for another century." [2]

Saudis threaten Britain to stop buying arms if princes are "embarrassed" by investigation

BRITAIN’S defence industry could lose billions of pounds worth of work if the Saudi royal family is embarrassed by a Serious Fraud Office investigation into an alleged “slush fund”, write Dominic O’Connell and Paul Durman.

The Saudi authorities have warned the government that British companies will receive no further contracts from the Gulf state if any member of the royal family is embarrassed by the investigation into alleged accounting irregularities in contracts between BAE Systems, Britain’s largest defence contractor, and two travel agency firms.

BAE Systems is alleged to have footed £17m of expenses run up by Prince Turki bin Nasser, the Saudi minister responsible for negotiating arms purchases from Britain, including the cost of private jets and paying for grand suites in luxury hotels.

Documents seized by Ministry of Defence police suggest that the “slush fund” totalled £60m.

Vigilante justice from the Arafat Brigades

Now, all we need is another vigilante group who will execute people in vigilante groups, and the problems will solve themselves! - EoZ

Militants threaten to hang PA men suspected of corruption : "
By Arnon Regular, Haaretz Correspondent, and Haaretz Service

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades groups in the northern West Bank threatened Tuesday to establish 'revolutionary courts' in order to try Palestinian Authority figures and Fatah officials who served under Yasser Arafat and are suspected of corruption.
They threatened to take the law into their own hands and alluded to the public hanging of officials found guilty in their courts.

The announcement by the group, Fatah's military wing, included the names of senior PA figures and those who had held senior positions in the past who were allegedly involved in corrupted dealings while the late Palestinian leader was in power.

'We are presenting you with our demands and hope that you will take them seriously. We are expecting substantive and quick results within one month. If this does not happen, the Brigades will use their rifles to put an end to all expressions of corruption. They will take the law into their own hands and will establish revolutionary public courts and hanging scaffolds in city squares,' the open letter read.

The announcement, headed by a demand to reveal the causes of Arafat's death, was written as an open letter to PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, to Chairman of the Palestinian National Council Salim Al-Za'anun and interim PA Chairman Rouhi Fattouh.

No thanks, we'd rather kill Jews

Islamic militant groups behind many suicide bombings dismissed on Tuesday a call from interim Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to halt attacks in the run-up to a Jan. 9 election to replace Yasser Arafat.

Abbas, who is trying to work out a deal with rival Palestinian groups on a cease-fire and possible power-sharing, resisted a call by the groups for a share of power despite their planned boycott of the Jan. 9 election.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not accept the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. They refuse to take part in governments formed as a result of agreements with Israel and say they will not participate in the election.

However, the two movements, responsible for hundreds of deadly attacks against Israelis in four years of violence, are demanding a leadership role outside the electoral process. They want a 'unified leadership' that would exert influence on the Palestinian government.

Religious violence in Netherlands alarms Germany

BERLIN - There is growing alarm in Germany over the torching of mosques, churches and schools in the Netherlands following the brutal killing of Islam-critical film director Theo van Gogh.

With 3.4 million Muslims comprising 4 percent of Germany's population, the question was put this way by a banner headline in the conservative Bild newspaper: 'Is the hate going to come here?' asked the biggest selling tabloid.

The Berliner Zeitung, a left-leaning paper in the German capital where about 200,000 mainly Turkish Muslims live, claims to know the answer: 'The feelings of hated against the majority Christian society are growing.'
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So far there has not been a high profile killing in Germany to match the stabbing and shooting of van Gogh. But a series of attacks on Jews in Berlin by Arab youths have sharply raised concerns.

Germany's tough-minded interior minister, Otto Schily, spoke at the weekend of 'a danger' to the country despite successes in integrating the majority of immigrants.

Schily drew headlines earlier this year with a harsh warning to Islamic fundamentalists: 'If you love death so much, then it can be yours.'

German opposition conservatives are demanding a ban on preaching in mosques in any language other than German.

Calls for such a move were fuelled by a dramatic TV film secretly made last week in a Berlin mosque.

'These Germans, these atheists, these Europeans don't shave under their arms and their sweat collects under their hair with a revolting smell and they stink,' said the preacher at the Mevlana Mosque in Berlin's Kreuzberg district, in the film made by Germany's ZDF public TV, adding: 'Hell lives for the infidels! Down with all democracies and all democrats!'

There are also demands for loosening German laws to make it easier to expel foreign extremists after years of wrangles to win approval for deportation of radical Turkish Islamist, Metin Kaplan, the self- styled 'Caliph of Cologne'.

Udo Ulfkotte, a German journalist who has received death threats since writing a critical book on Islam titled 'The War in our Cities,' underlines that many of the group responsible for the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US had lived in Germany.

Asked about van Gogh's killing, Ulfkotte said: 'The spark could jump over here at any time. We just need a provocation like in Holland. Islamists in Germany approved of (van Gogh's) murder and many of them actually cheered it.' "

Israel easing up during Pal transition

The IDF has reduced its activities in the territories to a minimum and is limiting its actions to thwarting "ticking bombs" since Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat flew to France for medical treatment on October 29, a senior government source said Monday.

He was responding to questions as to whether Israel would reciprocate to the announcement that Islamic Jihad and the Aksa Martyrs Brigade would halt all attacks in Israel until the PA's elections on January 9.

"We are not getting involved in this," he said. "What counts are results, not declarations."

He said Israel has already reduced military activity to a minimum, and has "eased up" on targeted assassinations. "The standing orders that have been in effect since Arafat went to France are not to escalate matters and not to create friction. These orders still apply, although we will take selective actions against 'ticking bombs,' " he said.

"Ticking bombs" are terrorists on their way to carrying out attacks.

The reduction in military action is one of the gestures the government has quietly taken over the last few weeks to try to help the emerging PA leadership, the official said. Other gestures include the decision to let Arafat fly to France and the agreement to let him be buried in Ramallah.

Likewise, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told visiting US Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) on Monday that if a new PA leadership emerges that will fight terrorism, then "we will be willing to coordinate a number of different matters with it, especially security and economic matters related to the disengagement plan. This is good for Israel, and good for the Palestinians."

At the same time, Sharon told McConnell – the majority whip who is here as a guest of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to receive an honorary doctorate at the Weizmann Institute of Science – that "Israel will in parallel continue building the security fence."

Canadians call on Canada to stop funding UNRWA because of links to terror

New Report Links UNRWA to Hamas Terrorism,
CCD Calls on Paul Martin to stop funding UNRWA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

15 November 2004, 09:30 AM EST, Toronto, ON –

The Canadian Coalition for Democracies today released a new report UNRWA: Links to terrorism (http://canadiancoalition.com/unrwa/UNRWA_TerrorReport.html). The report is written by Arlene Kushner of the Centre for Near East Policy Research (Natick MA and Jerusalem) and presents evidence linking UNRWA to Hamas terrorism against Israelis.

“The findings in this report are troubling,” said Alastair Gordon, Director of Communication, Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD). “It leaves little doubt that members of the terrorist group Hamas are working for UNRWA and using funds and materiel from foreign donors, including Canada, for terror against Israelis.”

The report notes that UNRWA’s camps were “riddled with small-arms factories, explosives laboratories, and suicide-bombing cells, as well as Kassam-2 rocket manufacturing plants.” It goes on to quote Alan Baker, Chief Counsel of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and new Israeli Ambassador to Canada saying “Bombing-making indoctrination, recruiting, and dispatching of suicide bombers are all centered in the camps.”

“Given the details of this report, and the fact that funding Hamas is a crime in Canada, CCD is calling on the government to deny all funding to UNRWA until we can guarantee that our tax dollars are not being used for incitement and terror against Israelis. Canada should take the lead among donor nations to demand accountability from UNRWA, and to assure that 100% of funding is used for humanitarian purposes,” said Gordon.

“Should the government accept the findings of this report and the evidence linking UNRWA to Hamas terrorism, it will be incumbent upon them to immediately cease funding UNRWA. Canada must send a strong message to the UN stating its displeasure with the abuse of Canadian tax dollars, and apologize to the people of Israel who have suffered as a result of funding Hamas terror.”

The pope's disgraceful tribute to Arafat (Shmuley Boteach)

The pope's disgraceful tribute to Arafat
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

From the way world leaders reacted to the death of Yasser Arafat, you could be forgiven if you had mistakenly believed that Mother Theresa had died. Kofi Annan, a man whose diplomatic career has been dedicated to friendship with tyrants and contempt for their victims, declared himself "deeply moved" by Arafat's death and ordered the U.N. flag flown at half-mast. This is not all that surprising given that Annan is the same man who overruled U.N. Gen. Romeo Dallaire in April 1994 and ordered him not to use his U.N. forces to disarm the Hutus and prevent them from hacking to death 800,000 Tutsis. Kofi Annan is undeniably one of the most corrupt (he is currently blocking all U.S. Senate efforts to investigate the U.N.-Iraq oil-for-food rip-off) and immoral men alive, and his leadership of the U.N. exposes it for the farce it has tragically become.

Then there was French President Jacques Chirac whose stomach-turning pronouncement on the death of the godfather of all modern terror – whom Chriac praised in death as a man of "courage and conviction" – was that he was all choked up and could barely speak.

"It is with emotion that I have learnt of the death of President Yasser Arafat." Of course, one wonders if Chirac was incapacitated by his devastation at Arafat's death or from ordering his troops to fire on innocent civilians in the Ivory Coast this week after unilaterally deciding, without any U.N. approval, to destroy the tiny country's air force. But then, the French were the ones who decided to collaborate with Hitler in deporting their Jews to concentration camps, so not too much decency should be expected from that quarter either.

Of course, the United States continues to be embarrassed by Jimmy Carter, a man who has devoted his entire career to protecting tyrants, from Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il of North Korea, to Fidel Castro of Cuba. The great humanitarian Carter extended his infinite affection to Arafat at his demise by saying that Arafat had provided "indispensable leadership to a revolutionary movement" and has been "a powerful human symbol and forceful advocate" who united Palestinians in their pursuit of a homeland. I would reserve comment on Carter's silly statement other than to acknowledge how most decent Americans regard the hapless Carter as a repellant buffoon whom they would rather forget once served as their president.

It is time that the world recognized these three despicable men – Kofi Annan, Jacques Chirac and Jimmy Carter – as constituting a western "Axis of Evil" – three leaders whose long careers have been devoted to apologizing for tyrants, propping up dictators, demonstrating contempt for their victims and, above all else, espousing an irrational hatred of Israel that would normally be called anti-Semitism.

But the most painful and disgraceful reaction of all to Arafat's death, from the quarter where it was least expected, came from Pope John Paul II's jaw-dropping comments voiced through his mouthpiece, Joaquin Navarro-Valls: "At this hour of sadness at the passing of President Yasser Arafat, His Holiness Pope John Paul is particularly close to the deceased's family, the authorities and the Palestinian people. While entrusting his soul into the hands of the Almighty and Merciful God, the Holy Father prays to the Prince of Peace that the star of harmony will soon shine on the Holy Land. ..." In a second statement, Navarro-Valls said in the pope's name that Arafat was "a leader of great charisma who loved his people and sought to lead them towards national independence. May God welcome in His mercy the soul of the illustrious deceased and give peace to the Holy Land. ..."

That the world's foremost spiritual shepherd could describe himself as being close to Arafat's family, rather than the thousands of murdered men, women and children who were Arafat's victims, is an astonishing act of sacrilege. That the most influential religious figure alive could describe the death of a tyrant as "an hour of sadness" and call a mass-murderer an "illustrious" soul is positively despicable. That the Vicar of Christ on earth could say of a man who stole billions from his impoverished and desperate nation that he "loved his people" is an affront to everything Jesus stood for, which was primarily a dedication to the oppressed, the poor and the persecuted.

In making these damnable statements, Pope John Paul II, whom I otherwise so greatly admire, has tragically proven himself to be walking in the sinful line of his immoral and cowardly Nazi-collaborator predecessor, Pius XII, a man who demonstrated an almost callous indifference to the value of human life and never once summoned the courage to condemn the Nazi Holocaust.

Like John Paul, who met Arafat on numerous occasions, Pius in 1943 granted a secret audience to Supreme SS Polizeifuhrer Wolff, who had served Himmler as chief of staff and was then serving as the chief of the entire persecution apparatus of Jews and Romans in occupied Italy. That Pius realized he was doing something that others would regard as scandalous and immoral is attested to the fact that the meeting took place in great confidence, and Wolff came dressed in disguise. Years later, Wolff had this to say about the meeting: "From the pope's own words I could sense the sincerity of his sympathy and how much he loved the German people."

On Oct. 16, 1943, the pope watched, quite literally, just 300 feet from his office window, as the SS rounded up more than one thousand Jews of Rome, nearly all of whom would perish by gas a few days later at Auschwitz.. John Paul II is now considering beatifying Pius XII, an action that would forever stain the church and be a sin against humanity. That is troubling enough. But to actually walk in Pius' path by associating oneself with murderers is positively abhorrent. I have long loved this pope for his devotion to the poor of the Third World. Why would he suddenly turn on all those who have been blown to pieces by Arafat's bombers over a 40-year career?

How ironic that only one world leader showed true morality and grit in condemning Arafat for what he was, and that man is not a priest or religious leader, but the Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who savaged Arafat as a man whom "history will judge very harshly."

How ironic that the pope should have to learn his morality from Down Under.

The Yasser 1 Rocket - to be used only for peaceful purposes

Footage showing members of Fatah's Aksa Martyrs Brigade in Gaza City carrying the newly manufactured Yasser-1 rocket, which they claim has a 15-kilometer range, came as no surprise to Israeli security officials on Sunday.

"It is no secret that all the terror organizations operating in Gaza, whether Hamas, Fatah, or Islamic Jihad, strive constantly to improve their capability," a security official told The Jerusalem Post.

According to Fatah activists interviewed on various networks, the rocket can reach Ashkelon, and scores of rockets have already been amassed in the group's arsenal.

But, the security official said, one cannot rule out the possibility that the rockets carried by activists attending the rally in memory of Yasser Arafat were in fact dummies – an opinion shared by other security officials. "Usually if they [terrorists] have a new addition to their arsenal, they first try it out and then show it off before television cameras in order to brag," another official said.

A member of Fatah identified as Abu Muhammad, however, told the Maariv Web site that the group's "engineers" had been working to manufacture a better rocket with an improved range.

He said the group had no intention of firing the rocket inside Israel, and declared that its "struggle" against Israel was confined to the 1967 borders. Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon told reporters at an Id al-Fitr celebration he had heard about the new rocket in media reports.

Suha advised to stay away from Ramallah funeral for her safety

Suha's always good for a laugh. - EoZ

Yasser Arafat's widow, Suha, was advised on Friday not to come to Ramallah for her husband's funeral for fear that she would be attacked by angry Palestinians, a Palestinian cabinet minister said on Saturday.

'We told her that it would be unwise for her to show up in Ramallah,' the minister told The Jerusalem Post. 'We also made it clear to her that we would not be able to guarantee her safety during the funeral in the Mukata compound.'

Suha and her nine-year-old daughter, Zahwa, on Friday attended Arafat's state funeral near Cairo International Airport and were planning to escort his coffin to Ramallah. But shortly before she boarded the Egyptian plane that carried the coffin from Cairo to al-Arish, from where it was taken aboard a military helicopter to Ramallah, Egyptian and Palestinian officials pleaded with Suha to stay behind.

Egyptian General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman reportedly told Suha that the Palestinians would not be able to guarantee her safety once she appeared in Ramallah.

'He told her that no one would be able to protect her from the thousands of people participating in Arafat's funeral in Ramallah,' said a Palestinian security source. 'We also told her that it would be impossible to control the crowd and that she should not come to Ramallah.'

The source said that at first Suha had refused to stay in Cairo, arguing that she had every right to be at her husband's funeral. But after she consulted with friends, she agreed not to go to Ramallah.

There was a rumor that Suha and Zahwa had arrived in the helicopter in Ramallah but were were afraid to leave it and stayed inside.

'We were waiting for her so we could spit in her face,' said Nadia Sufian, who works for a local women's organization. 'She didn't come because she knew that we would not have allowed her into the Mukata.'

Jamileh Taisir, a university student from one of the villages surrounding Ramallah, said her colleagues had planned to demonstrate against Suha if she showed up in Ramallah.

'We were even prepared to beat her up,' she added. 'She has no right to be here, because she abandoned her husband while he was imprisoned in his office for almost three years. She has betrayed not only her husband, but the entire Palestinian people.'

Suha's mother, Raymonda Tawil, has taken her place at the conference hall in the Mukata, where many Palestinians on Saturday came to offer their condolences. Tawil, a renowned poet and writer, stood next to senior PA officials as they shook hands and embraced the thousands of people who had begun arriving at the Mukata in the early morning.

Suha enraged many Palestinians last week when she accused top Palestinian officials of seeking to bury her husband alive. The accusation was made in an emotional pre-dawn appeal aired on Al-Jazeera."