Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

Female bomber kills four Israelis at entrance to Gaza Strip

Hours after a Palestinian woman blew herself up early Wednesday at the Erez crossing terminal, killing four Israelis, Palestinian Foriegn Minister Nabil Sha'ath said that the Palestinian Authority was capable of stopping such terror attacks, but that Israel must first halt its attacks on the Palestinians, Israel Radio reported.

Speaking from Copenhagen, Sha'ath said that last August the Palestinians unilaterally halted attacks, but this collapsed because Israel failed to abide by this as well.

Can you imagine the chutzpah it takes tomake such a statement when have been daily attempts to kills Jews during this "unilateral cease fire"?

First Hamas female suicide bomber
Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant group affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, jointly claimed responsibility for the blast, which also wounded 12 people.

Hamas, vowing to escalate attacks, said it used a woman suicide bomber for the first time, in order to counter Israeli security precautions.

"For the first time [Hamas] used a female fighter and not a male fighter and that was a new development in resistance against the enemy," Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told Reuters. "Resistance will esclate against this enemy [Israel] until they leave our land and homeland."

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia declined to condemn the attack, saying that continued Israeli attacks and restrictions on the Palestinians are leading "to more escalation on both sides."

The explosion ripped through a recently dedicated facility where laborers and foreigners cross over the boundary. There were few Palestinian workers in the area at the time, Israeli officials said. Most workers had crossed hours before the mid-morning explosion.

Hamas later identified the bomber as the 22-year-old mother of two children.

IDF soldiers catch would-be suicide bomber at Erez Crossing

Israel Defense Forces soldiers foiled a suicide attack Tuesday, when they prevented a Palestinian man carrying an explosive device in his trousers from passing through the Erez Crossing from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

The belt was different than any the IDF has dealt with before in that 'it was sewn to resemble a pair of underpants,' the spokeswoman said.

Is Iran planning an attack on th US?

On May 28, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported that an Iranian intelligence unit had established "The Brigades of the Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening."
In a speech by Hassan Abbassi, a Revolutionary Guards intelligence theoretician who teaches at Al-Hussein University, he spoke of Teheran's secret plans, which include
"a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization."
"There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites, and we know how we are going to attack them," Abbassi explained.
Over the past few months, Iranian leader Ali Khamenei has been vocal about the impending "destruction of the U.S." In May he told the Iranian paper Jomhouri-Ye Eslami that "the world will witness the annihilation of this arrogant regime."
Speaking on Iranian TV channel Jaam-E-Jam 2 on July 27, Iranian MP Hamid-Reza Katoziyan warned: "The whole group of people belonging to the Arab community and Muslims living in the U.S. are currently, in my opinion, in a special situation."
"Perhaps they do not walk the streets with weapons in their hands or attach bombs to themselves in order to carry out a suicide operation, but the thought is there."

Israel leads in missile protection

Israel Military Industries (IMI) has developed an invisible flare for use by its Flight Guard protection system for civilian aircraft. The Flight Guard system, developed jointly by IMI and Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), will soon be installed on six El Al Israel Airlines passenger aircraft, making El Al the world's first airline to operate aircraft equipped with a defence system against shoulder-launched missiles.

Flight Guard is undergoing a series of flight tests, where the system is checked against the infrared seekers of several surface-to-air missiles. The tests will be concluded in August and the first system is scheduled to be installed in an El Al aircraft in September.

Since the use of Flight Guard has not been approved by US and European aviation authorities, it will first be installed on aircraft serving Africa and Asia, where the level of threat is considered higher. However, IMI and IAI are expecting the new invisible flare to improve the chances of Flight Guard receiving Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) licensing, as the flare is designed to reduce public fright when activated over an airport.

Flight Guard is adapted from a military system used by the Israel Air Force's fixed-wing and rotorcraft. It comprises a variant of IAI subsidiary Elta's EL/M-2160 pulse-Doppler radar, which detects surface-to-air shoulder-launched missiles. The radar activates IMI's countermeasures dispensing system (CMDS), which jams heat-seeking missiles and sends them off course by creating a signature close to that of the aircraft's engine. "

Palestinian cops report explosive device to IDF

In a rare example of anti-terrorist cooperation, Palestinian police reported to the IDF an explosive device found in Ramallah. The IDF exploded the device, which had been intended for a terror attack, under controlled conditions.

French official: Attacks on Jews tripled since start of year

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in France has soared by hundreds of percent since the beginning of the year and the law enforcement authorities are having difficulty coping with them.
Justice Minister Dominique Perben issued figures last Thursday showing a tripling of anti-Semitic attacks this year, with 298 so far, compared to 108 in all of 2003.

Perben's figures were broken down by their targets, showing there were 67 attacks on Jewish people, 162 on property and 69 cases of anti-Semitic writings.

Some 80 percent of this year's cases have not yet been solved, Perben said after meeting with France's Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk to discuss government efforts to fight anti-Semitism.

French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said the number of violent incidents against Jews and Jewish property this year reached 160, marking a 113 percent rise compared to the equivalent period last year, in which only 75 incidents were reported.

In an interview with Le Monde on Friday, de Villepin said the reasons for 80 percent of the incidents were unclear and the perpetrators have not been found. Only 11 attacks were committed by extreme right-wingers and 50 were committed by people of Arab or Muslim origin."

Bombs & Weapons Uncovered in Bethlehem

(IsraelNN.com) Three pipe bombs, six magazines and a number of Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifles were uncovered by IDF troops operating in PA-controlled Bethlehem. The bombs were neutralized without incident.

"Skunk bomb" will keep back Palestinian protestors

The IDF has developed a pungent new weapon to be used to keep Palestinian protestors at bay, media sources reported. The so-called 'skunk bomb' contains a synthetic version of the odor skunks release to deter predators and will be used to break up stone-throwing confrontations without causing casualties, security officials said yesterday.

According to the reports, the new weapon was developed to replace controversial rubber bullets, which have caused numerous injuries and killed many Palestinians during the course of the Intifada. Security officials said the army, which has come under international criticism for allegedly using excessive force, has been seeking out new non-lethal weapons to deal with violent Palestinian protests.

The 'skunk bomb,' which is not yet operational, releases a cloud so pungent that according to initial tests it permeates clothes for five years, the officials said, according to a Reuters report.

The 'stinky' weapon could be particularly unpleasant for devout Muslims since they cannot pray with clothes that smell and would have to throw them away, the report said.

Soldiers rescue trapped Israeli truckers from Palestinian lynch mob

Israel Defense Forces soldiers rescued three Israeli truck drivers when they came under attack by a mob of Palestinians after taking a wrong turn near Jerusalem, and ending up in Ramallah near the Kalandia refugee camp.

The Jewish truckers were in two vehicles when they were surrounded by hundreds of Arabs who had just emerged from a gathering in support of Palestinian security prisoners conducting a hunger strike in Israel prisons. Many of the mob pelted the truckers with stones and other objects, pulled them from their vehicles and beat them severely until the soldiers arrived. They suffered light to moderate injuries.

The dog that didn't bark

“The dog that didn’t bark” is an expression from a Sherlock Holmes mystery. It was an important clue that led to identifying the criminal. It seems that the killer entered and left the estate grounds one night but without the guard dog barking an alarm at the intruder’s presence as expected. From this non-event Holmes reasoned that the dog must have known the killer and that clue led to solving the case.

There is an analogy to U.S. Mid-East policy where U.S. silence, i.e. our failure to “bark” when we should, in the face of outrageous events is also a clue to U.S. attitudes. We can contrast the significance of when the U.S. “barks” and when it is silent.

We observe that when Israel defends itself the Administration is very capable of promptly barking its disapproval. For example when Israeli forces entered Judea and Samaria to root out terrorist murderers, Colin Powell had no trouble barking at Israel in a nasty manner for them to get out and be quick about it, and such outbursts also carry an implied threat. When Israel began construction of its security fence this Administration was quick to criticize and, for a time, to punish Israel by reducing loan guarantees by some 300 million dollars. When Israel assassinated terrorist leaders, who had so much blood on their hands, the Administration was also quick to warn Israel to consider the consequences of its actions.

All this establishes that the Administration watches every detail of Israeli actions and is quick to issue public criticisms and warnings to distance itself from our only true ally. This serves to accentuate the contrast between criticism of Israel vs. its noticeable silence in the face of Arab crimes and pronouncements.

On the other hand when the U.S. fails to respond to Arab outrages against Israel, that silence is significant. For the record it is true that when Arafat’s killers slaughter innocent Jews in especially large numbers the Administration will serve up a perfunctory condemnation of the act, a growl, so to speak. But there is no holding the killers responsible nor any withholding of funds to the PA as was done for a while with Israel. The U.S. message is clear. No bark, no bite. The Arabs can safely disregard those pronouncements because it is only an empty public relations gesture in return for which Israel is expected to show gratitude, practice more restraint, and the killers again go unpunished.

U.S. silence is highly significant when Israel’s enemies make direct threats and issue inflammatory lies. When Saddam Hussein earlier threatened to “burn half of Israel” there was no American comment. Iran has repeatedly threatened Israel with annihilation once they acquire nuclear weapons and regardless of any Israeli peace with the Palestinians. No public denunciation from the administration. When Arafat, in Arabic, incites his people to continue to slaughter Jews - again silence. When Arafat displays his map of the Middle East with NO Israel - more silence. Arafat indoctrinates Palestinian children with murderous hatred of Jews along with layer upon layer of lies. Not only is there no U.S. criticism but Arafat’s PA continues to receive hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars. When Egypt trains for its next war against Israel with U.S.-supplied weapons and incites its people with raw anti-Semitism - again more silence. When Saudi Arabia pours forth Nazi-type invective against Israel and Jews - continued silence.

Going beyond the above, the State Department conducts an even more active policy of a double standard against Israel. It not only ignores evidence of flagrant Arab crimes against Israel, but it demands that Israel accept these crimes without protest. Mr. David Bedein of the Israel Resource News Agency has published a list of 20 such actions by the State Department in his Aug. 4, 2003 article titled, Is the State Department on the Saudi Payroll? .

These are only a few of the many egregious actions that are constantly going on. And yet successive administrations, and the State Department, continue to behave like the dog that didn’t bark. Israel’s Arab enemies certainly observe all this and they may draw conclusions about the real attitudes of the U.S. administration.

The Administration’s cynical excuse is that they want to be “even handed” in their Mid East policy. One cannot be “even handed” between aggressors and the aggressor’s victims. The hard reality is that the administration is actually practicing a consistent double standard against Israel which is even worse than being unfairly “even handed.”

The question is what kind of game is being played here? In truth this policy has been in place from the birth of Israel. It is not hard to guess that the State Department, which leads our foreign policy, is maneuvering between two conflicting forces. One force is the pro-Israel sentiment among the American people and the U.S. Congress to support a loyal and democratic ally. The other force is pressure from the numerous Arab and Islamic governments, combined with our need for their oil. That would be bad enough but the gratuitous nastiness that often accompanies State Department actions towards Israel suggests that there is also an additional element of domestic anti-Semitism that exists independently of balancing conflicting geopolitical interests and independently of America’s national interest.

The Arabs are adept at this type of politics. Their posture is always that of pretending to be aggrieved victims of what they call “Israeli aggression” and their endless complaining that America uncritically supports Israel. And behind this is their perpetual threat of the Arab and Moslem masses rising up in outrage against American interests. As long as U.S. policy makers succumb to these threats, they will continue to be made and we will remain hostage to them.

But as with a cancerous growth, our failure to respond early and morally is leading to a metastasis of hatred from being directed mainly against Israel to now targeting other countries, including the U.S. We see it in Saudi Arabia which long supported terrorism against Israel but which recently has come under internal terrorist attack. The Saudis are now very strong to fight terrorism, but only inside their own kingdom. And the U.S. has long ignored anti-Israeli terrorism as long as it was mainly Israelis who were killed. Even in the early 1970’s when Arafat’s thugs kidnapped and murdered American diplomats Cleo Noel and George C. Moore in Khartoum, Sudan, U.S. policy even then was to play down the threat in the expectation that it would remain very contained and limited. Today we find ourselves becoming as much of a target as Israel.

Nevertheless our policy of selective silence remains largely unchanged. We still ignore the existential danger to Israel, our most loyal and most supportive ally. But we also deliver another unintended lesson to our enemies and to our few remaining friends. The lesson is that the U.S. will betray a loyal friend in order to appease an enemy in the hope that it will somehow work to our benefit. Egypt, Arabia, France, China, Russia and others all betray us and yet we call them friends and there is no price for them to pay. And then we wonder why so may nations feel entirely free to turn against us.

It would also be unfair to place all the blame on the morally corrupt U.S. officials and especially the State Department. Much of the blame must also be shared by the defective, and insufficiently assertive American Jewish leadership. They also resemble “The dog that didn’t bark” when they should have boldly spoken truth to power. The Jewish left in America makes matters even worse by masquerading as supporting peace even while they loudly “bark” their support for Israel’s enemies. Israel is our most loyal and most supportive ally; therefore those who betray Israel also betray America’s national interest.

Rachel Neuwirth

Tunisian man downed U.S. Plane, CSIS told; officials insist it was accidental

National Post

A captured al-Qaeda operative has told Canadian intelligence investigators that a Montreal man who trained in Afghanistan alongside the 9/11 hijackers was responsible for the crash of an American Airlines flight in New York three years ago.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents were told during five days of interviews with the source that Abderraouf Jdey, a Canadian citizen also known as Farouk the Tunisian, had downed the plane with explosives on Nov. 12, 2001.

The source claimed Jdey had used his Canadian passport to board Flight 587 and 'conducted a suicide mission' with a small bomb similar to the one used by convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid, a 'Top Secret' Canadian government report says.

But officials said it was unlikely Jdey was actually involved in the crash, which killed 265 people and is considered accidental. The fact that al-Qaeda attributed the crash to Jdey, however, suggests they were expecting him to attack a plane.

'We have seen no evidence of anything other than an accident here,' said Ted Lopatkiewicz, spokesman for the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. 'There has been no evidence found, from what I can tell -- at least that's been relayed to us -- that there was any criminality involved here. It appears, at least the evidence we have, is that a vertical fin came off, not that there was any kind of event in the cabin.'"

2 Arrested in Alleged NYC Subway Bomb Plot

A U.S. citizen and a Pakistani national were arrested in an alleged plot to bomb a subway station in midtown Manhattan and possibly other locations around the city, police said Saturday.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the men were not thought to be connected to al-Qaida or any other international terrorist organization, although he said they expressed hatred for America. The arrests come two days before the start of the Republican National Convention, which is drawing tens of thousands of visitors into the city.

Though there was no clear tie to the convention, authorities moved to arrest the two men before it began, two law-enforcement sources told The Associated Press.

The men had been under police surveillance and had discussed placing explosives at the Herald Square subway station and stations at 42nd and 59th streets, Kelly said. The men never obtained explosives, he said.

"It was clear that they had the intention to cause damage, to kill people," Kelly said. "They did not immediately have the means to do it."

He identified the men as Shahawar Matin Siraj, 21, a Pakistani living in Queens, and James El Shafay, 19, a U.S. citizen living on Staten Island.

Kelly said the men visited the Herald Square 34th Street station — one block from Madison Square Garden, the site of the convention — on Aug. 21.

The men were being charged with conspiracy to blow up the station, which is central to a large commercial district, including Macy's flagship department store. They were to be arraigned Saturday in federal court.

The men also scouted three police stations on Staten Island and a jail there, Kelly said. They drew maps of those sites and a map of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, which connects Brooklyn to Staten Island, he said.

"Their motive was generally hatred for America," Kelly said. He said one of the men had also made anti-Semitic statements.

Palestinian Prisoners Demands Presented to Israeli Prisons Service (IPS)

From the Addameer Prisoner's Support and Human Rights Assocation

If they'd get all of these demands it may be better than many hotels I've been at.

One: Family and/or Lawyers Visits

4. To allow all family members and relatives to visit
6. To allow private visits (without barriers)
7. To allow second and third degree relatives to visit
8. To relocate detainees/prisoners in areas close to their residential areas
9. To relocate prisoners who are immediate relatives in one prison
10. To allow personal belongings and clothes to be brought during visits
14. To allow visitors to bring with them bed-covers, watches, Palestinian head scarves, head wear, etc.

19. To allow prisoners to be in plain clothes during the visit and not restricted to uniforms of certain colors or design
20. To allow prisoners' handwork to be given out at the visit after coordination
21. To allow bringing in all kinds of cigarettes, audio-tapes, and video-tapes during the visit

Two: Phone Calls

1. To install pay phones in prison sections and/or yards and/or cells or allow mobile phones in every cell or for every prisoner
3. To remove all signal-distortion equipment - known to cause various health problems including cancer

Three: Food

3. To allow prisoners to buy vegetables, fruits, fish, and meats of all sorts on a monthly basis
4. To allow prisoners in all prisons to prepare their own food according to their customs and religions
5. To give back kitchen equipment that was taken away from prisoners in all "security" prisons
6. To change old kitchen utensils and replace them with new ones
7. To open bakeries and allow Palestinian prisoners to work at them; to allow bread to be brought in during visits

Five: Counting

1. To end all practices and policies accompanying counting the prisoners; allow all those prisoners in isolation back to regular sections

Six: Collective Punishment

1. To end all collective punishments
2. To end the policy of fines
3. To end the policy of confiscating personal belongings and punishing prisoners by denying them family visits
4. To return all money confiscated from prisoners accounts to be able to use them in enhancing the health care and the education of prisoners
5. To compensate prisoners for every item that was damaged intentionally through raids on cell-blocks
6. To define the maximum isolation period as a punishment to a week and to provide humane detention conditions in isolation cells: access to toilets, a washing sink, a two hour recreation period, to allow a fan, to allow books and radio and cantina, not to handcuff prisoners inside the cells, to end the policy of handcuffing prisoners while meeting prison administration

Seven: Education at Universities

1. To allow prisoners to study at Palestinian, Arab, and International Universities
2. To end the policy of punishing prisoners by denying them the right to continue their education
3. To allow newspapers, journals and magazines without any delay
4. To allow purchasing different electronic dictionaries not limited to one brand
5. To allow all cells to have access to a computer and not only students
6. To allocate study rooms and halls and to reopen all libraries
7. To allow stationary without limitation in type or quantities
8. To allow photocopying research material, educational material

Eight: Cantina

1. To allow buying from Arab sources and end the monopoly
2. To cancel the additional 17% tax
3. To unify the prices for all prisons
4. To end all restrictions on the items allowed
5. To form an investigation committee to check on the legality of the 17% additional tax and on the right of prisoners to benefit from the profit of the cantina

Nine: Movement within each section and the recreation area
1. To increase the recreation time to four hours a day as used to be the case
2. To restore visits between section and cells to day-long visits
3. To leave cell doors within each section open all day

5. To allow university students to choose recreation time suitable for them
7. To open the gate to the recreational area every half an hour to enable prisoners to get to the area or back to sections
8. To allow freedom of movement within each section without restricting the time
or period
9. To install water pipes in each section
12. To restore the recreation time from 15:00 to 17:00 and from 17:00 to 19:00
13. To allow working prisoners to stay at the recreation area until 20:00
14. Not to transfer a prisoner from any prison before spending 2 years in it unless the prisoner applies for a transfer
16. To allow Friday Imams to be able to move from one section to another
17. To allow having events, debates, celebrations in the recreation areas and yards as in the past
18. Freedom to transfer among cells within one section without any sort of restriction
19. To remove the ban on practicing Karate during the recreation period

Ten: Tools, Instruments, private and general equipment

1. To allow the following to be purchased at the cantina by every prisoner: a light-bulb for reading, electronic dictionary without restricting the brand, electric shaving-machine, and electric fan
2. To install air ventilation in the cells and section as well as air conditioning
3. To install air conditioning at the visiting area and waiting cells
4. To provide electric kettle
5. To provide an electric toaster for each cell
6. To provide a small refrigerator in each cell
7. A small photocopier in each section
8. To install an Antenna for the radio
9. To allow winter jackets
10. To allow waist belts
11. To allow sport ropes
12. To allow to have cameras in each section and to be able to take collective photos
13. To allow fruits knife in each cell
Eleven: Searching and Security Checks

1. To end the practice of body search by hand and to restrict it to electronic scanning
3. End totally strip search
4. End night searches and the practice of Matsada unit, dissolve it or end it's services
5. Not to handcuff prisoners during the search
6. Never to damage or confiscate personal belongings while searching
7. To stop searching prisoners each time they leave to the recreation area or to prayers
8. Security search be limited to only once a day maximum and not to force prisoners outside the section during the search
9. Security search to be conducted during the recreation period
10. To limit the overall general search to once every 6 months
Twelve: Working Facilities

1. To increase the number of working prisoners in the various facilities
2. To restore kitchens, laundries, and sewing and allow Palestinian prisoners to work at these facilities
3. To allow at least two prisoners to work in the section (corridor) outside the cells till 22:30 and extend their recreation time till 20:00
4. To re-allow a prisoner to work in yard and recreation area as in the past and to make available a storage room and a room for working and working tools
5. To allow a prisoner to work at the clinic
6. To restore the special recreation period for workers
7. To raise payment for workers
8. To allow an additional worker at the library
9. To allow a worker to fix electric equipment in each section as in the past
10. To allow all tools for hairdressing and to change them once every 6 months
Thirteen: Counting

1. To allow prisoners in the upper beds not to step down at the morning count and to limit to them just raising themselves up in their beds
2. To be content by showing the hands for those who are in toilets at the time of counting taking into consideration to avoid using the toilet around the time of count unless it's urgent or to pass the cell and return to it later
Fourteen: Transfer, Travel and waiting (passing) sections

1. To allow prisoners to have cantina with them while being transferred (canned food, etc.)
2. To be moved directly to the buses without being held and delayed in waiting rooms
3. To change seats in the buses to more comfortable ones
4. Each prisoner to be handcuffed separately from others and to stop using the plastic handcuffs and replace them with the metal ones
7. To remove the darkened windows of the buses
.....and on and on...

Lebanon Editorial: Engage American Jews, all else has failed the Arab world

Has the time not come for Arabs and Muslims to recognize the need for a dialogue with the American Jewish community in its capacity as an important policy-making force in the U.S., and one that influences all things Middle Eastern? Instead of insulting American Jews - as Arab editorialists and intellectuals have been doing for 50 years - why not show respect for their evident weight and engage them in a constructive dialogue?
Some Arab leaders continue to hang on to the myth that assistance can be sought from the largely irrelevant Arab-American community. This is not helped by the behavior of seedy characters, such as the so-called head of the Islamic community in the U.S., Abdel Rahman al-Amoudi, who recently confessed to collecting millions of dollars from Libyan leader Moammar al-Gadhafi to mount a conspiracy to kill Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. He is going to jail after soiling the name of all Arab-Americans.
Many Arabs and Muslims will say that talking to American Jews is tantamount to capitulating and admitting defeat in the 50-year-long war over Palestine. The fact is that this "war" has already been lost. Just look at the lamentable conditions in Palestinian society. American Jews are a diverse, powerful, and focused community. Many among them are fair and moderate and will not insist on crushing the other side, knowing they have already won. American Jews have made it repeatedly clear they agree on one thing: the need to assure the safety of Israel. There is nothing wrong with that, as Arabs and Muslims, similarly, claim that their main interest is the well-being of the Palestinians, and now that of their Iraqi brethren.
By showing respect and engaging American Jews, Anwar Sadat secured the return of the entire Sinai Peninsula and a grant program for Egypt that has paid a total of $50 billion in financial and military grants since 1979. (Beirut Daily Star)

Palestinians call for kidnapping soldiers

Frustrated by the failure of the hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners to attract worldwide attention, the armed wings of Fatah and Islamic Jihad on Thursday called for kidnapping IDF soldiers and settlers to boost the prisoners' campaign.

The threat was included in a joint statement issued in the Gaza Strip by the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah and Al Quds Battalions of the Islamic Jihad.

Masked gunmen from the two groups read out the statement to journalists in Gaza City. They said their men have been instructed to kidnap IDF soldiers and settlers in order to use them as a bargaining chip with Israel.

The gunmen also criticized the 'apathy' in the Arab world towards the hunger strike, which entered its 12th day on Thursday.

The statement revealed that a joint Fatah-Islamic Jihad had tried to kidnap a soldier three months ago, but failed because of tough security measures."

Rocket Landed in Living Room But Didn't Explode

A Kassam rocket fired by Palestinians Thursday landed in the living room of a private home in Gush Katif in Gaza, but failed to explode. No one was injured but the house was heavily damaged. The father and a number of children were in the house at the time. (Yediot Ahronot-Hebrew)

'Little Israel' will not save world from Iran

With verbal tensions rising daily between Iran and Israel, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee head Yuval Steinitz said the West should not expect 'little Israel' to take pre-emptive action to save the world from Iranian nuclear weapons.

It is the free world, led by the United States, that must stand behind its pledge not to let Iran get the bomb, Steinitz said.

He warned that Iran aims at becoming a global nuclear power with long-range Shihab missiles that would put Europe and NATO forces in range.

'This is a problem of the leaders of the civilized world. One shouldn't expect little Israel to solve a global problem like this,' Steinitz said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post.

'The United States itself has said that it won't hesitate to use any means at its disposal to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. If, God forbid, the free world, led by the United States, doesn't stand behind these words, then a dark curtain will descend on the world raising the possibility of nuclear terror against us and Europe and NATO,' Steinitz said.

'Iran is a totally irresponsible and unpredictable totalitarian regime that is ready to sacrifice millions of its people for its crazy ideology,' Steinitz said."

Arrow-2 test not complete failure

Israel and United States defense ministries continue to investigate the causes for the failure of Arrow interceptor missile to hit its target in experiments in California Thursday.

Aryeh Herzog, head of the Arrow project in the Israel's Defense Ministry, said in an interview Friday morning that this definitely cannot be describes as a failed experiment, even though the Arrow missile did not succeed in hitting its target.

'This sort of mishap can happen to any interceptor missile, and could have happened in the previous experiment too. It has nothing to do with the abilities of the missile. But at the same time, we of course want every trial to be successful, and this trial did not succeed completely.'

The latest attempts to launch an Arrow 2 missile against a Scud D like missile with a warhead that separates in flight in order to confuse the defending interceptor that took place at Point Mugu off the US West coast on Thursday.

The failed attempt came after the two countries launched a successful Arrow 2 missile test that intercepted and destroyed a live Scud B missile over the Pacific Ocean at then end of July. The Scud D missile considered to be the most sophisticated missile of its kind is in Syria's hands. Thursday's failed attempt was the thirteenth operational testing of the system since it was built and the eighth time its weapons system was tested.

The Arrow-2 is geared to intercept an enemy missile as it reenters the earth's atmosphere, far from Israeli territory. On Thursday it failed to hit its target.

A statement issued by the Defense Ministry said the aim of the test was to intercept a dummy target and compile data essential for future development, and that this goal was achieved despite the fact that the missile failed to intercept. According to the statement the surrogate target used in Thursday's test was supplied by the MDA targets office and was air launched."

Palestinian Islamic Jihad Markets Terrorism on Internet Sites Supported from U.S.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad spreads its terrorist propaganda via three main and three subsidiary Internet sites.
The Internet service provider (ISP) for palestineway.com is VONOC, located in Englewood, Colorado.
The ISP for sarayaalquds.com - the site of the Jerusalem Battalions, Islamic Jihad's operational-terrorist wing - is Level3, located in Broomfield, Colorado.
The ISP for the subsidiary site jimail.com/abrar is Alabanza, based in Baltimore.
The ISP for rabdullah.com, dedicated to Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdallah Shalah, is Level3 of Broomfield, Colorado.

Report: Syria has acquired nuke centrifuges from Pakistani Khan

The United States believes that Syria has acquired centrifuges for the enrichment of uranium through the network of Pakistani nuclear chief Abdul Kader Khan, the Canadian news website Middle East Newsline reported Thursday.

According to the report, the US intelligence community has assessed that Syria became a costumer of smuggled Pakistani P1 nuclear centrifuges in 2001 through Firas Tlas, the son of Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlas.

Khan was arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in January 2004 and admitted to secretly selling nuclear know-how to Iran.