Israeli intelligence and security officers again have foiled an imminent plot against soldiers and civilians, this time by a Hamas cell in the Ramallah area that worked with partners in terror from Hamas.

The problem is who knows how many more terrorist cells have stayed under Israel’s radar? The IDF reported that last month there were hundreds of rock-throwing and firebombing attacks by Palestinian Authority Arabs who have not yet graduated to the stage of guns and knives.

One “graduate” stabbed to death a Jew from Samaria last on the, and the terrorist’s father said the 24-year-old murdered carried out “the duty of all Palestinians who suffer from the aggression of the army and the settlers,” stated al-Zaghal’s father, Ali al-Zaghal.

One day after the stabbing death of Eviatar Borovzky, father of five. The Fatah party, headed by IDF PA Chairman Mahmoud Abba, posted on its Facebook page praise for the terrorist.

The Hamas cell in the Ramallah area that was arrested by the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the IDF is one of many that exist with the encouragement of Abbas’s party.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the IDF arrested the cell month earlier this year. The   arrests were announced in March, but details of the plots were not released until Wednesday, when indictments were filed.

The ringleader is a layer from a Ramallah village and who was identified as 26-year-old Ahmed Fahida, who worked with a Hamas terrorist from Gaza, named Ahmed Uda. Fahida’s mission to kidnap a soldier and use him for negotiations with Israel before killing him,

Fahida and another unnamed terrorist also were ready to collect weapons and build rockets and escalate the war against Israelis in Judea and Samaria and in urban centers.

Even a primitive Kassam rocket launched from Samaria could inflict huge damage and loss of life with a strike in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or the Ben Gurion Airport. It also would cause political and diplomatic earthquake in Jerusalem and Washington.

Despite the success in stopping most major terrorist attacks, so far, the IDF has been at a loss to protect Israeli motorists on the roads.

A total of 615 rock-throwing attacks were reported in March. That is a rate of 20 a day and does not include dozens or hundreds of others that are not reported.

In addition, at least 72 firebombs were hurled at soldiers and civilians last month.

In the last week of April alone, 119 rock-throwing attacks and 18 firebomb attack were recorded.

Two television stations, one in New Jersey and one in California, are broadcasting programs from the outlawed Hezbollah and Hamas terrorist organizations, encouraging American children to grow up into suicide bombers.

The New York-based Lawfare Project said the NileSat IPTV in New Jersey and ArabTV4ALL in California are transmitting broadcast from the Al Aqsa television network, which is linked with Hamas, and from the Al Manar satellite network, a mouthpiece for Hezbollah.

The Blaze website obtained a memo from the Lawfare Project, which said that the AdvancedTV Network currently supplies over 600 Arabic channels from Nilesat and Arabsat directly via the Internet, and that resellers such as NileSat IPTV and ArabTV4All pick up the material.

“By subscribing to NileSat IPTV, the subscriber receives an IPTV box, which can be hooked up to a television set without a satellite dish anywhere in the United States,” the memo note, author Charles Johnson wrote on the Blaze.

“A customer simply calls NileSat IPTV and orders a box, which is then delivered to his or her house. The channels are then broadcast using this box and an internet connection.”

Lawfare project director Brooke Goldstein said, “We contacted NileSatIPTV way back and they confirmed they air the Hezbollah and Hamas channels,” which broadcast hate programs that could be considered illegal assistance to terrorism.

“It’s unthinkable, especially in light of the Boston terror attacks, that our government continues to allow Hamas and Hezbollah, two designated foreign terrorist organizations, to openly and illegally broadcast their stations within our borders, stations aimed at radicalizing and recruiting Muslim youth towards violence, a most egregious form of child abuse,” she added.

Israel is familiar with Hezbollah and Hamas propaganda and incitement to terror, much of which also is aired by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas. To see one of the videos of indoctrinating children, click here, and also here for a recent report on Fatah’s lauding suicide bombers.

Television programs, especially those geared for little children, broadcast a heavy dose of  anti-Semitic programs. Many of them use popular cartoon figures with blatant “kill the Jews” messages.

It is one thing for American to dismiss the incitement in Israel as part of the Muslim radical agenda to rid the world of Israel, but the question remains if the Obama administration, in an effort to be politically correct, will gloss over the importing into the United States programs that teach children to blow up people.

David Reaboi, Vice President for the Center for Security Policy, told the Blaze, “While the Obama administration, talking heads in the mainstream media and Islamist pressure groups all assure us we have no problem with domestic so-called ‘radicalization’ in the American Muslim community, it’s clear that this openly jihadist and genocidal programming has some kind of audience in this country.”

“The major obstacle to peace in the Middle East has always been a Palestinian culture of blood-lust; that it’s being broadcast inside America is frightening – and gives lie to talking points from Islamist pressure groups and their allies. Looking at the audience for these channels, it’s impossible to conclude that we do not have a domestic Islamist radicalization problem.”

Goldstein said the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech does not apply to the two television stations.

“The U.S. Supreme Court has been very clear; there is no First Amendment right whatsoever to provide material support to designated terrorist organizations,” she explains. “If this administration is serious about tackling homegrown radicalization, it must at the very least immediately prosecute those who act so brazenly and openly in violation of the law.”

Goldstein says the Lawfare Project has been in contact with New Jersey authorities about criminal enforcement, which have been slow about enforcement.

Neither NileSatIPTV, nor ArabTV4ALL could be reached for comment.

The tragic death of Evyatar Borowski, an Israeli father of five young children, murdered yesterday by a knife-wielding Palestinian Arab at a hitch-hiking post at Tapuah Junction in the Shomron, attracted media attention in the Arab world.

Fatah party representatives praised as a hero a Palestinian attacker who stabbed an Israeli to death at a West Bank junction on Tuesday. The organization posted pictures from the scene of the attack on its official Facebook page, accompanying each image with a caption boasting of the stabber’s “success.” Officials also expressed hope that he would be quickly released from prison. [Times of Israel]

The Los Angeles Times went a step further, connecting the head of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to the killing. It reminds readers that credit for the terror attack was claimed by the notorious Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades which styles itself as “the military wing” of the Fatah Party whose head is Mahmoud Abbas. Al Aqsa’s post-stabbing announcement takes proud responsibility

…calling it revenge for Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners, including two who recently died while in custody. The group called the killing a “gift” to Palestinian prisoners and promised more operations in the future. Abbas, who has repeatedly condemned the use of violence and vowed to prevent another uprising as long as he is in power, did not immediately comment on the attack… [LA Times]

We have never understood – and still don’t – how Abbas continues to be called ‘moderate’ in many of the news reports about events in this neighborhood. He is the leader of a violent terrorist undertaking, encourages terror, praises terrorists while sanctimoniously almost-condemning it, and yet continues to be received in world capitals as if he were a regular political leader.

The Facebook page of Fatah, which he heads, carries a heroic portrait today of the stabber, Salaam (“peace”) Zaghal, an AK-47 rifle positioned beneath his head. The caption addresses the killer with these words:

“Peace be with you the day of your birth, on the day of your imprisonment and on the day of your freedom…” [source]

Zaghal served a three-year prison term for offences involving the hurling of stones and of firebombs (“Molotov cocktails”) and other criminal offenses, and was released from his Israeli cell just a month ago. It’s reported in the Israeli media that the murder he carried out yesterday was a kind of family-honour act, coming just a day after his brother was put before a Palestinian Authority court on charges of collaborating with Israel.

Moral contortions of that kind are unfortunately a big part of today’s Palestinian Arab social mores. In that sense, Abbas is a well-chosen and highly appropriate figurehead.

Visit This Ongoing War.

The Fatah party, headed by Palestinian Authority PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, took no more than 12 hours before lauding the terrorist who stabbed to death 31-year-old Evyatar Borovsky, father of five children, Tuesday morning in northeastern Samaria.

The praise directly contradicts Obama administration claims that the Palestinian Authority no longer incites terror.

A picture of the  terrorist and of the victim, with tefillin, were posted on Fatah’s Facebook page, and the text, translated and published online by the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), calls the murderer, “The hero, the released prisoner, Salam Al-Zaghal.”

Al-Zaghal was released from jail last year after serving time for hurling rocks at Jews. Out of jail, he abandoned rocks and firebombs on Tuesday for more serious weapons, like a deadly knife.

“The youth Salam Al-Zaghal who stabbed the settler at the Al-Za’atara military checkpoint comes from the village of Shweika located in the Tulkarm District. He is a released prisoner who sat in the occupation’s prisons for 4 years,” the Fatah page stated, according to PMW.

Under one picture, a caption states, “Salam Al-Zaghal who stabbed the settler at the Al-Za’atara checkpoint is a released prisoner who sat in the occupation’s prisons for 4 years.”

Another caption reads, “Peace upon you, on the day of your birth, on the day of your arrest, and on the day you will go free”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry bragged last month that proof of the Palestinian Authority’s presumed ability to promote peace and not terror is the fact that no one Jew was killed in 2012.

He did not talk about 2011, when a two-year-old boy and his American-Israeli father, Asher Palmer, were killed after a Palestinian Authority terrorist hurled a rock at their vehicle. The rock hit Palmer in the head, and he lost control of his car, which crashed off the highway’s shoulder, killing him and his son.

It remains to be seen if Kerry will talk about 2013, although he can claim that for four full months, minus one day, a Palestinian Authority terrorist did not kill any Jews.

That does not means they did not try, not once and not twice but hundreds of times.

Egypt is urging Palestinian Authority PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to postpone elections while trying to convince the rival Hamas terrorist organization to drop demands for simultaneous presidential and legislative elections.

Holding elections at this time, which already is four years after Abbas’ mandate has expired, would torpedo efforts for a unity government, sauces told the Egyptian Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

The possibility of holding elections in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is virtually non-existent, according to the report. Sources also said that merging the Fatah and Hamas armies, both of which include terrorist units, would harm the process of reconciliation.

Hamas and Fatah underwent a bloody separation during a terrorist militia war in Gaza six years ago in which Fatah suffered heavy losses, leaving Abbas in charge of Judea and Samaria and Ismail Haniyeh as de facto Gaza Prime Minister of Gaza.

It’s farewell to the drawing-room’s civilized cry, the professor’s sensible whereto and why, The frock-coated diplomat’s social aplomb, Now matters are settled with gas and with bomb.

W.H. Auden, Danse Macabre One must presume that President Obama’s most recent calls for Israeli cooperation in the Middle East peace process are balanced, fair, and well-intentioned. Why not? At the same time, unsurprisingly, these all-too-familiar calls are manifestly thin, in the sense that they lack any genuine intellectual content.

At best reminiscent of former president Bill Clinton’s inept and unforgivable orchestrations of Oslo, they are merely the latest unimaginative representation of “old wine in new bottles.” At worst, and once again evocative of Clinton’s long reach of incapacity, they exhibit a conspicuously shallow compilation of empty witticisms. For Obama, as for Clinton before him, advising Israel always entails inevitable diplomatic default: a visceral capitulation to comforting banalities, and convenient half-truths.

In any event, one analytic conclusion is abundantly clear and incontestable. Mr. Obama’s core argument is founded upon thoroughly incorrect strategic and jurisprudential assumptions. Intellectually, this argument is an unwitting self-parody.

The key problem is not, as the president still seems to think, Israel’s unwillingness to compromise more fully. It’s not that Israel is unwilling to make more “painful sacrifices for peace.” It is, rather, the plainly asymmetrical commitment to peace that continues to exist between the Palestinian side(s) and the Israeli side.

It makes no real sense to ask that Israel undertake increasing and incremental surrenders to a bifurcated enemy (Fatah and Hamas) that can still gleefully share at least one overriding commitment – that is, a relentless and generally unhidden dedication to Israel’s “liquidation.”

Let Obama finally take note. From the beginning, the only Israeli compromise that could have satisfied both Fatah and Hamas would have been a perversely codified Israeli commitment to self-destruction and national disappearance. Should Israel now be expected to be complicit in its own genocide?

International law is not a suicide pact. Why hasn’t Obama even looked at the unambiguous historical record? Even before formal conferral statehood in 1948, Israel had sought, courageously and reasonably, to negotiate with its many unheroic and unreasonable enemies. Always, in these efforts, Jerusalem had preferred peace to war.

Nonetheless, challenged by insistent and interminable Arab aggressions, diplomacy has insistently failed Israel. Even the most visible example of any alleged diplomatic “success,” the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty of 1979, is apt to fail calamitously sometime in the post-Mubarak/Muslim Brotherhood era. It’s only a matter of time.

Whatever the neatly fashioned expectations demanded from Washington, Prime Minister Netanyahu is first obligated to inquire: What real chance exists that, somehow, this time and also for the future, diplomacy might actually be purposeful?

From Oslo to the present “Road Map,” diplomacy over Israel’s rights and obligations has always been a blatantly one-sided process.

Ironically, Israel’s principal enemies remain thoroughly candid. On some things they do not lie. When it comes to their unceasing intention to annihilate the “Zionist entity” they are seemingly sworn to truth.

The principal disputing Palestinian factions (Fatah or Hamas, it makes little difference) will never accept anything less than Israel’s complete removal. This is already obvious to anyone who cares to pay attention to what is actually said. Moreover, in a clearly corroborating bit of explicit cartography, every PA and Hamas map already incorporates all of Israel within “Palestine.”

Toward the end of his tenure, former prime minister Ehud Olmert released several hundred Palestinian terrorists as a “goodwill gesture.” Together with then-president George W. Bush, he had decided to aid Fatah against Hamas with outright transfers of weapons and information. Soon after, the American and Israeli guns were turned (predictably) against Israel.

As for Olmert’s graciously extended “goodwill,” it only served to elicit the next multiple rounds of murderous rocket fire. Matters were not helped at all by the Bush administration’s corollary support for a Palestinian state, a thoroughly misconceived support now being more or less viscerally extended by Barack Obama.

…Continued Next Week

The recent re-election of Khaled Mashaal as Hamas leader has been interpreted by some Arab and Western analysts as a sign of the radical Islamist’s desire to march toward “moderation and pragmatism.”

Hamas, according to political analyst Ahmed Rafik Awad, chose the “moderate” Mashaal in order to avoid internal differences.

According to Awad, Mashal is known for his “balanced personality and centrist positions, making him an extremely acceptable figure in the Arab and international arena.”

Another analyst, Walid al-Mudalal, said that the re-election of Mashaal for another four years “would give him a chance to continue his effort to rearrange Hamas’s relations with the West and convince the West that Hamas is not its enemy.”

Some Western analysts have been quick to endorse this theory by pointing out that under Mashaal Hamas would adopt a new and moderate strategy, including accepting Israel’s right to exist.

Their argument is apparently based on remarks made by Mashaal [in English, of course, but not in Arabic] to the effect that Hamas is prepared to accept the two-state solution.

What the optimists are ignoring, however, is Mashaal’s assertion that acceptance of the two-state solution does not mean recognizing Israel’s right to exist.

Mashaal is, in fact, saying that Hamas will accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria -.ed], Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem without giving up its struggle to eliminate Israel.

Hamas re-elected Mashaal not because he has become a pragmatist and a moderate. He was re-elected because Hamas believes that he has the skills to change the West’s attitude toward Hamas. There is, after all, nothing better than a leader who can appear on CNN and try to market Hamas as a peace-loving liberation movement.

Mashaal may be a charismatic and pragmatic man, but at the end of the day he will not be able to change Hamas’s charter calling for the destruction of Israel.

Nor will Mashaal be able to rein in Hamas’s armed wing, Izaddin al-Kassam, which is responsible for hundreds of suicide bombings and thousands of rocket attacks against Israel.

Al-Kassam has many commanders in the Gaza Strip who do not share Mashaal’s ostensible pragmatism and moderation. One of them is Mahmoud Zahar, an influential Hamas figure in the Gaza Strip.

Over the past two years, Mashaal has repeatedly failed to convince his rivals in Hamas to agree to unity with Fatah. When Mashaal signed the last Doha “reconciliation” agreement with Mahmoud Abbas in Qatar last year, most Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip came out against him.

So if Mashaal has been unable to convince his own movement to accept reconciliation with Fatah, he is less likely to persuade other Hamas figures and followers to abandon their radical ideology — let alone accept Israel’s right to exist.

Further evidence of the challenges facing the new-old leader of Hamas was provided this week when leaders of the Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip repeated their commitment to violence.

In response to statements made by U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland to the effect that Washington would not conduct any dialogue with Hamas, leaders of the movement reiterated their refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist or their own willingness to renounce violence.

“We categorically reject these statements,” said Hamas spokesman Ezat al-Risheq. “Hamas refuses to recognize the Zionist entity and the legitimacy of its occupation of Palestine,” he said. “Palestinian resistance is not terrorism, but a legitimate project in line with international laws.”

Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh, also reaffirmed his movement’s refusal to recognize Israel and renounce terrorism.

Those who expect real changes in Hamas following the re-election of Mashaal are living in an illusion. Even if Mashaal himself changes, Hamas will always remain the same Hamas.

Originally published at the Gatestone Institute.

Originally published at the Gatestone Institute.

In recent weeks, the U.S. Administration has resumed its efforts to achieve peace not only between Israel and the Palestinians, but also between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his prime minister, Salam Fayyad.

These efforts, however, seem to have failed: Fayyad is apparently out.

Over the past few years, Abbas and his Fatah faction have been trying to get rid of Fayyad, but to no avail.

Abbas and Fatah leaders see the U.S.-educated Fayyad, who was appointed prime minister in 2007 at the request of the U.S. and E.U. countries, as a threat to their control over the Palestinian Authority in general and its finances in particular.

Some Fatah leaders, such as Tawfik Tirawi and Najat Abu Baker, are even convinced that Fayyad is plotting, together with the U.S. and other Western countries, to replace Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority.

Were it not for U.S. and E.U. intervention, Abbas and Fatah would have removed Fayyad from his job several years ago.

Each time Abbas considered sacking Fayyad, U.S. and E.U. government officials stepped in to warn that such a move would seriously affect foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority.

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, who made separate visits to Ramallah recently, also found themselves devoting much of their time trying to persuade Abbas to keep Fayyad in his position.

But U.S. and E.U. efforts to keep Fayyad in power seem to have been counterproductive. These efforts further discredited Fayyad in the eyes of many Palestinians.

Fayyad’s enemies have cited these efforts as “proof” that he is a “foreign agent” who has been imposed on the Palestinian Authority by Americans and Europeans.

Fatah’s main problem with Fayyad is that he has almost exclusive control over the Palestinian Authority budget.

In other words, Fatah does not like the idea that its leaders and members can no longer steal international aid because of Fayyad’s presence in power.

The Fatah leaders are yearning for the era of Yasser Arafat, when they and others were able to lay their hands on millions of dollars earmarked for helping Palestinians.

In a bid to regain some form of control over the Palestinian Authority’s finances, last year Abbas exerted heavy pressure on Fayyad to appoint [Abbas loyalist] Nabil Qassis as finance minister.

Until then, Fayyad had held the position of finance minister in addition to the premiership.

Earlier this year, Fayyad, in a surprise move, announced that he has accepted the resignation of Qassis without providing further details.

Shortly afterwards, Abbas issued a statement announcing that he has “rejected” the resignation of the finance minister.

Fayyad has since refused to comply with Abbas’s demand and reinstate Qassis.

But the dispute between Abbas and Fayyad is not only over financial matters.

In fact, much of it has to do with the feeling among Fatah’s top cadres that Fayyad is seeking to undermine the faction’s influence and probably end its role in the Palestinian arena.

They accuse him of cutting funds to Fatah’s members and refusing to pay salaries to former Fatah militiamen.

In this power struggle between Fatah and Fayyad, the prime minister is certain to emerge as the biggest loser.

Fayyad has no grassroots support or political power bases among Palestinians.

He does not have a strong political party that would be able to compete with Fatah.

Nor does he have his own militia or political backing, especially in the villages and refugee camps.

In the 2006 parliamentary election, Fayyad, who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, ran at the head of an independent list called Third Way. He won only two seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Most Palestinians did not vote for Fayyad because he had never played any active role in the fight against Israel. For Palestinians, graduating from an Israeli prison is more important than going to any university in the world. Fayyad, however, did not sit even one day in an Israeli prison.

Had Fayyad killed a Jew or sent one of his sons to throw stones at an Israeli vehicle, he would have earned the respect and support of a large number of Palestinians. In short, Palestinians do not consider Fayyad a hero despite his hard efforts to build state institutions and a fine economy.