Israel’s security apparatus at this point is calling the single missile drop that damaged a road outside Ashkelon “a local event,” but makes clear that the IDF will respond forcefully if more launches happen, the Walla website reports. Which means that the other side gets one freebee. If the reader is in tremendous hurry, we should reveal that the above bit of information is the most crucial, outshining anything else we could possibly report next. Because in societies where maintaining law and order is considered the most elementary part of a government’s duty to its citizens the criminals don’t get a freebee.

You see, on the eve of the “disengagement,” as the transfer buses and the bulk of Israel’s internal security forces were moving in on the Jews of Gaza, then prime minister Ariel Sharon swore an oath, that should a single rocket be fired out of Gaza following the disengagement, “we will react with greater force than ever before.”

Since that promise, Israel has stood twice with its boot on the neck of Hamas and its minions, and twice it let go, each time bragging that walking away from the festering wound that Ariel Sharon had cut open was, somehow, the mature, responsible, even brave thing to do.

Well, here we go again. Eager to show that they’re just as angry as their brethren in the PA over the death in jail of an Arab youngster arrested for stone throwing, Hamas ordered its subordinate gang of thugs, the Islamic Jihad (which is just another name for Hamas, in the end) to shoot a trial missile over the line. A shot across the bow.

Israel is determined to react only to the second one. Which means we should alter Sharon’s famous threat to “should two rockets be fired out of Gaza.” Must keep up with the changing realities.

And IDF sources are saying today that they’re not surprised, that they’d been expecting something like that, it only makes sense, what with all the clashes between a smattering of Arab youths (the PLO is only able to raise a couple dozen rock throwers in each location because its funds have been dwindling—but now, that Israel has renewed the flow of money, they’ll be financing much larger groups).

Here’s a question: If the IDF was well aware that this was coming, how come the sirens didn’t go off in Ashkelon? And how come that glorious expression of the Jewish genius, the Iron Dome, didn’t stop the rocket?

American slang uses the metaphor of a male bovine’s droppings to suggest that a particular statement is entirely unrelated to the truth. In the case of the following disclosure from our brave spokespersons in uniform, the heaps of bovine refuse are high enough to bury the entire bovine:

“This is an isolated incident and not a system-wide decision to return to rocket firing against Israel. It’s merely a few rogue activists who decided on their own to express solidarity with what is happening in Judea and Samaria regarding mostly the issue of the prisoners, which is sensitive not only in Judea and Samaria. We must not forget that there are security prisoners released into Gaza in the Gilad Shalit deal, instead of to their Judea and Samaria homes, and they are engaged in terrorism from morning to night.”

Moo…

Now here’s something a bit closer to reality, another statement, same IDF sources, this time with facts:

A senior security official told Walla this morning that “It doesn’t make sense that while Hamas is negotiating with Israel through the Egyptian, it would be trying to bend Israel’s arm. The launch this morning is against its own strategy. And so, the new reality will be examined over time. If there are additional launches, the IDF will respond with force. There is no intention to allow a return to the time of missile trickles.”

Now the picture is clearer: Hamas, which looks to open up the border passages and increase the flow of incoming goods, including cement (to fortify new rocket launchers replacing the ones destroyed last November), orders its subordinate organization, the Islamic Jihad, to shoot one. The message has nothing to do with prisoners. The message is: we’ll keep the rockets quiet as long as you adhere to our demands. We are in complete control of the rocket fire, no one shoots anything unless we say so – now, do you want quiet or a new war on your border?

Israel authorities took the wraps off a gag order Sunday to reveal that an Islamic Jihad terrorist cell was arrested last month on the northern edge of metropolitan Tel Aviv.

The Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and Border Police rearrested the cell five weeks ago at a checkpoint east of Kfar Saba, which is a stone’s throw from the Palestinian Authority city of Kalkilya.

The terrorists included two Arabs from the Israel city of Lod, near Ben Gurion Airport, and five others from Palestinian Authority villages. They were planning to kidnap IDF soldiers as bargaining chips for the release of jailed terrorists, a method that worked wonders for Hamas.

Israel last year caved into Hamas’ demands and released kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit five years after he was taken hostage. In return for Shalit, the government  freed more than 1,000 terrorists, many of whom have gone back to their favorite pastime of planning to kill Jews. Some have succeeded.

The Islamic Jihad kidnap plan was foiled after a lengthy investigation,  which led police and security personnel to arrest three terrorists in their car, in which there was rope, a knife and tape, presumably to be used to gag the mouth of the intended victims. Eight other terrorists also were arrested later.

One of those arrested is an Arab with Israeli citizenship living in Umm-al-Fahm, a city northeast of Netanya and the home of the northern branch of the radical Islamic Movement.

A tip-off of the terrorists’ plans may have come from intended victims, who refused offers for a “free ride” from bus and train stations. Had they accepted, they would have found themselves in a hell-hole in Jenin, once known as the terror capital of Israel.

That title is now shared with dozens of hotspots not only in Judea and Samaria but also, it seems, in Israel’s urban areas.

Semantics Or Something Deeper?

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks in Libya, UN Ambassador Susan Rice may have deliberately misled the public when she went on multiple television shows and called the facility that had been targeted a “consulate.”

The difference between branding the Benghazi facility a “mission” or a “consulate” may be crucial in determining what was really going on in the building.

As this column was first to report, the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi actually served as a meeting place to coordinate aid for the rebel-led insurgencies in the Middle East, according to Middle Eastern security officials.

Many rebel fighters are openly members of terrorist organizations, including al Qaeda.

A good deal of media attention and political criticism has been focused on Rice’s other statements immediately after the Benghazi attacks, primarily her blaming of an obscure YouTube film vilifying Muhammad for what she claimed were popular protests that took place outside the U.S. mission.

In defending itself, however, against new claims that the White House may have scrubbed the CIA’s initial intelligence assessment on the Benghazi attacks of references to al Qaeda, Obama administration officials may have unintentionally implicated themselves in another, until now unnoticed scandal.

Over the weekend, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes contended that the White House made only small, factual edits to the CIA’s intelligence assessment, referring to one edit in particular.

“We were provided with points by the intelligence community that represented their assessment,” Rhodes said aboard Air Force One en route to Asia. “The only edit made by the White House was the factual edit about how to refer to the facility.”

Rhodes said the White House and State Department changed a reference in the CIA report from “consulate” to “diplomatic facility.”

Further, Politico reported that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was adamant that the White House only changed the reference to the Benghazi facility.

“There was only one thing that was changed … and that was, the word ‘consulate’ was changed to ‘mission,’ ” Feinstein said. “That’s the only change that anyone in the White House made, and I have checked this out.”

If the White House intentionally changed the reference to the Benghazi facility from “consulate” to “mission,” why did Rice repeatedly refer to the facility as a “consulate” when she engaged in a media blitz in the immediate aftermath of the Benghazi attacks?

In a September 16 interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Rice twice labeled the facility a “consulate.” In a subsequent interview on CBS’s “This Morning,” she again referred to the facility as a “consulate.”

Islamic Jihad Warns Fears Mossad
Facebook Infiltration

The Gazan-based Islamic Jihad terror group is apparently concerned Israeli intelligence agents disguised as good looking girls on Facebook are attempting to infiltrate Palestinian computers.

During intense fighting in Gaza that reportedly has most jihadist leaders in hiding, members of the Islamic Jihad’s so-called military wing, the Al Quds Brigades, found time today to post a lengthy article on their official website warning Palestinian Facebook users of potential Israeli intelligence hackers.

Islamic Jihad has taken responsibility for firing hundreds of rockets from the Gaza Strip aimed at nearby Jewish population centers. It also claimed credit for firing at least one Fajr-5 long range missile toward Tel Aviv.

“How do you know if Mossad became your friend on Facebook,” is the title of the piece, posted at Saraya.ps, Islamic Jihad’s main website. In Arabic, Saraya al-Quds means the Al Quds Brigades.

“Do you feel proud because your Facebook account boasts 5,000 friends? Well, here are ten steps to expose whether intelligence agents transplanted themselves inside your friends list,” reads the article.

The piece warns of friend invites from Facebook users who are unknown, “especially from a beautiful girl.”

Iran And Hizbullah Attempt
To Resupply Hamas

Iran and Hizbullah are furiously trying to resupply Hamas in the Gaza Strip with long range missiles to fire into Israel, according to Israeli defense sources.

Informed Middle Eastern security officials further told this column that advisers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Units are in the Gaza Strip helping to oversee the firing of long range rockets by jihadist groups there.

The information comes as Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, denied Israeli claims that his country was supplying rockets to Gazan groups, according to a report posted on Iran’s Al Alam’s television website.

The website Yoni Alper – Terror Watch reported tonight that sources within the terror organizations in Gaza are claiming that thousands of warriors have been deployed in the suburbs of Gaza and along the border with Israel, in anticipation of engaging IDF ground forces, should Israel decide to turn the Pillar of Defense operation into a full scale invasion. Those sorces are saying that suicide squads have been positioned in the area, as well as other “surprises.”

An SMS from the Islamic Jihad to several Israeli Journalists has warned that, should the IDF commit a “stupid mistake” and send ground troops into the Gaza Strip, it would become their graveyard. The SMS also promised to ignite Gaza in a hellfire.

The military arm of Hamas has announced that its forces have been deployed near the border with Israel, including suicide units, special units, observation units. The Hamas has promised a “tunnel war” against the armored vehicles, should those dare enter Gaza.

According the Terror Watch, the Islamic Jihad is convinced that the IDF is not planning to enter Gaza, and that the entire operation is merely a form of psychological warfare. They insist Israel is interested in bringing an end to the fighting.

From the early morning hours on Saturday, rocket fire from the Gaza Strip continued with some 20 hits identified within Israel, mostly in towns and villages near the Gaza border.

An Israeli civilian who was inside a factory in Sderot was hit by the rocket fire and sustained moderate injuries.

On Saturday at noon and afternoon Israel’s Air Force hit terrorists who were in the midst of preparations for launching missiles at Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip. Both attacks thwarted the launches. Terrorist Khalid al-Burei, 25, was reported killed, a long with a young girl.

Overnight, the IAF attacked three terrorist bases in northern and southern Gaza Strip. Hamas reported at least 17 injured.

On Friday two teams which were preparing to fire rockets at Israel were hit. All the attacks resulted in precise target hits and all IAF planes returned safely to their bases.

But according to Ma’an, the Islamic Jihad held its fire this week. Last Sunday, Israel launched a series of airstrikes which killed eight Arabs over three days, including two Islamic Jihad terrorists.

The Islamic Jihad did not respond, but the military wings of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Resistance Committees and several smaller brigades sent a volley of rockets into southern Israel and at Israeli military sites around Gaza.

Hamas’ armed wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, on Tuesday fired its first rockets since April 2011.

Islamic Jihad leader Nafeth Azzam told Ma’an: “We were not pressured by any side whether to participate or not.”

Political analyst Yahya Rabbah said the Islamic Jihad had led the resistance last time Israel heavily bombed Gaza.

“The Islamic Jihad movement … took the entire burden of facing the occupation as most of the martyrs and the injured were its leaders and no one stood beside it until a truce was made through Egyptian mediation,” Rabbah told Ma’an.

The Islamic Jihad stayed on the sidelines this week “to see how others would face the Israeli aggression,” Rabbah suggested.

Following the Saturday incidents, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz convened a special assessment meeting, with the head of Military Intelligence, Air Force Commander and other generals. Gantz later toured the area under attack and met with commanders in the Gaza division, as well as municipal leaders.

“Iron Dome” batteries stationed in the south have so far hit eight rockets which were fired at urban concentrations.

Home Front Command instructed residents of the settlements around Gaza to remain within 15 seconds of the protected spaces. The Zikim beach was closed down following this order.

Media watchdog organizations have revealed an uptick in youth-directed anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian media and society in the past week, with initiatives sponsored by the Palestinian Authority, the UN, and European non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) reported that in the wake of  Israel’s transferal last week of the remains of 91 terrorists to the PA, PA TV used its youth programming as a platform to lionize the terrorists as “the greatest role models.” PMW reported that the program, Speak Up, is “co-produced by PA TV and PYALARA,” a youth-focused NGO funded in part by the EU.

The program’s two hosts, a young man and young woman, exchange insights about the virtues of the repatriated terrorists, some of whom were responsible for the most notorious suicide bombings against Israel: “Unfortunately, we couldn’t part from them [the terrorists] or even embrace them,” the man says, “but were satisfied standing before their bodies, standing up before their sanctified message: The homeland won’t die, but we will die for it.”

Picking up where the male host left off, the woman said: “These [Martyrs] are more honored than all of us… They are the greatest role models for us, not only because they fought and struggled for the homeland, but also because they went beyond the sacrifice [of] strain and effort, to the stage where they actually sacrificed their lives for the homeland.”

Their displays of reverence was consistent with the official line of the PA, which honored the terrorists with funerals fit for national heroes.

Another report by PMW uncovered a puppet show for Palestinian children in east Jerusalem – sponsored by the UN-supported Palestinian NGO Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society – that managed to turn an event promoting non-smoking into a platform for anti-Israel propaganda. The educational event started with one puppet saying: “I wanted to stand before the audience and sing to Jerusalem, which is being kept from us. Jerusalem, whose youth are being killed by the Jews, to sing and to say: Jerusalem, we are coming, Jerusalem, the time of death has arrived. Jerusalem, we will not surrender to the enemies or be humiliated.”

Another puppet continues: “I, and many other youth like me, think that cigarettes will help us to grow, to turn into men. Jerusalem doesn’t need men who hold cigarettes. It needs men who hold machine guns, not cigarettes.”

Watch the video, courtesy of PMW, below:

According to PMW, the Burj Luq-Luq Social Center Society’s website states that the organization “maintains strategic ties with: …the French consulate, the Swiss Development Agency, the Youth Development Department, which belongs to the Association of Arab Studies the ‘Orient House,’ the Italian Institutions Union, the Faisal Husseini Institute,.. UNFPA…, the [Palestinian] Ministry of Youth and Sports… UNICEF, UNESCO…”

Finally, MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute) translated a featured article on the Al-Quds Brigades website which highlights an end-of-year ceremony for a kindergarten in Gaza. The military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad reported that the attending children dressed up in military uniforms, and acted out scenes of jihad armed with wooden rifles as well as torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

The article explained that the children of Gaza “are raised on the love of jihad, of resistance and of Palestine, and on the massacres and crimes of the Zionists– to the point that their lives, even in kindergarten, have become similar to those of the resistance fighters.”

The kindergarten teacher was quoted as saying: “In our annual end-of-year celebrations, we focus on having them enact the role of jihad and resistance fighters for the sake of Allah.” She also said that her aim is to raise “jihad fighters and commanders who will defend the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem.”

The article also quoted a uniform-clad child brandishing a wooden rifle, who declared: “When I grow up, I will [join] the ranks of the Islamic Jihad, and resist the Zionist enemy and fire rockets at him until I die as a martyr and join my father in Paradise.

In an interview with the Palestinian news agency Ma’an on March 19th, Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ) spokesman Zaher Birawi stated that the organizers are “not interested in confrontation with the Israeli army, after similar demonstrations a year earlier ended in bloodshed”.

Whilst it is difficult to imagine exactly what sort of effective controls the GMJ organizers have been able to put in place in order to prevent their aspired one million man march from descending into violence, it should also be taken into account that a considerable number of the GMJ organizers are veterans of the flotilla project who still describe the Turkish activists aboard the IHH-sponsored Mavi Marmara in 2010 as ‘humanitarian aid workers’.

Others are members of various ‘popular resistance committees’ which define the weekly riots at places such as Bil’in and Nebi Salah as ‘non-violent protest’. The heavy involvement of Hamas and the Iranian regime in the march’s organization, together with support from Hizbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad also raises doubts as to the sincerity of the professed commitment to non-violence.

Coincidentally, the North American chapter of the GMJ has put out a new leaflet replete with messages of non-violence and invoking Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King as role models.

When compared to the original publicity put out by the GMJ organisers, it is rather obvious that someone appears to have reached the conclusion that the North American audience is in need of a somewhat softer approach.

However, over in South East Asia, audiences are apparently deemed by local GMJ organizers as being susceptible to somewhat different messages in the attempt to raise support for the project.

In Kuala Lumpur on March 18th a flashmob of students gathered in order to “create awareness on the Global March to Jerusalem.” Chairman of the Malaysian branch of the GMJ, Dr Mohd Tahir Abdul Rahman, was present at the event and made the following erroneous statement:

“Our focus is Jerusalem, where presently Muslims and Christians are denied access to their sacred places and holy places of worship by the Zionists,” he said after the flash mob today.”

The flashmob’s student organisers explained that:

“We wanted to create awareness about the oppression in Palestine by recreating scenes of the march toward Jerusalem and also show Palestinians being liberated”

As can be seen in the video of the event below, their idea of “scenes of the march toward Jerusalem” apparently includes dead Israeli soldiers.

Somebody obviously missed out on the ‘non-violence’ memo.

A week of missiles was supposed to change the focus of interest in the Middle East from Homs to Gaza, from Syria to Israel, from Assad to Netanyahu. This was the plan of Iran and its few followers in Gaza. But it didn’t succeed, and for the usual reason – the sociological factors of the Middle East.

I have emphasized again and again the dominance of tribalism within Middle Eastern culture, and the important role played by traditional frameworks of relationship – such as ethnic, tribal, religious, sectarian – in private as well as in communal life. I downplay the influence of foreign ideologies that have been imported from Europe, from communism to democracy, and from nationalism to liberalism, which have all failed in the effort to formulate a culture of public domain in the Middle East. Dictatorship is the practical expression of the failure of these ideologies.

What remains is only the person, together with his family, extended family, clan, and tribe. This is the only thing which is real, alive and kicking, that functions as it always has, and the only framework that is capable of bestowing on an individual identity, a sense of belonging, a livelihood, and physical defense and security.

One of the foundation stones of tribal culture is the antagonism between the tribe and the modern state, a state which was imposed upon the tribe by foreign colonialism and its local derivatives. States have always tried to impose themselves upon the individual and upon the tribe; including their symbols, values, laws and leaders, and have tried to substitute these in the hearts of the people instead of those of the tribe, and its symbols, values, leaders, and laws. In Arab societies that have undergone dissolution and turned into more individualistic societies – Egypt and Tunisia for example – the state has succeeded in settling in the hearts of the people, and uproot the loyalty to the tribe. In the tribal societies of most of the other Arab states, the state is forced to yield part of its sovereignty and to accept the existence and limited authority of the tribe. In order not to confront the tribe, the state compromises and comes to an understanding with the tribe, in an effort to placate its members.

The Gaza Strip is no different from the rest of the Arab world, so tribal culture is alive and kicking in the Gaza Strip too. Ever since the Hamas movement took control of Gaza trip in 2007, it has transformed itself from a gang of jihadists into a ruling organization which has a state, government, advisory council, legal system, police, military and economic bodies. Thus, Hamas has turned into a standard Arab state, which is attempting to impose its agenda upon the tribes and the clans that live in the Strip. The State of Hamas serves the interests of the group that leads it, and therefore it is in constant conflict with the tribes and the clans and must reach agreements with them.

The minor movements – Islamic Jihad, the PRC (Popular Resistance Committees), the Salah-a-Din Division, the Army of the Nation, the Army of Islam and others – function like tribes, challenging the authority of the state, which is in the hands of Hamas. Today, these groups are doing to Hamas what Hamas did to the PLO twenty years ago when the PLO was in power. The widespread corruption among the top echelons of Hamas strengthen the influence of the small organizations that oppose Hamas. What encourages these organizations is the fact that Hamas has “hung up the gloves” and is trying to reach a calm with Israel. Hamas has not become a Zionist organization, and has not changed its covenant or its sole goal: to eliminate Israel and bring an end to the “occupation” of Jaffa and Acre, not only Hebron and Nablus. However, in the present historic phase it is suspending its battle against Israel in order to establish a state which, when the time comes, will be the basis from which the war of the destruction of Israel will be waged. The small organizations do not accept this suspension of jihad and call Hamas derogatory names such as “The Israeli Border Guard” and the “South Lebanese Army”.

From a practical point of view, Hamas is capable of eliminating the organizations, just as it dealt with the Army of Islam, of the Dughmush clan in August of 2008, and as it eliminated Sheikh Abd Al-Latif Moussa’s Islamic Emirate of Jerusalem in cold blood in August of 2009 in a mosque in Rafah, murdering him, his wives and children and 24 followers. As of today, in the year 2012, Hamas refrains from imposing itself on the small organizations by force of arms so that it will not become the “Israeli Border Guard”in the eyes of Gazans, and prefers to come to an agreement with them; to compromise with them and to calm them down.