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.

Authorities lifted a gag order Tuesday on the arrest and indictment of two Palestinian Authority terrorists, both in their 20s,  for stabbings of Jews in Samaria and in eastern Jerusalem.

One of the terrorists is student from a village in Samaria who stabbed a man at the Tapuach junction, causing moderate wounds. The attacker, Mistafa Aadel Barghouti confessed to the attack and also to involvement in attacks on soldiers as well. He said he acted alone and was not part of a terrorist cell.

The second terrorist was a member of Hamas and lives southwest of Hevron. Identified as Samer Ahmed Mahmoud Matar, he tried to murder a Jew in Jerusalem and confessed to searching for a Haredi Jew or settler as his victim.

He also considered planting a bomb on a public bus in Beit Shemesh, located 10 miles southwest of Jerusalem.

I don’t know who this character Ben Caspit is. But I have absolutely no respect for him. What he has done – no doubt in the safety of his own office – is write a hit piece on Gilad Shalit (published in the Jerusalem Post, March 28). I can think of little else more appalling than ripping into a man who while serving his country was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists for 5 years.

Admitting that he was opposed to the deal that freed him and asserting that the jury is still out about whether it was the right thing to do – he goes into detail about the circumstances of Shalit’s capture. Based on Shalit’s own detailed account he hammers away at how this could have all been prevented had Shalit done his duty properly.

How a man sitting in an office can criticize someone who sat in a prison for 5 years fearing he could be be-headed at a moment’s notice – is beyond me. It is beyond Mentchlich in fact.

His criticism amounts to Shalit’s dereliction of duty in that he did not follow procedure during the attack. Had he done so, Caspit says – the entire episode may have been prevented. That’s easy for him to say. He was not under rocket attack when he made these judgmental comments. Shalit and his fellow soldiers in that tank were under deadly attack. Can Caspit say that he would have acted any differently?

Taking advantage of Shalit’s soul searching debriefing by the military – Caspit reports that by Shalit’s own admission he did not pay attention to details provided by his tank commander. He simply relied on him and would follow any order by him based on his knowledge. But even if he had known the details- it is not that uncommon for people to panic when they are under attack. No matter how much training they had. In fact the tank commander panicked and did not follow procedure either. By leaving his tank he got himself killed. Shalit stayed in the tank and his life was spared.

Caspit says that he could have notified nearby troops or used the weapons in his tank that were still operational… or just come out of the tank with ‘guns ablazin’ …and that could have very well taken care of the situation. He decided not to do any that. And instead was ultimately captured.

All easy for Caspit to say. But Shalit had no way of knowing how many attackers there were or whether they too had nearby reinforcements. He believed that if he had left his tank firing he would have been killed by an overwhelming force outside the tank. He decided to stay put and not resist by force. And because of this his life was spared; he was captured… and ultimately released.

One can debate whether Shalit did the right thing or not. In my view saving his own life was paramount. So whatever action he took in that vein was the right thing to do. One could argue that he should have died trying to resist being captured. I think that’s what Caspit was getting at – without actually saying so. But… let him walk a mile in Shalit’s shoes and see what he does then.

Today one and a half years after his release, I am proud to say that I supported the deal that got him released. I cried out for any deal that would save Shalit’s life – a Jewish life involved in serving his country in dangerous ways.

I strongly urged the Israeli government do whatever it took (short of actual murder) to ascertain his release Even in the face of strong criticism by those who felt the price for saving Shalit’s life was too high. The claim was made that the danger that terrorism would increase and more people would die as a result did not deter me.

Releasing all of those Palestinian prisoners – some with blood on their hands in exchange for his release was a scary thought. But not as scary as allowing an innocent soldier to remain in captivity in enemy hands. A cutthroat enemy. Literally. Prime Minister Netanyahu did the right thing. He authorized the exchange and saved a young soldier’s life. A young soldier that clearly was put in harm’s way to guard the border between Gaza and Israel.

What about all the predicted fallout by the naysayers? Didn’t happen! Could it still? Sure. World War III could break out too. But neither of those have happened and the more time passes the less likely that the release of those prisoners will have anything to do with anything bad.

Caspit says that despite his opposition to the deal that gained Shalit’s freedom, he teared when Shalit was actually set free by his terrorist captors. What human being with a heart didn’t have those feelings? I sure did. Caspit showed his humanity then. He should have stopped while he was ahead!

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The father of the late Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl will light one the memorial flames at the Memorial Day Ceremony in Jerusalem, the day before Independence Day.

Pearl was kidnapped and brutally murdered in Pakistan while researching a story on Islamic radicals for The Wall Street Journal.

Nine days after his abduction, Pearl was cruelly beheaded. In a video which released his killers, Pearl was filmed stating, “My name is Daniel Pearl. I’m a Jewish American… My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I’m Jewish”

His father, Prof. Judea Pearl will light the memorial flame at the ceremony that honors the memory of Jews killed in terror attacks and anti-Semitic incidents across the globe, in addition to Israel’s fallen soldiers and victims of terror attacks in Israel.

Daniel Pearl’s wife Marianne, and his son Adam, who was born several months after his father’s murder, also will be present.

Time for a small lesson in reality twisting and shaping.

A convicted Palestinian Arab terrorist, sentenced to life imprisonment for trying to engineer a massacre in a Jerusalem cafe in 2002, died recently at the age of 62 of cancer of the throat.

As a direct result, Arab riots broke out in several parts of Israel’s prison system as well as in East Jerusalem. In addition, three rockets were fired into Israel from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The Times of Israel said that two of the Gazan missiles crashed inside Gaza’s borders, but as happens constantly with such “fell short” explosions, there are no reports of casualties among the Palestinian Arabs of Gaza, even though casualties do routinely occur in the wake of “fell shorts.” A third exploded in an open area of southern Israel’s Eshkol region, according to the IDF.

Credit was claimed by the terrorist faction called Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem who said it’s a protest at the death of the sick, now deceased, terrorist. Wikipedia calls this group

an armed al-Qaeda-linked group that is active in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and in the Gaza Strip. Since it emerged following the 2011 Arab Spring developments in Egypt, it has carried out attacks against civilians in Israel. The group describes violence against Jews as a religious obligation that brings its perpetrators closer to God.

The terrorist, Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, was diagnosed a week ago as being terminally ill. He died Tuesday in a bed in one of Israel’s major public hospitals, Soroka University Medical Center in Beer Sheva, where he received treatment (says the Israel Prison Service spokesperson) from some of the country’s most accomplished oncologists. Perhaps this explains why Palestinian prisoner affairs minister Issa Karakeh…

blamed Israel. “This is a serious, ugly crime committed against the prisoner Maysara due to medical negligence and reluctance to release him,” Karakeh said [source].

Surprisingly, the Palestinian minister made no comment at all - not a word – about the death a day earlier of Sami Hamdan Qishta. Qishta died on Monday of a heart attack at the age of 50 in one of the Hamas prisons in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency. Unlike the massacre-planning Abu Hadiyeh, Qishta was neither a terrorist nor even convicted. Ma’an says he was merely being held on charges “related to financial crimes,” quoting the Hamas Ministry of the Interior as its source.

The global media are roiling about the “serious, ugly” death of the terminally-ill Abu Hamdiyeh. Now try Googling for any mentions of Qishta in the news, the one who died at the hands of Hamas. And good luck.

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Comes the news [reported at the JewishPress.com -ed.] that Frederick Cohn, the Jewish defense lawyer for Abdel Hameed Shehadeh, asked Brooklyn-based federal judge Eric Vitaliano to exclude Jews from the jury. Shehadeh is charged with three counts of making false statements in connection with his attempts to join jihadis in Pakistan. “Your Honor” Cohn explained in February,

I’m not wild about having Jews on the jury in this case. Given that there’s going to be inflammatory testimony about Jews and Zionism, I think it would be hard for Jews to cast aside any innate antipathy. The American Jewish community is heavily aligned with Israel and Zionism.

This news brings to mind the London trial, almost exactly a decade ago, of Abdullah el-Faisal, when the defense successfully excluded Jews and Hindus from a trial jury. Carla T. Main explained at the time in the National Review what happened:

In a bizarre judicial move that has largely slipped under the radar screen in the United States, England’s Central Criminal Court, known as the Old Bailey, several weeks ago banned Jews and Hindus (and anyone married to one) from serving on the jury in a trial of Abdullah el-Faisal. The Muslim cleric had been running around England writing, recording, and speaking about his hatred of Americans, Jews, and Hindus, and waxing poetic about Osama bin Laden. He was tried and convicted of soliciting the murder of nonbelievers (read: Americans, Jews, and Hindus) and using threatening words to stir up racial hatred.

It may be difficult for Americans to appreciate just how unusual this act of juror cherry picking was in England, steeped as we are in the high drama that jury selection has become in the United States. But it is worth bearing in mind that in England there is no such thing as jury selection. Jurors are pulled from the pool at random, lottery-style.

At the behest of the defense, the court took steps that the defense itself was unable to take to eliminate from the jury panel those whom he feared — without a wit of evidence — might not be impartial. The judge reportedly announced, “For obvious reasons, members of the jury of the Jewish or Hindu faith should reveal themselves, even if they are married to Jewish or Hindu women, because they are not fit to arbitrate in this case.”

Comments: (1) As ever, Muslims raise startling new issues and Islam drives the social and legal agenda in the West. (2) Has anyone else noticed the propensity of Islamists defendants to hire Jewish lawyers? (3) Are the el-Faisal and Shehadeh one-off aberrations or the start of an ominous trend? Only time will tell.

Originally published at DanielPipes.org and National Review Online, The Corner, March 11, 2013.

From Reuters yesterday:

Three suspected Islamist militants arrested in southern France appeared to be planning an attack in the days ahead, the Paris prosecutor said on Monday, the anniversary of an al Qaeda-inspired shooting that rocked France. Police found weapons and explosives at the home of one of the suspects in the town of Marignane, near Marseille, and intercepted communications between the men suggested they were close to going into action, prosecutor Francois Molins said. The three men, who were taken in for questioning last week with a fourth man who was later released, were to be placed under formal investigation later on Monday… The timing of the arrests was poignant, coming exactly a year after 23-year-old gunman Mohamed Merah began a rampage that killed three Jewish children, a rabbi and three soldiers in the southern city of Toulouse. He was subsequently tracked down and killed in a shootout with police… Molins said the arrested men, in their 20s, wanted to emulate Merah. “It was clear they were training themselves in making explosives based on a jihadist radicalisation, a glorification of Mohamed Merah, and an affirmed desire to go into action.”

A year after the murderous Merah rampage, TIME Magazine reviewed what we more-or-less know now:

Twelve months after the series of attacks — which concluded with Merah’s own death after a 32-hour siege — the country is still learning details about the self-proclaimed al-Qaeda member’s transformation from petty hood to violent jihadist. Perhaps most disturbing among those revelations are indications that the nation’s domestic intelligence agency identified Merah as a potential security risk as early as 2007, yet failed to prevent the mass killings of March 2012.

According to the Time article,

In comments earlier this month, France’s Socialist Interior Minister Manuel Valls acknowledged that his predecessors had made “errors, failings, and faults” in handling Merah…

There’s something sadly familiar about political figures looking back at terror attacks that occurred when their rivals were in charge and declaring that it was all handled badly. Has France learned something from the Merah terror rampage? The terrorists of Hezbollah and their civilian auxiliaries are operating right under the noses of the French today. Are the ministers of the Hollande government doing something about it? If yes, what?

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Israel’s border with Egypt [Project Sand Timer] is long (266 kilometers), and has enormous strategic importance given what happens on the far side. Though demarcated by a new steel fence, it constitutes a major headache for those charged with keeping Israel safe and secure.

The part-constructed fence already secures part of the border, but (a) it will be months before it is completed; (b) there is already at least one tunnel that brings ‘smugglers’ under it (see this Arab news report from yesterday); and (c) fences are of modest value against attacks by rocket-equipped terrorists.

We have written numerous times about the growing lawlessness of Egyptian Sinai and the danger of having the terrorists essentially in control is a huge one.

Now the Egyptian police, who do whatever it is they do down there, are on strike.

Egyptian police protest in Sinai, Cairo demanding weapons  | Ahram Online , Tuesday 5 Mar 2013

Dozens of police officers across different directorates in Sinai are on strike for the second day in a row. This includes officers in the directorates of Tour Sinai, Ras Sidr, Taba and Saint Catherine. Security personnel are protesting against what they describe as “inhumane and degrading” working conditions. They also demand that low-ranking officers and employees be armed so that they can defend themselves from the recurring dangers they are exposed to while on duty. The officers claim that their lives are in danger as ministry leaders refuse to allow them access to weapons, urging them to maintain self-restraint. They also demand to be awarded excellence bonuses on a regular basis. The officers said that they would be suspending work until their demands are fulfilled. In Cairo, dozens of police officers from the Old Cairo Police Directorate blocked off Salah Salem Street, a major thoroughfare leading to Cairo International Airport, early on Tuesday, bringing traffic flow to a complete halt. The officers were angry at the death of a fellow officer who died in the line of duty as he attempted to stop a bank robbery. They are demanding more access to live ammunition to defend themselves. Security forces managed to coax protesting officers into reopening the road to traffic.

This is not likely to produce a good result.

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