Mofaz paints dim picture of PA security situation for cabinet (Hamas building "People's Army")

May. 15, 2005 23:07 | Updated May. 15, 2005 23:20
Mofaz paints dim picture of PA security situation for cabinet
By HERB KEINON

Israel views any attempt to develop a Kassam rocket in the West Bank as a "ticking bomb" and will take the necessary military action to thwart it without first asking the Palestinian Authority to act, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told the cabinet Sunday.

"The minute there is information about Kassam rockets we act," Mofaz said in answer to a question about the Palestinian rocket arsenal.

Mofaz said that today in Gaza there were Kassam rockets with a range of 7 to 8 kilometers and that he could not guarantee that there were not longer range rockets there as well.

Mofaz, in a security briefing to the cabinet, said that the PA was not taking action against the Palestinian terrorist organizations and that the Hamas was emerging as a "second" Palestinian Authority. He said Hamas was putting together a "people's army" directly under the nose of the PA, which is supposed to have security responsibility in the Palestinian territories.

Hamas, he said, was gaining both political and military strength in the territories.

Mofaz told the cabinet that Israel would not transfer additional Palestinian cities to PA control until the PA fulfilled its commitments under the Sharm e-Sheikh understandings and disarmed the fugitives in the cities – Jericho and Tulkarem - already under its security control.

A joint Israeli-Palestinian committee is scheduled to meet later this week to talk about the fugitive issue. "If it turns out that they have disarmed them, we will move forward," Mofaz said. "If now, we won't."

Mofaz said that April witnessed a dramatic upturn in terror incidents, and represented a deterioration of the calm of the last few months. For example, he said that in April there were 207 attacks from Gaza that endangered lives, as opposed to March when there were 133 such incidents. May's statistics, he said, have yet to be compiled.

Mofaz said the failure of the PA to stem the terrorist tide flowed from a lack of willingness to confront the terrorist organizations, and to suffice instead with trying to reach agreements with them.

The IDF's policy, Mofaz said, was to take military action where the PA failed to do so. "Where they do not take action, we do," Mofaz said.

Mofaz said that talks are underway with the PA to prevent attacks on soldiers or settlers during the disengagement, and to prevent massive looting of the settlements once Israel leaves.

Turning to the recent escalation in Lebanon, Mofaz said that Israel is taking Hizbullah head Sheikh Nasrallah's threats to kidnap Israeli soldiers very seriously, and that there are concrete warnings regarding this possibility. He said that Israel has relayed messages to Lebanon and the UN that Israel views Lebanon responsible for what is taking place in the south Lebanon, and not only Hizbullah.

Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres intervened at this point, saying that Hizbullah is a militia, not a state that sits in the UN, and that Israel should make clear that it held sovereign Lebanon responsible for what was taking place inside its borders.

Minister-without-Portfolio Haim Ramon urged Mofaz do more to strengthen PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and when Mofaz said that he was doing all he could, Ramon said that he has sources inside the defense establishment who said that more could be done.

National Infrastructures Minister Binymain Ben-Eliezer, meanwhile, urged Sharon to meet immediately with Abbas. "I have no problem with this," Sharon said, adding that the problem was Abbas's schedule, and that in the near future he would be spending much of his time abroad.

Stop Apologizing to Islam!

By
Barbara J. Stock

We Americans need to get our priorities straight. We are at war with Islam. I want President Bush, Secretary Rice, the media, and the bleeding-heart liberals to stop apologizing to Islam and I want it to stop right now. Islamics are slaughtering people all over the world. Islam has threatened to make our streets "run red with American blood." A Saudi Islamic cleric gave bin Laden permission to detonate a nuke in a major American city. Enough already!

What has set off the latest round of breast-beating and begging for Islamic forgiveness? Allegedly, the Quran was urinated on, or placed on a toilet or something. Newsweek couldn't wait to report this non-story knowing it would trigger anti-American riots and give the Islamic propaganda machine fodder for weeks to come. In fact, if Islam has any pattern, people will die because of these still unproven allegations. Once again, the sins of Islamics will be on the back page as we Americans scramble to be forgiven by Islam.

Look for more kidnappings that will be followed by the obligatory beheadings of innocent people so that "Islamic honor" can be restored. As we have all learned, only the death of someone not even remotely involved in whatever it is Islamics are enraged about, restores Islam's "honor." These beheadings will be video taped and gleefully shown on Al Jazeera every five minutes. In fact, four Afghani men have already died because of that report. Good job, Newsweek.

What has happened to this country? Four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle and his raiders launched an attack on mainland Japan. That raid had one purpose and one purpose only: To humiliate the Japanese and let them clearly know they had picked a fight with the wrong dog. Did Franklin Delano Roosevelt "apologize" for the attack? Of course not! He approved the raid.

On December 7, 1941, 2,403 men died at Pearl Harbor. On September 11, 2001, 2,948 people died with 48 still missing and presumed dead for a total of 2,996 on American soil. Pearl Harbor was at least a military target. The World Trade Center was not.

Now we are at war again. This time with an enemy that has no borders, no country, no government, and no recognizable army. Islam is an enemy that does not hesitate to kill innocent civilians. In fact, Islam prefers civilians because it fears our military. It's much cheaper and easier to kill a child than a Marine.

Islam was not outraged as Saddam Hussain slaughtered his people. Islam was not outraged as the Taliban executed women for any number of imagined sins. Islam is silent as Iran stones 13-year-old girls to death. Islam is not outraged as thousands of young women die at the hands of their own families in brutal honor killings.

Islam says nothing as its terrorist heroes butcher Iraqi Muslims on a daily basis.

What does it take to make a Muslim angry? Say something bad about Islam and you can lose your head. Drop the Quran in the dirt and you will be hanged. In Sudan, a hapless man named Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed, dared speculate that Mohammed was not the son of Abdullah and is now on trial for blasphemy and he will probably be hanged. Mobs of foaming-at-the-mouth Muslims gather outside the courthouse demanding he be torn to bits for even thinking such a thing.

Put women's underwear on a Muslim prisoner's head and Islamics loose total control and riot in the streets outraged at the barbaric treatment of their "soldiers." Islamic terrorists do not uphold a single word of the Geneva Convention. They beat, torture, and behead our prisoners, many of whom are not even soldiers and think nothing of it. They desecrate bodies by burning them and hanging them from bridges, but touch that Quran and Islam looses its collective mind.

We are apologizing to these people?

Perhaps Americans need some reminders of some of the crimes that Islam has committed against America. It is in the name of Islam these attacks have been carried out and I hold Islam responsible because it is Islam that has raised these terrorists to hero status.

On the orders of Yassar Arafat the American embassy was attacked in March of 1973 and two diplomats were killed and others were held hostage. Arafat demanded the freedom of fellow Muslim Sirhan Sirhan in prison for killing Robert Kennedy.

A few months later, in Athens, three Americans were killed and 55 injured as Islamic terrorists threw grenades and machine gunned civilians waiting for a flight to New York.

In 1983, 17 Americans died when Islamics blew up a car in front of the embassy in Lebanon. Four more Americans died when the American embassy in Kuwait was attacked that same year.

Returning to the American embassy in Lebanon in 1984, 24 more Americans died when yet another car bomb went off outside the embassy.

The year 1985 brought death to five Americans in Rome with 74 wounded in an Islamic attack at the airport. Also in 1985, Americans got their first glimpse into the soul of the enemy when Islamic terrorists took over the cruise ship Achilles Lauro and shot a crippled American Jew in a wheelchair, Leon Klinghoffer, and then pushed him overboard.

In May, 1987, the U.S.S. Stark was attacked by an Iraqi fighter plane and 37 American sailors died.

Libya blew up a Pan Am flight over Scotland killing 189 Americans on their way home for Christmas.

Eighteen American soldiers died in Somalia in 1993 and six Americans died in the first World Trade Center bombing with over a thousand injured.

At 9:03 on the morning of April 19, 1995, a Ryder truck blew up in front of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. On that spring day 168 people died—many of them small children. This classic Islamic attack was quickly blamed on two "home-grown" terrorists. This case is in the process of being re-examined due to overwhelming evidence that al Qaeda and possibly Saddam Hussain were involved.

In 1996, 19 Americans died when Islamics blew up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Also in 1996 was the mysterious downing of TWA Flight 800. There were 169 Americans on board.

August 7, 1997 was the last day on earth for 23 Americans who were at the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. The year 2000 brought the attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 American sailors.

This, of course, brings us to the attack on September 11, 2001. There have been many more attacks leading up to that horrible day and not once has Islam apologized.

I hear, "We don't want to sink to the Islamic's level." I don't want to hear that any more either. There is absolutely no comparison to be made. Islamic prisoners are fed, clothed, and allowed to practice the very religion that has sworn to kill us all. I don't hear any Islamic outrage over the hostage beheadings or Iraqi children being targeted by Islamic butchers. I didn't hear a peep of anger when a British imam said children were legitimate targets for Islam. Islam seems to have no limit to the evil it will inflict on others. Because of this, Islam has lost all rights to protest an imagined injustice inflicted on it.

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