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Israel security chief terms Hamas a strategic threat

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, February 21, 2006

JERUSALEM — Israel's domestic security agency has deemed Hamas a strategic threat to the Jewish state.

Israel Security Agency chief Yuval Dichter said Hamas was becoming as great a threat to Israel as a nuclear Iran. Dichter said Hamas has become the lightening rod for Iranian and Muslim efforts to destroy the Jewish state.

The chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Yuval Steinitz said unless Israel acts quickly Hamas could form a government within several weeks that would receive Arab and Islamic support. He envisioned the new Hamas government signing defense pacts with Iran and Arab states.

In testimony to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Dichter portrayed a Palestinian Authority that has become an implacable enemy of Israel, Middle East Newsline reported. Dichter raised the prospect that Iran as well as Arab rivals of Israel would pour weapons and fighters into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

"The establishment of a radical Islamic Hamas state along the borders of Israel, with the participation of radical Islamic groups, might have military options that would constitute a strategic threat against Israel," Diskin said on Monday.

This was the first time an Israeli security chief termed Hamas a strategic threat. Both government and military leaders have regarded Iran -- with nuclear weapons and intermediate-range missile programs -- as the leading threat to Israel. In contrast, the Palestinian threat has long been viewed as manageable.

The chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Yuval Steinitz, said Hamas and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who also leads the ruling Fatah Party, have sought to ensure than any Hamas-led government would continue to receive international funding. Steinitz said Abbas, despite his expressed opposition to Hamas's agenda, has been in steady contact with the Islamic movement since it won Palestinian legislative elections on Jan. 25.

"The goal is to prevent Israel from eliminating Hamas's capability through a sort of Fatah umbrella and the successful game of bad cop, good cop," Steinitz said. "There is greater coordination than we thought, also through telephone, between Hamas and Abu Mazen [Abbas]."

The committee chairman, whose views often reflect the nation's military and intelligence agencies, called on Israel to immediately isolate Hamas leaders and prevent the convening of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Steinitz cited the two-year Israeli siege on the late PA Chairman Yasser Arafat.

"If we don't do this [against Hamas], we will confront a strategic threat and a disaster," Steinitz said.

For his part, Dichter told the Knesset committee that Hamas has enhanced the Kassam-class, short-range missile in the Gaza Strip. He said Hamas has relayed Kassam and other missile and rocket expertise to operatives in the West Bank.

The ISA chief warned Israel against accepting any Hamas offer of a long-term ceasefire. Dichter termed such an offer a "honey trap," and warned that this would prevent Israel from retaliating against attacks by other Palestinian insurgency groups.

"If there is a ceasefire, Hamas will use it to stabilize its rule and form a fundamentalist extremist Islamic entity with terrorist capabilities," Dichter said. "Hamas has a lot of patience, just like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt."

Dichter said a Hamas-dominated Palestinian state would encourage irredentism among Israeli Arabs, who comprise more than 20 percent of the Jewish state. He cited the bloody Israeli Arab protests in 2000, designed to support the Palestinians in their war against Israel. Thirteen Arabs were killed in clashes with Israeli police.

The Knesset committee was told that Palestinian insurgents in Bethlehem acquired an Israel Army-issue mortar for strikes against neighboring Jerusalem. Dichter said the Fatah insurgents were captured on Feb. 19 and the mortar was seized.

"As far as we know, this is the first time high-trajectory weapons meant to be fired toward Jerusalem have been found," Dichter said.

Later, a government statement said the Fatah insurgents were led by a Palestinian security officer who operated from PA security facilities in Bethlehem. The statement said the insurgency cell was instructed by the Fatah-aligned Popular Resistance Committees in the Gaza Strip to launch mortar and other attacks against Jerusalem. The statement said a launcher, eight mortar rounds and a machine gun were captured.

"Several members of the infrastructure, some of whom were detained recently, were fugitives who operated out of PA buildings in Bethlehem where they were protected from possible arrest," the communique said. "The infrastructure was led by Jabr Fouaz Eid Akhras, a member of the PA National Security Service, originally from the Gaza Strip but who currently resides in Bethlehem."

Officials said Hamas has been cooperating with other insurgency groups, particularly the Iranian-sponsored Islamic Jihad. The army has launched an operation to dismantle the infrastructure of Jihad and Fatah in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

"Nablus has become one of the primary producers of explosive belts and bombs, which are systematically manufactured and transferred to different terrorist infrastructures in Judea and Samaria [West Bank], to be used against Israel," an Israeli security source said on Monday.

So far, the army has killed Jihad commander in Nablus, Ajmad Abu Shayih, and arrested seven Palestinian insurgents. Security sources said those arrested included Ahmed Marshoud, a 22-year-old directed by Jihad in the Gaza Strip to arrange for suicide strikes in Israel.

Another detainee was Iyad Massimi, identified as a Fatah operative and leading bombmaker in Nablus. The sources said Massimi was preparing explosive belts for suicide attacks against Israeli military and civilian targets.


Copyright © 2006 East West Services, Inc.

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