Two recent polls find a vast majority of Arabs supporting terror attacks and a growing Israeli majority opposed to further withdrawals.

A recent Palestinian Authority poll shows that 84 percent of PA Arabs approve of the massacre at Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem, where eight students were gunned down and ten wounded.

The poll, carried out by Ramallah-based pollster Khalil Shikaki, interviewed 1,270 PA Arabs. 64 percent support the rocket attacks on Israeli cities and towns such as Sderot and Ashkelon launched from Hamas-controlled Gaza. Those who oppose the attacks don’t necessarily do so on moral grounds, but rather strategic considerations.

A slim majority of PA Arabs support Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas for president over Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas.

In February of last year, a Near East Consulting (NEC) poll found that 75 percent of PA Arabs do not think that Israel has a right to exist.

Referring to the most recent poll, Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein said the results were not surprising. "This poll, unfortunately, merely confirms the results of innumerable earlier polls, showing Palestinians to approve of terrorism that targets innocent Jewish men, women and children and rejecting peace or co-existence with Israel as a Jewish state. In these circumstances, it is clear that a Palestinian state would be nothing more that the world's newest terrorist state. It would be folly for either Israel or the United States to support the establishment of a Palestinian state under such conditions and it noteworthy that the former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon, former CIA director R. James Woolsey and pre-eminent Middle East historian Bernard Lewis have all come out in opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state."

Israelis Tired of Withdrawals
A poll commissioned by SOS-Israel phrased the question about future withdrawals: “In light of the results of the Disengagement plan from the Gaza Strip, are you in favor of a continued withdrawal from Judea and Samaria?"

64.9 percent answered that they oppose further withdrawals and 23.9 percent said are in favor. The others would not answer the question. Divided into religious demographics, 95 percent of Hareidi-religious opposed withdrawals, followed by 90.9 of the national religious and 57 percent of the non-observant public.

Osama Bin-Laden, head of the international jihadist terror organization Al-Qaeda, issued a new call for Palestinian Authority Muslims to fight against the Americans and their allies in Iraq - as a step on the path to the destruction of Israel.

The audio tape of Bin-Laden, broadcast on the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite TV network on Thursday, included
"The nearest field of jihad today to support our people in Palestine is the Iraqi field."
a call for a renewed "holy war" on Israel. For its part, Bin-Laden declared, Al-Qaeda would increase its efforts to "free Palestine, all of Palestine, from the Jordan [River] to the [Mediterranean] Sea."

Among what Al-Jazeera newscasters said were excerpts from a new recording, Bin-Laden said: "My speech is about the Gaza siege and the way to retrieve it and the rest of Palestine from the hands of the Zionist enemy. Our enemies did not take it by negotiations and dialog, but with fire and iron. And this is the way to get it back."

The Saudi-born Islamic fundamentalist linked the jihad against Israel with the Iraqi insurgency: "The nearest field of jihad today to support our people in Palestine is the Iraqi field."

Bin-Laden added that those of "our brothers in Palestine who could not join the jihad in the land of Al-Quds [Jerusalem]" should "get rid of illusions of political parties and groups which are mired in trickery of the blasphemous democracy and to take their positions among the ranks of the mujahideen in Iraq."

The latest Bin-Laden audiotape follows on the heels of a recording publicized one day earlier, in which the Al-Qaeda leader threatened European nations with "severe" retaliation for the publication of cartoons mocking Islam's founder, Mohammad. The Al-Qaeda leader also accused the Pope of launching a "new Crusade" against Islam. 

Earlier this month, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Al-Qaeda franchise in North Africa, linked its anti-Western activities back to Israel, as well. In a communique, the group announced that it was holding two Austrian tourists who were kidnapped in Tunisia in late February. AQIM threatened that more Westerners would be kidnapped and held in response to Israeli operations in Gaza and elsewhere. 

Not the First Al-Qaeda Threat Directed at Israel
In December of last year, Bin-Laden issued an audio recording in which he addressed the Arabs of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, saying, "I have not forgotten your struggle, and we plan to expand our jihad to Palestine as well. We intend to liberate all of Palestine, from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea."

In that recording, Bin-Laden mocked unnamed "other Muslim leaders," because, unlike them, "we don't recognize
The Al-Qaeda leader threatened European nations with "severe" retaliation.
even one centimeter of Palestinian land [sic] as belonging to the Jews." Even Hizbullah is too moderate, Bin-Laden feels, for having agreed to the stationing in southern Lebanon of an international peacekeeping force "to protect the Jews."

According to its foundational ideology, Al-Qaeda sees its mission as fighting against the "Jews and the Crusaders [i.e., Christians]" in a worldwide jihad until Islam reigns supreme. The various theaters of battle in which Al-Qaeda is involved and the various states in which it is operating - such as North Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, etc. - are considered by Al-Qaeda strategists to be different fronts in a global struggle for domination.

Al-Qaeda in Gaza
Defense officials have warned that Al-Qaeda operatives managed to infiltrate Gaza since the Hamas takeover of the region in 2006. The Al-Qaeda members are reportedly active in local terrorist cells.

In February, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said that Al Qaeda agents crossed into Gaza from Egypt when Hamas gunmen blew up the barrier separating the PA from Egyptian Sinai in January. As far back as 2006, Abbas told the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, "We have indications about the presence of Al-Qaeda in Gaza and [Judea and Samaria]. This is intelligence information."

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has decided: Israel will not grant diplomatic immunity to the Palestinian Authority against civil suits that demand compensation for its involvement in fatal terror attacks.

In accordance with the Foreign Minister's decision, Israeli courts will now continue to be able to hear cases in which relatives of terrorist victims are suing the PA for monetary compensation.  Some 55 such cases are currently pending.

If the PA becomes a state, it would automatically receive the immunity it seeks.

Livni Left Them in Limbo
The Supreme Court had previously ruled, in July 2007, that the determination as to whether the PA deserves such immunity lies in the hands of the Foreign Minister.  However, Minister Livni made no decision either way for several months - leaving the plaintiffs in limbo as to whether their cases could proceed. 

Finally, a week ago, the families took the unprecedented step of filing a court order demanding that Livni be arrested - or, alternatively, fined.  The families, represented by the Israel Law Center, maintained that Livni was in "contempt of court" for not fulfilling the requirement of making a decision one way or the other.

Several days later, Livni issued her decision - stating that the Palestinian Authority does not enjoy diplomatic immunity from being judged in Israel. 

The Families
Among the families currently suing the PA for involvement in the murder or maiming of their loved ones are:
• that of Vadim Norzitch, one of the two victims of the Ramallah lynching in October 2000;
• the Cohen family, three of whose children lost legs in the Kfar Darom bus bombing in November 2000;
• the parents of two Tel Aviv cousins, Moti Dayan and Etgar Zaitouna, who were abducted in January 2001 from a Tulkarem restaurant and shot to death.

In addition, relatives of dozens of young victims maimed or murdered in the Dolphinarium terror attack in Tel Aviv in the summer of 2001 (16 dead), represented by attorneys Maxim and Reuven Lifkin, have also welcomed Livni's decision.
 
Mattot Arim Responds
Mattot Arim (Cities of Israel), an Israeli citizens' group, noted that the decision buttresses the opposition to the notion of a Palestinian state.  The organization said the decision means that if the PA in fact becomes a state, it would receive the immunity it seeks - with harsh consequences for Israelis.

"This decision [by Livni] underscores the impossibility of setting up a hostile Palestinian state just a bike-ride away from all of Israel's population centers and its sole international airport," reads a statement released by the organization. "Now that it is apparent that a Palestinian state would not only engage in terror, but would also be immune to the legal consequences thereof, the idea of a Palestinian state must leave the stage."

Palestinian Authority children in Gaza are being raised to believe the ancient Eastern European blood libel myth about Jews, with a twist: in this version, the Jews don't make matzah from children's blood; they burn them alive..

According to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), Gaza children were recently taken to an exhibit depicting Israel burning children in a crematorium. The exhibit was created by a body named “The National Committee for the Defense of Children from the Holocaust.”

The exhibit also featured a black platform with the words, “Stop the Israel’s Holocaust” [sic]. Both are used to reinforce programs on PA TV (the television station controlled by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah terror group) that brainwash Arab children to believe that Israel burned children during the Holocaust.

About 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered during the Holocaust which accompanied World War 2. They were shot, gassed, tortured, worked, starved, frozen, neglected to death – and on some occasions, burned alive.

Complete details about the exhibit and the TV programs can be found on the PMW website.

Oslo Accords negotiator Dennis Ross, a former senior State Department official, told the New York Sun last week that he sees no signs that the Bush administration is dealing with the issue of incitement. "I have not even heard the Bush administration talk about it," he said. He revealed that during the Oslo talks, the PA agreed to review media incitement against Israel but that little change has taken place.

From medieval times, Anti-Semites have promoted the belief that Jews kidnap and murder gentile children and use their blood in the preparation of matzah for the Passover holiday.

This belief has also been resurrected recently in the Russian Siberian city of Novosibirsk, where posters have been put up warning gentile parents to “keep [their] eyes and ears open” and “watch [their] children” to guard them from “these disgusting people."

“Wedding of Mass Murderer of Yeshiva Boys"

The Muslim terrorists’ belief that murderers who die while executing Jews are martyrs who will wed 72 “dark-eyed virgins in Paradise” is alive and well among the Arab neighborhoods of eastern Jerusalem.
 
The official daily PA newspaper, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Al Hayat Al Jadida, described Ala Abu Dheim, who slaughtered eight young students at Jerusalem’s Merkaz HaRav Yeshiva two weeks ago, as a martyr and a “bridegroom.”

The paper indignantly lamented the fact that Abu Dheim’s family was forced by Israeli officials to bury the murderer before dawn without the traditional fanfare that accompanies terrorist funerals, “without a celebration and without a wedding procession.”

Although Israel did not demolish the terrorists’ house and also allowed the family to erect a mourners’ tent in which to greet people who came to console and congratulate them on their son’s "achievement," security officials initially refused to hand over his body.

The government agreed to release the terrorist’s remains only after the family promised to bury him in a private funeral before dawn in order to avoid the typical procession by thousands who would celebrate the murder and then riot in the streets.

Gil Ronen contributed to this story

A Torah scroll was dedicated last week in memory of Erez Levanon, the Gush Etzion resident murdered just over  a year ago while meditating in the forest near his home.

Neighbors, friends and others touched by Levanon’s story gathered in his home town of Bat Ayin and walked to the site in the nearby forest where the murder occurred, reciting the afternoon prayer there,

“As we finished the last Kaddish after the Aleinu prayer, Purim music began to play and dancing started to take place around the beautiful new Torah,” said Joshua Halickman, who attended the event. “We jumped and sang all the way back to the yishuv [community] on a road lined with children holding torches and with a new Torah in hand. As we arrived at the Breslov Shul where the Torah would take up residence, we read the last few paragraphs of [the Book of Deuteronomy] from the Torah, lifted it in the air and Aaron Razel and his band began to play as we all danced in joy to the music, knowing that Erez's memory would live on forever and forever.”

Many remained by the spot where Levanon was murdered and recited the Tikkun HaKlali, the set of Psalms prescribed by Rabi Nachman of Breslev to bring about a general spiritual rectification.

The scroll was dedicated at Bat Ayin, where Levanon lived, in part by the Torat Reva Yerushalayim organization.

The cover of the Torah scroll features the famous verse of Psalms that contains Levanon’s name, and which is sung on Friday nights while welcoming the Sabbath: "Tzadik katamar yifrach, k'Erez baLevanon Yisge – The righteous man will flourish like a date palm, like a cedar in Lebanon he will grow tall."

(Photos: Joshua Halickman)

Related:
Photo Feature: Erez Levanon Laid to Rest
The Murder of Erez Levanon
Ambush Victim Buried in Kfar Etzion

The holiday of Purim which falls today and Saturday is one of Judaism's most joyous holidays. Arutz Sheva presents a Purim satire piece:

The Israeli government and the leaders of 22 Arab states have agreed to implement a revolutionary agreement, known as the Purim Accord, in which they switch sides: Israelis will occupy the territories of 22 Arab countries currently in existence, and the Arabs from those countries will move to Israel. The accord was brokered by U.S. President George W. Bush, who called it "a humungous step forwards, for humanity and for people in general."

The agreement, a draft of which was initialed by the parties Friday morning, is the result of secret negotiations that began during the Annapolis conference last November. IsraelNationalNews has learned that the talks that were held in Jerusalem and Ramallah between Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and PA negotiators were just a ruse to throw the media off the scent of the real story: all this time, Israeli, American and Arab negotiation teams have been hammering out the true accord in an underground bunker in Annapolis, Maryland, with occasional breaks for table tennis and kosher shawarma.

Shawarma break during negotiations.

Jews to get oil
Jews holding Israeli citizenship will be dispersed among the 22 Arab states in numbers proportional to the state' sizes. Large territories like Libya, Saudi Arabia and Iraq will be allotted about 500,000 Jews each, and smaller countries like Kuwait and Bahrain will receive a population in the tens of thousands. Control of all national resources, including oil wells, will be transferred to the new Jewish governments. The IDF will redeploy in the Arab countries and the Arab armies will redeploy within pre-1967 Israel. Arabs will live in the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria but will have to vacate their homes in the ancient Jewish cities of Hevron and Shechem.

Only Jews will be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount. Arabs who try to pray on the Mount will be arrested.

Jews will live under Arab military rule in Judea and Samaria. Arabs who lived in refugee camps in Arab countries will be placed in alternative refugee camps in former Israel, just in case the accord goes sour and the sides have to switch back again. They will most likely move into Tel Aviv's crumbling southern neighborhoods, which currently house Jewish refugees from Arab states.

Refugees: moving to southern Tel Aviv

Medina for Dimona
Arabs will be allowed to keep Mecca and Medina for themselves. In return, the Jews will retain control of Dimona, which holds a textile plant they hold sacred.

The first five years of the accord's implementation will involve the accelerated construction of high-rise towers to hold the large Arab population that will move into Israel. Arab villages will cease building private two- and three-story houses, and will utilize their land reserves for building skyscrapers.

Queen Rania: diamonds are a girl's best friend.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who was the moving spirit behind the negotiations, told news agencies that the new arrangement will not be limited in time. The idea behind the accord is simple, he said: "We Arabs have seen that territory is not the problem. After all, the Israeli economy is stronger than that of any Arab state, despite the fact that the Jews have such a small sliver of land. It is barely visible on the globe!", he said, chuckling. "We want the Jews to experience the humiliation of being occupied by a colonial power, and so we will switch sides willingly. We are sure that after only a few years of this arrangement, the Jews will ask for Tel Aviv back and give us what we want."

Qadaffi gets his way
Diplomatic sources in Jerusalem told IsraelNationalNews that the secret talks at Annapolis hit a snag in January when Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi demanded that Libya be given control of the Israeli fashion industry. Qaddafi, whose flair for stylish outfits is well known, was adamant that no other Arab country be given a foothold in this sector. He demand led to some tension with Jordan's King Abdullah who had promised his wife Queen Rania control of the lucrative fashion trade. In the end, Rania settled for control of the Diamond Exchange in Ramat Gan.

A pleased Muammar Qadaffi

One unsolved problem still threatens the accord's implementation: Israel's leftist population, represented at the talks by author Amos Oz,  is unwilling to move into Arab countries, because it considers the option "immoral." On the other hand, it is adamant that it will not stay in the former Israel with the Arabs, for reasons it declined to specify. A possible solution for this conundrum may be in the works, however: the leftists seem receptive to the possibility of relocating to the territory of Sodom, near the Dead Sea, which will be placed under U.N. control. Negotiations are currently focusing on the question of how many TV channels the leftist paradise will have and on the number of housekeepers and masseurs who will be allocated to former Supreme Court justices and theater directors.

Meretz neighborhood
Sodom's main income is expected to pour in from a diamond-studded multi-level cinema complex which will feature 24 hour screenings of movies about evil Israeli soldiers who fall in love with Arab women.

A special, exclusive neighborhood will be constructed for Jewish Meretz Party voters, whose numbers are currently estimated at about 2,000 strong (including the Olmert clan). Meretz head Chaim Oron is demanding a guarantee that no Arabs or hareidi-religious Jews ever visit the neighborhood or come within 10 kilometers of it.

Official celebration of the accord will begin next week, once Jews recover from the Purim festivities. Purim is celebrated by the Jews with wine, song, costumes and silly pranks.

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