Fatah's Abbas and Hamas' Haniyeh - Hard to tell them apart, and they agree

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
18 March '13..

Khaled Abu Toameh, writing on the Gatestone Institute website ["Hamas: We are Not Terrorists; We Just Want to Destroy Israel"] today, says there's a Hamas campaign underway right now to have the U.S. State Department remove Hamas from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. He points out that this not because of any change in how Hamas operates.

Hamas wants to be removed from the list without changing its strategy or charter, which call for jihad [holy war] and which do not recognize Israel's right to exist. Hamas is also not prepared to dismantle its armed group, Izaddin al-Kassam, as part of its effort to persuade the US and EU to drop it from the list of terrorist groups. Nor is Hamas prepared to stop smuggling weapons or give up thousands of rockets and mortars that it possesses in various parts of the Gaza Strip. And of course Hamas is not prepared to renounce violence in the context of its effort to seek legitimacy in the international community.

So for all the above compelling reasons (!), we can understand why Hamas is focusing its efforts on getting a number of European Union countries to give it their support. (Obviously!)

Hamas claims that it has won the secret backing of a number of EU governments - a claim denied by the EU... The Hamas demand was first raised by the movement's prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, during a meeting with European supporters in the Gaza Strip last month. Ghazi Hamad a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, says that his movement is putting pressure on several countries to change their position toward his movement. He believes that there has already been a "positive change" in the minds of Western and Arab societies toward Hamas.

(Continue)

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Time to Remove Brussels's Hezbollah Blinders

Daniel Schwammenthal..
Wall Street Journal..
02 August '12..

When terrorists struck in Bulgaria last month, killing five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver, Jerusalem immediately accused Hezbollah and its Iranian paymasters of the crime. Tehran and Hezbollah, as always, denied it. But no matter who carried out this atrocity on European Union territory, the EU's continued refusal to put Hezbollah on its terror list is simply indefensible.

Not designating the group as a terrorist organization gives the pioneers of Islamist suicide bombings the opportunity to organize, recruit and raise funds throughout the Continent. There are about 950 Hezbollah members and supporters in Germany alone, according to Berlin's domestic intelligence service. Hezbollah has also sent operatives from Europe to Israel for terror attacks.

Placing the group on the EU's terrorist list would allow authorities to freeze Hezbollah assets and increase cross-border cooperation in fighting their crimes. Raising or providing funds for Hezbollah terrorists within EU territory would become a criminal offense. Police and judicial authorities would have greater powers to work with their colleagues in other member states, for example in sharing evidence or information about movements and activities of Hezbollah operatives. Law enforcement agencies would also have more possibilities to investigate and curtail Hezbollah activities in the EU, such as by suppressing the recruitment of new members.

When Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman last week urged Europe to finally do the right thing, the foreign minister of Cyprus, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, had the unenviable task of having to enunciate the EU's incomprehensible position: "Should there be tangible evidence of Hezbollah engaging in acts of terrorism, the EU would consider listing the organization," Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis said during a joint press conference in Brussels.

Can there really be any reasonable doubt among EU officials about the true nature of Hezbollah? Back in 1983, 58 French peacekeeping troops alongside 241 U.S. marines were butchered in Hezbollah suicide bombings in Beirut, followed by the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in the Lebanese capital, according to U.S. officials. Argentina accused the group of killing 85 people in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, underscoring its global reach.

Documents of the Free Gaza movement seized in the recent flotilla

Inside documents of the Free Gaza movement seized in the recent flotilla expose considerable discrepancies between its strategy and tactics and its public stance. The documents prove, among other things, the attempts to conceal the aid to the Hamas administration since Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization in the US.

Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
27 June '10

1. Established in 2006, the Free Gaza movement (hereinafter: Free Gaza) is a pro-Palestinian/pro-Hamas group whose stated purpose is to “break the siege” imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip following the Hamas takeover. Free Gaza is registered in Cyprus as a human rights project and is headquartered in Nicosia. Its website says that Free Gaza has branches in 28 countries, including 11 in Europe, 5 in North America (4 in the US and one in Canada), and a branch in Israel (referred to on the movement's website as “Palestine 1948 territories”). The organizational framework of Free Gaza also includes the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which also took part in the latest flotilla.

2. Free Gaza played an important role in the coalition of organizations which orchestrated the latest flotilla, even though the dominant force was the Turkish IHH. Free Gaza started sending aid flotillas to the Gaza Strip in 2008. Prior to the latest flotilla, Free Gaza was able to send four other aid flotillas to the Gaza Strip:

a. August 2008: two ships departed from Cyprus and arrived at the port of Gaza on August 23 (BBC, August 23, 2008).

b. October 2008: a yacht named Dignity with 26 activists and medical supplies on board arrived in Gaza on October 29 (JTA, October 29, 2008).

c. December 2008: the same yacht, Dignity, with about 3 tons of medical supplies, attempted to penetrate the waters of Gaza but was stopped by the Israeli navy (ynet, December 30, 2008).

d. June 2009: a ship called Spirit of Humanity, which attempted to reach Gaza on June 30, was stopped by the Israeli navy near the Gaza port (Jerusalem Post, June 29, 2009).

(Read full report)

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