''We have information that some people who are working in the Palestinian Authority security services...were behind the assassination... We call upon all the Palestinian people and ... all the lovers of Islam and Palestine and everyone working for the Palestinian interests worldwide to begin painful attacks against
Zionist and Jewish interests worldwide.''

Hamas message faxed to the press 4/8/98

GETTING HAMAS TO STRIKE AGAIN

"Of course we killed him. Just as Peres ordered the killing of 'The Engineer' back in January 1996, we ordered the killing of 'The Engineer II' last month. We know Hamas will strike back; that's exactly what we want. But we continue to say we didn't kill him precisely to sow more confusion and uncertainty, precisely to build more tension between Palestinian groups, and precisely to distance
ourselves from what may be yet to come. Furthermore, of course we loudly say we are going to hold Arafat responsible for any violence against Israel, even though we are well aware his own authority is draining away because of our policies. That too is what we want. There's no use playing ball with Arafat unless we can continually manipulate him and twist him to crush all kinds Palestinian opposition -- from the intellectuals to Hamas. If he won't, or can't, who needs him? 

Bottom line: we have to give this whole matter "plausible deniability" -- you know, the term made famous by the American CIA over the years. Our Mossad and Shinbet now have to operate this way as well -- after all look at what happened when we took credit for killing 'The Engineer" in January 1996, and then what happened when we admitted to trying to kill Hamas leaders in Amman last year. We know what to expect; but this time we also know how to twist and deceive to get the most benefit from all this. Indeed, this time we not only pulled off the killing flawlessly; but we have also cornered Arafat into having to further step on Hamas, and Hamas into having to come out and react both against Arafat and against us.

Either way we win.

If Arafat crushes Hamas further and they don't strike or are prevented from striking, then we credit our tough no-nonsense policies and give him a little more "autonomous" area...far far less than he thought he was going to get and all carefully controlled by our ongoing military occupation which has all the autonomous areas surrounded and monitored.

Plus of course we gain credit with the Americans who themselves have to play a careful game distancing themselves abit in public while actually working exceedingly closely with us and providing more money and arms to us than ever before!

If Hamas strikes we portray Arafat to the world as not fulfilling his promises, or at best too weak and corrupt to be trusted; and then we give him even less! And this will also let the Americans off the hook abit and buy us still more time to further enlarge our settlements, consolidate our hold over Greater Jerusalem, and wait for new developments, maybe even the demise of Arafat whom we've pretty much used up at this point anyway."

Bibi

MER - WASHINGTON - 8 April:

The above, though an imaginary conversation, could well be one held by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu secretly with his most trusted aides. It probably represents far closer the reality of today's
situation than the various public comments Bibi has been so carefully  making the past few weeks.

There was a time when the Likud distinguished itself from the Labor
Party by being more candid and out-front about everything. That time is long gone now; the two major Zionist parties more alike than different these days.

Deception, duplicity, double-dealing; these are now hallmarks of the Likud every bit as much as of Labor. Labor's rhetoric remains softer and smoother; but that's more a public relations and fund-raising ploy to get gullible American Jews to fill up Labor's depleted finances and to help out the Peace Now folks who have always
been a disguised part of the Labor political machine, one which
remains quite powerful in Washington.

After Yitzhak Shamir ended his reign as Israeli Prime Minister he
gave a candid interview in which he discussed (bragging it seemed) how much he successfully obfuscated, delayed, and deceived the "peace process" during his years in office. The goal: to gain Israel more time to build still more settlements, more time to further subjugate the Palestinians, more time to enhance Israeli control over Washington.

Same basic ploys are in operation today. Now it's not as if Labor doesn't do the same, actually. But Labor traditionally has liked to pretend it wasn't doing what it was doing; especially in front of world public opinion and major segments of American Jewry. Hence different rhetoric, different tone, different demeanor; yet on the whole similar policies. After all, both Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres served in Likud governments in major capacities. Indeed, Rabin was Shamir's "break their bones" Defense Minister; Peres
Shamir's Foreign Minister.

The Israelis actually want Hamas to strike again. They claim they
don't of course; it's all part of the exceedingly complicated Middle
East vortex whirling all around us. The reality is that the Israelis
have been provoking Hamas month after month for some time now. Then, when the revenge strike(s) finally does come, the Israelis will get on their high-horse soap-boxes screaming that the terrorism justifies their refusal to proceed with the Oslo "peace process", itself a diabolical  Machiavellian plot to divide Palestinian "population centers" from each other by creating "autonomous" Reservations and Bantustans, even while allowing the Arafat regime to pretend that what is happening is movement toward Palestinian rights and "independence. Reality: the situation for Palestinians today is far far worse than it was before Oslo!

The following AP article unknowingly highlights how Israel's real
policies are working. It's difficult to know at this point just what is real and what is planted -- indeed, its even possible that this AP story is based on a forged Hamas statement. Even the parties themselves
have entered a period where only their top leaders really know what is going on, what is contrived, what is meant to be deceptive and provocative. The Middle East Hall of Mirrors is projecting more public distortions than ever.

HAMAS CALLS FOR ATTACKS ON JEWS

JERUSALEM (AP - 4/8 - by Dafna Linzer) - The military wing of the
Palestinian group Hamas issued a leaflet Wednesday calling on Arabs and Muslims worldwide to attack Jewish targets in revenge for the death of its chief bombmaker.

The leaflet came after an Israeli military court on Wednesday charged four members of the militant group Hamas - including a Palestinian policeman - for bombings that killed 21 Israelis and planning other attacks, Israeli radio reports said.

Israel radio said two of the men would appear Thursday in an Israeli
military court in the West Bank. Abdel Rahman el Zaban and Muaz Zayid were charged with involvement in two suicide bombings last year in Jerusalem, where 21 Israelis were killed. Israel radio said el Zaban is a Palestinian policeman in the Palestinian-ruled city Nablus.

The two were also charged with a drive-by shooting near a Jewish
settlement in the West Bank and with planning to carry out further
attacks, including a car bombing in the Israeli city Haifa.

The Hamas leaflet, faxed to The Associated Press in Jerusalem, said ``We call upon all the Palestinian people and ... all the lovers of
Islam and Palestine and everyone working for the Palestinian interests  worldwide to begin painful attacks against Zionist and Jewish interests worldwide.''

Hamas opposes Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and has claimed
responsibility for a series of deadly attacks that have killed scores
of people since peace talks began in 1993.

Israel has been on high alert for threatened Hamas revenge attacks
since Mohiyedine Sharif's death was announced.

Sharif, believed to have masterminded suicide bombings that killed
scores of Israelis, was found dead last week. Hamas blamed Israel, but an investigation by the Palestinian Authority said Sharif's death was the result of a power struggle in the militant organization.

In Wednesday's leaflet however, Hamas accused Palestinian Authority officials of collaborating with Israel in the killing. It was the
first time Hamas had directly implicated the Palestinian Authority in
Sharif's death.

``We have information that some people who are working in the
Palestinian Authority security services ... were behind the  assassination,'' wrote Izzedine el Qassam, the Hamas military brigade.

[And the following AP report from immediately
after the recent assassination, before the Israeli
propaganda machine went into high gear].

TOP HAMAS FUGITIVE KILLED
IN MYSTERY EXPLOSION

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Palestinian security forces today
identified a Palestinian man found at the scene of a car bomb explosion earlier this week as the top Hamas fugitive in the West Bank.

But adding new drama to the case, the fugitive, Mohiyedine Sharif, was apparently shot to death sometime before the blast, a Palestinian pathologist said.

Palestinian officials did not say who killed Sharif, who is believed to
have masterminded a series of suicide bombings in Israel, including two in Jerusalem in July and September 1997. Hamas leaders blamed Israel for Sharif's slaying.

``Hamas cannot forget its members and they (the Israelis) have to
understand that Hamas is in the habit of taking revenge,'' said Abdel
Aziz Rantisi, a Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied Israel was responsible, saying ``we had no part in the incident that took place.'' Israeli journalists raised the possibility that Sharif was killed in a Hamas power struggle.

If Hamas chooses not to accept Israel's denial, however, the Jewish
state may have to brace for another series of revenge bombings by the Islamic militant group. When the group's chief bombmaker, Yehiye Ayyash, was assassinated in January 1996 in an operation widely attributed to Israel, Hamas retaliated with four suicide bombings.

Sharif, 32, was seen as Ayyash's heir, and Israel held him responsible for a pair of suicide bombings in Jerusalem in 1997. He topped Israel's most wanted list, and had been in hiding.

Palestinian security officials initially were unable to identify Sharif's body, which was found near a car rigged with dozens of  pounds of explosives that blew up Sunday in a garage in an industrial part of the West Bank town of Ramallah.

The body was badly disfigured by the force of the blast, which transformed the car into a twisted ball of metal and leveled the garage.  But today a senior Palestinian security official, speaking on anonymity, said the body was that of Sharif.

A Palestinian pathologist, Jalal Jabara, said Sharif was shot twice in the chest and once in a leg about three hours before the car bomb  explosion. ``He died from the bullet wounds,'' Jabara told The
Associated Press.

Palestinian security officials said in a statement that the car bomb was triggered by remote control, thus ruling out the initial assumption that Sharif was killed in a ``work accident.''

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