Al-Qaida itself is making an effort “to operate both in the Palestinian territories and inside Israel proper,” said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev. A Palestinian security official in Gaza agreed that al-Qaida “is in the process of organizing cells and gathering supporters.”
If the group succeeds in establishing a full-blown presence, predicted the Israeli military intelligence official, Israel can expect far larger terror attacks than it has seen in the past.
Another Israeli official said a major concern is al-Qaida’s activities in Israel’s neighbors, especially Jordan, where al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the November 2005 bombings of three hotels that killed 60 people.
Al-Zarqawi also claimed responsibility for a Dec. 27 barrage of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel, provoking Israeli airstrikes on a Palestinian base in central Lebanon.
In my opinion, al-Qaida would be foolish to begin a concentrated attack on Israel if for no other reason than Israel is, essentially, the best prepared of all western states to defend itself and counter-attack on the terrorism front, and has the greatest amount of experience handling such events.
Hamas (the next Palestinian government) could go either way at this point, but would risk alienating western governments (with large budgets) by aligning itself with a-Q — which is not to say they may not do so. As I have always said, never let rationality, logic, common sense and proportion get in the way of a good #$!!**!-up decision.
On the other hand, as illustrated by the above map, Israel is clearly a small, bobbing cork isolated by miles of angry oceans.
BZ
Are you trying to infer that Al-Queda is violent? How dare you? How rude? How American of you?
How right you are! The problem is that the rest of the world is cowering to the dictates of the Fourth Reicht.
Seems the Palestinians have been trying to infiltrate and exact a terrorist price from Israel for… 40 years? Depends on when you define terrorism…
And the wunderkind of al Qaeda have what exact advantage that the Palestinians don’t have?
I guess aQ is just moving from suicide bombers to pure suicide… a logical step when losing.
NeoSoc: You are quite right sir; it appears I have taken leave of what meagre senses I have remaining. I sit chastised.
AJacksonian: Your second paragraph is oh-so-salient! They would rather large fools to dabble with the Israelis.
Perhaps Israel will do what OUR leaders appear to be too timid to do, take the gloves OFF, forget what PCness is and kick al-Qaeda’s ass so hard they wish they’d never been born…
And Israel has a way of doing that to their enemies, because they ARE a small nation, and the HAVE to do it that way…
texasfred – Agreed! The gelatinous, spineless, woolcoated Congresscritters are, I am coming to believe, afraid of the very People they are supposed to represent.
I just want them to point at the enemy, tell us the stuff to get or what needs be done, post the bounty and give out Warrants to any person or group that looks to be able to do the job.
Simple and efficient.
Americans helped to do the bulk of invention for distributed communications, banking and goods shipment. Let us be set free to trace those down to the enemies. Israel can only reach out so far to hurt someone.
The American people will go anywhere for the right price. Rather the People than the military for this part. Keep the military around for hurting Countries that don’t play along.
Let the People strangle and starve the wounded beast while it is down.
I can’t wait to see how Israel responds to the first A-Q attack in their country, It will get ugly in the middle east, but the US is in a very good strategic position to help with whatever they decide to do.
Bushwack: first, thank you for your comment and welcome aboard!
Your comment is quite correct; Israel has not been much in the Shrinking Violet department, and Bush has stated his clear and unadulterated support for the state of Israel.