7 nabbed (all Nazareth residents) for cab-driver murder
By YAAKOV KATZ, YAAKOV LAPPIN AND JPOST.COM
06/28/2010 13:52

Al-Qaida-inspired cell (all Nazareth residents) planned to kidnap soldiers, murder Christians.

Seven Israeli Arabs affiliated with al-Qaida and Global Jihad have been arrested for allegedly murdering a taxi driver last year, and carrying out a series of terrorist attacks, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) revealed on Monday.

In a joint police-Shin Bet operation, Ahmed Ahmed, 21, Jalib Janam, 26, Wassim Allam, 23, Khidar Ziddana, 22, Ahbed Abu-Salim, 19, Adi Azzam, 23, and Oman Kakhibi, 22, all Nazareth residents, were arrested between May 11 and June 21. All seven were indicted Monday at the Haifa District Court.

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Dep.-Cmdr. Avi Elgrisi, Head of Amakim Police's Central Unit told The Jerusalem Post that "this is one of the most dangerous cells we have uncovered." The investigation was initially focused on two suspects, before being widened to include a total of seven suspects, he said, adding that police are expected to make more arrests in connection with the investigation.

The seven said that they founded a group called Aljahabiyya and claim to follow Salafism, an extremist Sunni Islamic movement. Aljahabiyya was formed two years ago, and inspired by and affiliated with al-Qaida and Global Jihad. The group underwent a process of radicalization, using material found on the Internet, including pictures of weaponry and instructions to prepare explosives and perpetrate terrorist attacks. The seven downloaded al-Qaida propaganda movies and speeches by Osama Bin Laden.

'Suspects accessed jihadi ideology and indoctrination'

"They accessed the Internet for jihadi ideology and indoctrination, and used it as an information source to listen to extremist clerics," Elgrisi said.

The group allegedly carried out attacks to avenge the murder of Arabs by Jews in Israel, and confessed to plotting to kidnap IDF soldiers and take their weapons.

Ahmed, Janam and Zidanna were involved involved in the murder of taxi driver Yafim Weinstein, who was killed on November 30, 2009, as well as other attacks. In their interrogation, the three confessed to ordering Weinstein to a kibbutz near Nazareth, where one shot the taxi driver, and others assisted in destroying evidence. They reenacted the murder and led investigators to the place they hid the murder weapon used to kill Weinstein.

Weinstein, 54, a Nazareth Illit resident, was found murdered in his cab outside Kfar Hahoresh in November, leaving behind a wife, children and a grandchild. Details of the investigation were under a gag order until Monday morning.

The Shin Bet also found that after the murder, Ahmed and Janam attempted to travel to an al-Qaida training camp in Somalia to join the fighting against the Christian "heretics" as well as against the US, but were barred from entering Somalia at the Kenyan border.

Three others planned to kidnap a Nazareth resident and behead him on video, but did not do so. Elgrisi said that they had even dug a grave for the Christian man who "insulted the prophet Muhammad."

The men also threw stun grenades and Molotov cocktails at Jewish- and Christian-owned businesses and homes in the town. They burnt Christian tour buses, and dealt in arms.

They also stabbed a pizza delivery man in Nazareth Illit, stealing his scooter and NIS 100.

"On the criminal front, we are searching for criminals who sold weapons to the suspects," Elgrisi said. "Security suspects will also be arrested."

In April 2009, Elgrisi led an investigation into a terror cell made up of six Israeli Arabs and a Beduin from the North who had reached an advanced stage in their plot to carry out an attack on Israelis.

The cell had prepared several explosive devices and simulated the kidnapping of soldiers while engaging in Internet communications with a terror operative based in Gaza, known as "Abu Kassam."

The cell filmed their preparations, Elgrisi said last year, adding that in one exercise, a cell member pretended to be an IDF soldier while the remainder of the group practiced abducting him.

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Hamas leader in Dubai tagged as hostage for Gilead Shalit - new US intel theory
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 28, 2010, 10:10 AM (GMT+02:00)

Dubai hostage plan aborted
Some US intelligence circles are now suggesting that the high-ranking Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh who died by an unknown hand in Dubai last January was not targeted for death but for capture as a live hostage against the release of Gilead Shalit, the Israeli soldier whom Hamas kidnapped four years ago in a cross-border raid from Gaza and holds without contact with the outside world.
Sunday, June 27, his parents Noam and Aviva Shalit launched a 12-day march to Jerusalem, gathering in many of thousands of supporters to lobby the government for his freedom
World figures, including the French and Italian governments, have demanded Gilead Shalit's immediate release - or at least Red Cross access to Hamas's prisoner.
debkafile cites US intelligence sources as speculating that Mahboub was to have been one of half a dozen high-value Hamas operatives Israel planned to grab in January in different parts of the Middle East as bargaining chips for the Israeli soldier.

As the man in charge of Iran's weapons supplies to Hamas, Mahboub was judged a key lever for obtaining the Israeli soldier's freedom.
Those US sources believe the plan to snatch him from a Dubai hotel went smoothly enough up until the last step. But then, the drugs administered to knock him out appeared to have killed him on the spot. He was meant to be doped enough to let himself be bundled out of the hotel on his two feet in the middle of the team of abductors without drawing attention. According to this theory, the team was to have driven him to Dubai port and put him aboard a waiting yacht, which was to sail off and rendezvous with an Israeli naval missile boat in the Red Sea.
After delivering him, the same team was to have proceeded to its next target.
But whether they gave Mahboub an overdose or whether his health was frailer than believed, he did not survive. The abduction team leader, lacking instructions for this exigency, decided to abort the
mission and leave the dead man in place. He told the would-be abductors to get out of Dubai fast and scatter. The rest of the high-risk, ambitious plan was scrapped.
Had it succeeded, say the US sources, it would have been Israel's biggest abduction operation ever, attesting to the extremely high importance Israel attaches to recovering its soldier from captivity.

The Israel Mossad's hand in the death of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh was widely alleged but never proved. Several governments, Britain, Ireland, Australia among them, expelled the security officials at Israeli embassies from their capitals to protest the use of forged passports.

The negotiations to swap almost a thousand jailed Palestinians for Gilead Shalit stalemated six months ago when the German mediator pulled out.

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Mossad chief: Obama's perceived military "softness" weakens Israel

Mossad Director Meir Dagan

In a rare public expression of concern, Meir Dagan, head of Israel's Mossad external security service, warned Tuesday, June 1, that the progressive decline of American strength over the past decade and the perception of the Obama administration as "soft on military options for solving disputes" have cut deep into Israel's military and diplomatic maneuverability and made it fair game for its enemies. This is reported by debkafile's intelligence and political sources.
Dagan presented the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee with this evaluation 24 hours after Israeli Navy boarding parties prevented vessels sailing the Mediterranean from achieving their object of breaking the Gaza blockade. As the UN Security Council's condemned the loss of life in that raid, the Mossad chief said Barack Obama's first year as president was a period of "devaluation" for "Israeli and American strategic assets."

Dagan's uncharacteristic bluntness was a measure of the anxiety gripping Israel's security leaders over the slump in US-Israel relations.

He timed his cutting observations for the day Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was to have held talks in White House with President Obama. Although that meeting was cancelled and Netanyahu cut short his trip to return home and deal with the crisis over the flotilla incident, the Mossad Director decided that what he had to say was important enough to be said and aired without delay.

The Obama-Netanyahu meeting had been scheduled as a high point in President Obama's charm offensive for mending his ties with Israel and American Jewish leaders, Dagan noted. By speaking out now, he hoped they would be warned not to be taken in by Obama's smiles and understand that his attitude toward the Israeli government had not changed in any fundamental way.
America's ability to generate situation-changing measures in any part of the world was in decline and this weakness reflects directly and negatively on Israel's strategic situation. debkafile notes that by this remark, Dagan indirectly disputed the administration's National Security Strategy report published in Washington five days ago.
This comment also placed him in the middle of the internal political debate in Israel. Whereas opposition factions maintain the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and other neighbours is stalled by Netanyahu's allegedly hard-line positions, the Mossad chief puts it in a different perspective: Whatever the prime minister may do and whichever policy he may pursue, in Dagan's view he is stuck with the endemic weakness stemming from American weakness and the Obama administration's waning support for Israel.
He warned the lawmakers that the current US administration is in the process of making of Israel "a liability instead of an asset." The US president, said the Mossad chief, seriously considered forcing Israel to accept a dictated peace formula. He only backed off when he saw that this tactic would not produce a peace accord. But that was "only a tactical retreat," said Dagan.
"Let's see what steps the Americans take in the future, especially after the midterm congressional elections in November," he said, because, while an imposed peace is only a last resort and not (the Obama administration's) preferred option, it is still on the table and a whip he is holding over the heads of both parties.
The Mossad chief concluded by saying: "Such events (a decision to resort to an imposed peace) could career out of control and lead (US-Israel relations) into extreme situations."

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Palin Decries Obama Administration's 'Sellout'

JERUSALEM, Israel - Former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin accused President Barack Obama of kowtowing to Russia and China and selling out America's allies, such as Israel.

"Do they think, really, that we're getting anything in return for all this bowing and kowtowing and apologizing?" Palin asked participants at a gathering in Norfolk, Va., on Sunday, organized by a Norfolk talk radio station. "No. We don't get anything positive in return for this," she said.

"So while President Obama is getting pushed around by the likes of Russia and China, our allies are left to wonder about the value of an alliance with our country anymore. They're asking what it is worth," Palin said, citing congressional cuts in military allocations while simultaneously spending trillions in new deficits.

During his remarks, former Virginia Sen. George Allen called the Democratic majority in Congress "sanctimonious, pompous social engineers…spending on someone else's credit card…."

Allen too decried Obama's apologies for America's military strength.

"We don't need to apologize as Americans," Allen said. "Americans throughout history have liberated more people than any other country on earth, including the liberation of my mother from the Nazis," he said of his Jewish mother, Etty.

Palin was quick to defend Israel's response to pro-Palestinian activists aboard the Turkish-owned Mavi Marmara on May 31.

"Far too many in the media and in various governments rush to condemn Israel," Palin wrote on her Facebook page. "We must put the recent events off Israel's coast into the right perspective. This "relief" convoy was not about humanitarian aid, as the liberal mainstream media keeps reporting," she wrote.

"The whole operation was designed to provoke Israel, not to provide supplies to Palestinians held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Anyone who sees the video of Israeli commandos being attacked as they land on that ship knows the people aboard were vicious thugs, not "peace activists." The media insults our intelligence with their outright mischaracterization of who these enemies are," Palin said.

"We can only hope the Obama administration does not join the anti-Israel chorus in the aftermath of this staged confrontation. Please, Mr. President, we need to let Israelis know we stand with them in their fight against terrorists and those who arm and support them. American and her ally, Israel, stand by waiting for your response," Palin wrote.

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Report: Turkey Closes Skies to Israel

by Maayana Miskin

Turkey is closing its skies to Israeli planes, Turkish media outlets reported Monday. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the closure in a meeting with Canadian journalists in Toronto, they said.

Erdogan reportedly described the move as another stage in Turkey's response to a recent clash between Israeli troops and pro-terror Turkish activists in which nine Turkish citizens were killed. The clash took place as foreign activists attempted to break Israel's naval blockade on Gaza. Members of the Turkish group IHH violently attacked and wounded Israeli soldiers as they attempted to board the ship Mavi Marmara, kicking off an armed struggle.

Turkey has demanded that Israel apologize for the incident, compensate Turkish citizens who were wounded, agree to an international investigation of the clash, and end the naval blockade on Hamas-run Gaza.

Israeli officials said they were not informed of any Turkish change in policy regarding Israeli flights. Unless Turkey makes an official statement, Israel will continue to assume that Turkish skies are open, they said. (IsraelNationalNews.com)

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Gaza Terrorists Burn Down Second UN Camp, Handcuff Guards

by Maayana Miskin
Masked terrorists stormed into a United Nations children's camp in Gaza early on Monday morning, attacked and handcuffed the camp guards, and set the place on fire. UN workers said the facility sustained heavy damage.

The attack was the second of its kind this summer. In late May terrorists set fire to the United Nation's' largest Gaza summer camp and left behind bullets and a note threatening to kill John Ging, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) head in Gaza.

Ging responded to Monday's attack by calling to "change the circumstances on the ground that are generating such extremism." He complimented Hamas' emergency responders for responding quickly to the incident.

Ging made similar remarks following the May attack. At that time, Fatah blamed Hamas for the incident, accusing the Islamic terrorist group of "targeting the education process and the UNRWA curriculum."

Hamas has opened its own summer camps as an alternative to UNRWA. The Hamas camps focus on teaching the Koran and terrorist philosophy, including hatred of Israel. Many include paramilitary training. Approximately 100,000 Gaza children attend Hamas camps, while 250,000 attend the UN camps.

The UN camps have faced criticism from Islamist organizations other than Hamas, including Salafi groups that consider Hamas too moderate. Salafi terrorists have been behind previous attacks in Gaza, including dozens of bombings targeting music stores, restaurants, Internet cafes and pharmacies. (IsraelNationalNews.com)
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Iran 'Punishes' UN, Bans Nuke Talks for Two Months

by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Iran says it is "punishing" the United Nations by refusing to hold talks on its nuclear program in retaliation for a new round of sanctions that the Security Council approved. Continuing his offensive against the West, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also threatened retaliation against any attempt to inspect cargo ships headed for the Islamic Republic.

If Western ships carry out searches on cargo vessels headed for Iran, "We reserve the right to retaliate," Ahmadinejad said. "Experience has shown that we can defend our rights. They will strongly regret any action they may take."

Iran has balked at agreeing to demands by the UN's nuclear overseeing agency to inspect the country's nuclear facilities, and U.S. President Barack Obama convinced the Security Council to approve new sanctions, although much more watered down than those he originally proposed.

Ahmadinejad accused the United States of using "psychological warfare" by making what he called false statements that Iran is enriching uranium to make a nuclear weapon. "We call this bad temper," he said, and added that pushing off talks until August 20 "is a fine to punish them a bit so that they learn the custom of dialogue with our nation."

He also laid down new conditions for any country wanting to discuss Iran's development of its nuclear power: declaration of policies towards Israel's alleged nuclear arsenal, the Non-Proliferation Treaty and relations with Iran.

Ahmadinejad has scoffed at the new sanctions, saying that they are useless. The new resolution calls for freezing the assets of 40 additional companies, more than one third of which are associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, one of the most powerful institutions in Iran.

The new sanctions also place further restrictions on Iran's buying missiles and other heavy weapons. (IsraelNationalNews.com)

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Yaalon: Israelis and Evangelicals are 'All in the Same Boat'

by Gil Ronen
Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon spoke at a high profile Christian evangelical conference in the United States on Saturday, and stated that the Israeli government wants to continue to strengthen its relationship with evangelical Christians. Israelis and evangelicals are "all in the same boat," the former Chief of Staff added.

According to CBN analyst Erick Stakelbeck, Yaalon was "undoubtedly the most anticipated speaker for the roughly 1,500 in attendance and 20,000 tuning in via satellite from around the world" to the 2010 Epicenter conference in Philadelphia, which focuses on Bible prophecy, Israel, and the Middle East.

Yaalon called for the "intensive dialogue" between Israel and the United States to become "deeper and, based more on empathy on both sides." Both sides, he said, "have to show more readiness to listen to the other and understand and respect the concerns and the logic of the other."

The former top IDF soldier expressed hope that the coming meeting between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, slated to be held July 6 in Washington, "will send this message of closing the gaps."

Yaalon, who is a member of Netanyahu's 'Septet' of trusted cabinet ministers, said he believes there is still time to stop Iran's nuclear program through non-military means, should the West decides to do so. He said that he is encouraged by Russia's willingness to cooperate with sanctions against Iran.

Evangelical Christians, who wield great influence in the United States and believe that the Jewish rebirth in the Land of Israel is part of a Divine plan for redemption, are seen by many as Israeli nationalists' strongest ally in an largely hostile world. Some evangelical leaders, like possible Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, are frequent visitors to Judea and Samaria and enjoy excellent relations with Arutz Sheva, Israel's leading nationalist media outlet. Still, relations between the Israeli religious-Jewish Right and the American Christian Right are a tricky matter, because of the mutual distrust inherent in any relationship between religions.

However, Yaalon, like Prime Minister Netanyahu, is a secular Jew, and thus arguably more free to make alliances according to what he perceives as the State of Israel's current geopolitical and military interests. (IsraelNationalNews.com)

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Palestinian TV host: Jews are 'our enemies

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' reassurances to US President Barack Obama that there is no anti-Israel incitement in official Palestinian media were further contradicted last week when the host of a Palestinian Authority TV program prompted young interviewees to denounce not only Israel, but "the Jews."

During a program about Palestinian terrorists jailed by Israel, the female host interviewed the younger sister of a Palestinian serving 13 months in an Israeli prison for security crimes. The host asked the girl if she and her family are "bothered" by the Israeli guards when they visit her jailed brother. When she answers in the affirmative, the host presses, "They're wild animals, right? Aren't they wild animals?"

In the next interview, the host asks the four-year-old son of a terrorist serving a 15-year sentence who jailed his father. The boy answers, "The Jews." The host again presses, "The Jews are our enemies, right?"

Palestinian Media Watch, which provided translation of the program, pointed out that in the second interview, the host and the young boy specifically directed their anger at all Jews, and not just Israelis.