Abu "boo-boo" Abbas...

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PA video: Pour flames on settlements

Song on official TV encourages Palestinians to attack Jews in territories

Posted: May 2, 2003
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

A music video being played on official Palestinian Authority television calls for attacks on Jews living in settlements in the so-called occupied territories.

Palestinian Media Watch has posted the video, which can be watched using Windows Media Player or Quick Time, on its website.

The video shows a Palestinian gunman followed by an image of a Jewish man and his wife walking. The translated lyrics of the song at that point are: "Foreigners have no place on this land."

While the singer intones, "Pour over the settlements great flames," the video shows aerial views of Jewish settlements.

In addition to the man and wife, the video includes footage of Jewish teen-age girls and an Israeli soldier.

The Palestinians shown include masked militants firing automatic weapons.

The words of the song are repeated throughout the video:

From the mountain of fire [Nablus] came the rebels ...
Everywhere there are settlements.
Oh brave Nablus, keep the cauldron ablaze;
Pour over the settlements great flames;
Foreigners have no place on this land;
Foreigners have no place where Shahids [died for Allah] were killed.
This week, just hours after Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas took office, international Middle East mediators presented Israel and the Palestinians with the long-awaited blueprint for peace dubbed the "road map."

Last week, President Bush praised the new prime minister as "a man dedicated to peace," even as charges were made that Abbas provided financing for the terrorist attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

According to Palestinian Media Watch, Abbas was quoted in the newspaper A-Sharq Al Awsat in March as saying, "The Intifada must continue. And it is the right of the Palestinian people to rise and to use all means at their disposal ... all means, even guns. ..."

Palestinian snipers along the road (map)

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Army intelligence: Abu Mazen unable to halt terror

By Amos Harel
Haaretz.com

Military Intelligence told the political echelon at the beginning of the week that the new Palestinian government headed by Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) has no intention of uprooting the terrorist infrastructure. "According to what we know now, Abu Mazen plans to speak with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders, and not clash with them," a senior military source told Haaretz yesterday.

In recent weeks much has been written about the different approaches being taken by the army and Shin Bet with regard to what to expect from the Palestinian Authority. While even before Abu Mazen's appointment, army heads were relatively optimistic and spoke of the rare opportunity created as a result of the new prime minister in the PA and the American victory in Iraq, the Shin Bet was providing more pessimistic views.

Now the gap between the two bodies appears to have been totally erased. Military Intelligence shares the Shin Bet's view that at least for now, Abu Mazen is not planning a comprehensive change. "He may have opposed the violent intifada from the first day," say military sources, "but he's barely a third of the new political framework in the PA. The other two-thirds are Yasser Arafat and the terror organizations, which continue to support violence."

The new prime minister, says Military Intelligence, feels he lacks domestic legitimacy and therefore has to concede to Arafat on critical issues, which has already eroded his ability to fight terrorists in the future. The sources say Abu Mazen began his job with excellent conditions for a significant change, in light of the developments in Iraq and the Palestinian failure to achieve anything through violence, but it does not appear he plans to actualize those conditions fully.

In any case, what he does plan to achieve is far from what Israel is demanding of him. Military Intelligence's prognosis is that the terror from the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and parts of the Tanzim will continue. "At most," one senior officer said cynically, "the PA will reach an agreement with them not to commit attacks between 2 and 4 in the afternoon."

Military Intelligence predicted Abu Mazen would win confirmation for his government, despite Arafat's obstacles. For his part, Arafat continues to believe he will remain the real manager, whether behind the scenes or on the stage. Intelligence officials also admit that the forecasts of Arafat's political death last summer were premature. He is alive and kicking, and meanwhile has managed to constrain Abu Mazen.

As far as the terror organizations are concerned, the coming months will be an all-out race. After the defeat in Iraq and the total lack of violent resistance to the American powers in Iraq, the main focus returns to Israel and the territories. For the elements that direct the Palestinian terror from outside the territories - Syria, Hezbollah and especially Iran - there is enormous importance to a renewal of the terror against Israel now, especially in light of Tehran's fears that Damascus might concede to American pressure and limit activity of the terror organizations in Damascus.

It's not only the Palestinian will to fight terror that is being questioned in Israel, but also its ability to do so. Mohammed Dahlan has not shown any signs of readiness to enforce his will in the West Bank and some of the heads of the security apparatus are asking out loud why they have to make an effort for him. When the new minister looks around, he is not likely to see them fighting shoulder to shoulder with him, says Military Intelligence.

There's been no change in the motivation of the terror groups, says Military Intelligence. "They're climbing the walls because it has become so difficult for them to infiltrate a suicide bomber into Israel, but that doesn't mean they have ceased trying."

The top ten things you'll never hear a Syrian diplomat say...

1. Yes, we smuggled mercenaries into Iraq to kill Americans


2. Yes, we are granting safe haven to former Iraqi leaders


3. Yes, we are hiding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction


4. Yes, we are producing weapons of mass destruction


5. Yes, we are training and supporting terrorism


6. Yes, we are still illegally occupying Lebanon


7. Yes, we commit human rights violations


8. Yes, we are seeking to destroy Israel


9. Yes, we have been lying all along


10. Yes, we have no bananas

And Saddam was a humanitarian...

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Syria launches image-mending campaign in US

Janine Zacharia Apr. 27, 2003
Jerusalem Post

Syria has launched a public relations offensive designed to repair its image in the US after severe criticism by top Bush administration officials.

Damascus dispatched Boutheina Shaaban, director of media relations at the Syrian Foreign Ministry, to Washington and New York. On Thursday, Shaaban appeared before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington to defend Syrian support for Hizbullah and its sheltering of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Damascus, and to insist that Syria had not provided shelter to Iraqi officials.

An articulate English speaker who studied abroad, Shaaban is close to the Assad family. She served as translator and close adviser to late president Hafez Assad for many years and continues to advise President Bashar Assad.

Shaaban said she had come to "confront some stereotypes rather than to confirm them." In addition to her appearance at CFR, Shaaban spoke to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and appeared on cable news programs.

She arrived just as the bulk of criticism of Syria has begun to subside. US President George W. Bush told NBC's Tom Brokaw Thursday that the Syrians "appear to want to be helpful" when it comes to catching Iraqi leaders who fled across the border into Syria. In addition, Bush chastised "left-wing critics" who said his administration is "so militaristic they're getting ready to invade Syria." Secretary of State Colin Powell will head to Syria soon as part of a Middle East tour designed to promote the road map for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

It was not clear who initiated the CFR panel. Syria does not employ a full-time lobbyist in Washington, and the quickly arranged event resembled ones that wealthy Persian Gulf governments put together with the help of local public relations firms when they have problems with Washington.

There has been mounting concern in recent weeks among US companies with investments in Syria that new legislation moving through Congress could lead to fresh sanctions on Damascus and thwart business dealings there.

Conoco, an oil company with the largest US investment in Syria, may, for example, have to cut its ties with Damascus if the Syria Accountability Act passes.

Shaaban said Syria never had good relations with the Iraqi regime and insisted that Syria "has always worked for peace and for security and stability," citing its support for the Madrid peace conference over a decade ago. US-brokered Israeli-Syrian peace talks fizzled after a brief spurt in January 2000 in West Virginia.

Sen. Bob Graham (D-Florida), who spoke with Shaaban on the CFR panel, praised Syria for "playing an important role in apprehending Iraqi officials who as fugitives fled into their country" and insisted that, compared to other countries, it is "at best a relatively minor producer and controller of weapons of mass destruction." But he challenged Syria to abandon its support for Hizbullah, which he said has terrorist sleeper cells in the US.

Lebanese Ambassador to the US Farid Abboud said Hizbullah is not a terrorist organization by definition, because "since its inception there was no attack on civilian targets." Hizbullah is the primary suspect in the deadly attacks on a Jewish center and the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1994.

Hizbullah, Shaaban insisted, "does not have anything against the United States." Its leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, however, spews some of the most anti-American rhetoric in the region.

She defended Syria's refusal to shut offices of Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Damascus, saying they were simply "press offices" for the 500,000 Palestinians living in Syria. The US has repeatedly asked Syria to close them, saying they support and help orchestrate terrorist attacks by Palestinians in Israel.

"Instead of condemning Hamas and [Islamic Jihad] and Hizbullah and suicidal bombs and all this, end occupation, end settlements," she said.

Asked about Syria's ongoing occupation of Lebanon, Shaaban insisted Syria, which profits enormously from its presence there, does "not intend to stay in Lebanon except when it is needed." She said Hizbullah's strikes against targets in northern Israel are justified as long as Israel remains in control of Shaba Farms. The UN has certified Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon as complete but Shaaban insisted that Shaba Farms are part of Lebanon.

She failed to adequately answer why Syrian journalist Ibrahim Hamidi, a reporter for the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, has been imprisoned for months without being charged. "He was jailed for reasons violating the Syrian law," she said. Colleagues of Hamidi say he was arrested because the Syrian regime did not approve of an article he wrote.