Homeland Security Portal
Palestinian Affairs
Can the Palestinians Mobilize the Arab World on the U.S. Embassy Issue?
- The intention of U.S. President Donald Trump to move the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem evoked angry reactions in the Palestinian Authority which is preparing to block the initiative.
- Arab reaction to the embassy move depends on both Palestinian pressure and whether or not the Trump administration intends to follow through with his election promise to move the embassy.
- Jerusalem is very important to the Palestinian Authority and the Muslim Brotherhood and is less important to other Arab countries and Saudi Arabia in particular.
- Husam Zomlut, strategic affairs advisor to PA President Abbas and Palestinian ambassador-designate to Washington, admitted to Hamas TV that the aim of Palestinian diplomacy is to side-line the United States from its role in leading the peace process in favor of Europe and the UN.
Iran Is Courting Hamas
With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal refused to take the side of President Bashar Assad, and Hamas’ political leadership found itself at loggerheads with Iran; it has since faced a cooling in relations. Since then, Iran has not remained inactive. It is now resuming its courtship of Hamas in an attempt to add it to the Shiite camp and restore its former ties with the movement, exporting its particularly virulent strain of radical Islam in the region. Read More »
The Fraying Palestinian Political Entity in the West Bank
The Palestinian Authority is failing to control extensive parts of the West Bank. As a result, some districts of the West Bank are developing in different directions, thereby accelerating the process of the PA’s disintegration. In particular, this piece focuses on three West Bank cities - Hebron, Ramallah, and Nablus (Shechem) - and the different forces threatening to tear them apart. Read More »
The Internal Palestinian Fight for Jerusalem
East Jerusalem, despite being linked with both Israel and the West Bank, has developed an independent political system. The main public activity in East Jerusalem occurs at the plaza of the mosques on the Temple Mount where the Islamic movements are the dynamic political forces. Both regional powers and Islamic movements vie for control of the plaza and the city’s Arab population. Read More »
Dying for Allah
The sensitivity to criticism of the Islamic fundamentalist attitude on the “death for Allah” value, which has been fully adopted by the Palestinian cultural code, is a further instance of our difficulty in understanding a different culture, which leads us to project our own values onto the other in a mirror-perfect image. The value of “dying for Allah” has been adopted by Radical Islam’s distorted interpretation of Islam’s tenets. Read More »
The Knife and the Message:
The Roots of the New Palestinian Uprising
The latest wave of Palestinian violence against Jews is something new, an insidious wave of seemingly un-orchestrated attacks, perpetrated by unlikely assailants, and generally untraceable to any particular organization. They were also characterized by brutality and the purposeful use of the knife, to drive home the intent of bringing a new and unrelenting wave of slaughter to the Jews; a message to all Israelis that neither they, nor their children, will ever be able to live in this land in peace. However, the Mahmoud Abbas and those under his authority are indeed instructing young Palestinians what to do. Read More »
Connecting the Terror in Paris with the Terror against Israel
Despite the apparent lack of a true connection between the Islamic terror against the West and the Palestinian terror against Israel being confined to technical aspects, a link exists between the two; both are expressions of radical Islamic struggle against the West. Read More »
Hamas Looks beyond Jerusalem … to Rome and Beyond
Despite the recent wave of terrorist attacks in Europe, Europe is in no hurry to equate global terrorism to Palestinian terror, the latter is still considered justified by some because Palestinians are supposedly fighting for the sake of independence and to be free from the “yoke of occupation.” A more careful examination of the roots of the Palestinian struggle reveals that it is also calculated against Europe, and is not geared towards an end to occupation, but rather to the eventual takeover of Europe. Read More »
Hamas’ Tunnel Network: A Massacre in the Making
In the past decade, Hamas methodically built a sophisticated network of tunnels that would enable its fighters to infiltrate Israel and carry out terrorist attacks and abductions on an unprecedented scale. Operation Protective Edge exposed and targeted this tunnel network, eliminating one of Hamas’ strategic assets and preventing a devastating and broad surprise homefront attack. According to IDF Spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, “Hamas had a plan. A simultaneous, coordinated, surprise attack within Israel.” Read More »
Hamas’ Order of Battle: Weapons, Training, and Targets
In the course of their 50-day war against Israel, Hamas and its terrorist partners in Gaza fired more than 4,500 rockets and mortars at Israel. The weapons’ ranges varied from two to 160 km., and the gross inaccuracy and inconsistency of the rocket fire meant that Hamas had unleashed truly terrorizing weaponry. Hamas, Fatah, and Islamic Jihad’s rockets were fired at major strategic targets: ports, industrial parks, power stations, water plants, reactors, military bases, and Defense Ministry facilities, demonstrating their respective organizational desires to indiscriminately harm Israelis. Read More »
Hamas’ Strategy Revealed
The war in Gaza in July and August of 2014, fought between Israel and Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations, was viewed by Hamas as a critical link in the chain of jihad and armed struggle, whose long-term goal is the liberation of all of Palestine and the destruction of Israel. Since its establishment in 1987, Hamas has enshrined its goal in the Hamas Charter which it steadfastly has refused to modify. The analysis that follows will show that destroying Israel remains its goal and, that there are signs that it has adopted genocidal doctrines as well, directed against the Jewish people as a whole, beyond its militancy toward the Jewish state. Read More »
The Hidden Hand of ISIS and Its Impact on Palestinian Escalation
In recent months, the State of Israel has been facing what military jargon terms “popular terrorist activity.” Much of this violence is a product of both Hamas and Fatah incitement. However, there is also an ominous “hidden hand” at work directly impacting events throughout the Middle East and the Palestinian arena. Read More »
Hamas Policy after Operation “Protective Edge”
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal recently revealed Hamas’ unfolding strategy in the wake of the Gaza war, particularly the use of the international system as an economic safety net after every terror offensive. Hamas will use international legal instruments to participate in the Palestinians’ delegitimization campaign that seeks ultimately to bring an end to the State of Israel, all the while trying to gain access to the PLO and wrest away control from within. Read More »
PA's Ties with Hamas, Islamic Jihad: An Iranian Windfall
Fatah and Hamas are continuing to talk in an attempt to translate the reconciliation agreement which was signed on April 23, 2014 into a series of operative steps. These primarily involve integrating Hamas and Islamic Jihad into PLO institutions, setting up a unity government, and preparing for new parliamentary and presidential elections. Abbas is inadvertently providing Hamas and Islamic Jihad the tools to take control of the Palestinian national movement. Read More »
The Myth of the Moderate Hamas
Every time the profile of Hamas rises as a result of some development in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, there is an effort undertaken to repackage Hamas as a moderate organization. Read More »