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I'm out of adjectives, I'm out of words altogether, but I wanted you to see this AP caption.
Palestinian militants of the Islamic Jihad, holding their weapons, pose for photographers, during a rally in Gaza City Wednesday May 31, 2006.... (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
... from a Palestinian thug, a/k/a the HAMAS/PA's "security chief." For some reason the Associated Press is terribly interested in what he has to say.
AbbaGav has a better version of this picture (follow link and scroll down).
RAFAH, Gaza Strip -- In a back-alley interview, the top Hamas enforcer in the Gaza Strip railed against the U.S. government, said he's happy whenever American soldiers are killed and vowed not to take Hamas' 3,000-strong militia off the streets.
Jamal Abu Samhadana, a 43-year-old explosives expert, is a key target for Israel and moves stealthily, switching cars and hideouts, despite his promotion to security chief by the Hamas-led government.
In an interview Monday with The Associated Press, Abu Samhadana called the U.S. and Israeli-led boycott of the Hamas-run Palestinian Authority "cheap extortion" and said it will only serve "to make our people more attached to the government.""The American government and people will pay a dear price for this aggressive and criminal policy against the Arab and Muslim people," he said.
It was some of the toughest rhetoric from any Palestinian official since the Islamic Hamas movement took power in March. And it came at a time when the Palestinian government is struggling to stave off a humanitarian disaster resulting from the international aid boycott.
The interview took place in a small room on the second floor of a backstreet building in the Gaza Strip town of Rafah. Abu Samhadana's men led an AP reporting team there after a long labyrinthine drive that included various stops and an order to remove a "press" sign from a vehicle.
Sitting before a photo of an Islamic Jihad militant killed by Israel, the black-bearded Samhadana, himself one of the most renowned militants in the Palestinian territories, denied old allegations he was behind a deadly 2003 bombing of a U.S. Embassy convoy in Gaza that killed three American security guards.
Still, he saved his harshest words for the U.S. and President Bush.
"We are happy when any American soldier is killed anywhere in the world, because the American Army is an aggressor against all the people in the world, particularly the Arab and Muslim worlds," he said. "The American people are known to be peaceful, so they are asked to move to bring down this terrorist government in Washington, so that the American people are safe from any attacks or retaliation."
Abu Samhadana, No. 2 on Israel's wanted list, wore a loose-fitting shirt and a baseball cap instead of his trademark guerrilla-style, black-belted uniform. His right hand and arm were burned and mangled in an explosion during what he said was an attack against Israel five years ago.
He spoke softly and at times cracked jokes, making eye contact only rarely with an American reporter. Aides served hot tea and roasted pumpkin seeds. . . .
For more on Samhadana, see his profile at the Terrorism Knowledge Base developed by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT).
UPDATE
I had to laugh. Soccer Dad writes: "Oh, he's an explosives expert. What exactly is that a euphemism for?"
I hadn't even noticed that... shows you how bad things have gotten.
Sending this along FYI, Esther Sarah writes, "I guess THEIR cartoons can show anything they want..."
Al-Risala May 25, 2006, book: "Democracy"
This current issue of the Hamas weekly has a cartoon of a Palestinian child urinating on the Statue of Liberty, which is holding a book labelled "Democracy".
PA cartoon depicts Palestinian child urinating on Statue of Liberty / Background Brief: Denigrating Statue of Liberty in PA Cartoons, including
The Statue of Liberty as a suicide terroristThe Statue of Liberty's torch igniting the world's fires
The Statue of Liberty as a prostitute
The Statue of Liberty being imprisoned by the FBI and CIA
The Statue of Liberty as an evil Condoleezza Rice, representing Israel
The Statue of Liberty destroyed with Superman at the "Gates of Baghdad"
The Statue of Liberty symbol as a heroic Palestinian woman. However, instead of representing freedom, the defiant Palestinian Statue represents violence and terror, wears a crown of machines guns and holds an infant grasping a stone.
"Palestinian Waste" refers to the urine, obviously, but also the wasted childhoods, wasted lives, wasted elections, wasted foreign aid, wasted concessions, wasted Gush Katif, wasted synagogues, wasted greenhouses, wasted diplomacy, wasted offers, wasted documents, wasted roadmap. You get the idea . . . What a waste.
Nayef Hashlamoun/Reuters
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Forty-four percent of Jewish settlers would be ready to leave their homes in the occupied West Bank without resistance if Israel decided to remove them, a poll published on Wednesday by an Israeli newspaper showed.The percentage of settlers said they would evacuate was up from 25 percent last June, the poll conducted by the Geocartografia Institute showed.
The survey in the Maariv daily said a representative sample of the 240,000 settlers had been asked whether they would agree to leave under an Israeli "realignment" plan which calls for removal of some isolated settlements while strengthening others.
The survey, which included settlers who would be unlikely to face evacuation, did not ask respondents to explain why they might be open to leaving.
Many settlers who live in the West Bank stake a biblical claim to the territory. Others were attracted by cheap housing and tax breaks for Israelis in the territory, where Palestinians want to establish a state.
Settlement evacuations, which Israeli officials said could include some 70,000 people, are part of a plan by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to set a border unilaterally with Palestinians in the absence of peace talks.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, waves to the crowd during the funeral ceremony of his father, in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, May 31, 2006. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Ahmadinejad interview with Der Spiegel
SPIEGEL: What will happen now in the conflict between the West and Iran?Ahmadinejad: We understand the Americans' logic. They suffered damage as a result of the victory of the Islamic Revolution. But we're puzzled why some European countries are opposed to us. I sent out a message on the nuclear issue, asking why the Europeans were translating the Americans' words for us. After all, they know that our actions are aimed toward peace. By siding with Iran, the Europeans would serve their own and our interests. But they will suffer only damage if they oppose us. For our people is strong and determined.
See also The New York Times and Ahmadinejad
at The American Thinker.
The New York Times Sunday offered a disgustingly sympathetic portrait of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. While the article acknowledges (in the words of an anonymous political science professor in Tehran) that “being against Jews and Zionists is an essential part” of Ahmadinejad’s political identity, the focus of the article is on Ahmadinejad’s “speed and aggression” in accumulating power and in “reshaping” the nature of Iran’s government.For what ends? Here the article is curiously silent....
A Hamas militia member holds his Ak-47 rifle with a picture of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh during Friday prayers at Jabalya camp in the northern Gaza strip May 26, 2006. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called the US an "enemy of Islam," an Iranian news agency reported on Wednesday."Washington is doing its utmost to ensure the failure of the Hamas-led Palestinian government," claimed Haniyeh. The PA prime minister added that the US's decision to attack Muslims was "influenced by the Zionist lobby."
.... In another incident ... in the Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian man suspected of collaborating with Israel was publicly executed on Tuesday by Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades gunmen.
Rocket Scores Direct Hit on Jewish Home in Sderot
Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal said this morning, "The answer lies not in rocket-proofing, and not in ground forces going into Gaza once a year. Either operations like yesterday must happen three times a day, or else we simply have to destroy Beit Hanoun [the city from which the Kassams are launched] - or else take control of the area. No other normal country allows itself to be bombarded with rockets, and then does nothing but fire at empty fields. If we don't take real action, we'll have 10 or 15 years of these rockets."The bombarded home belongs to the Ashkenazi family, neighbors of Sderot-resident Defense Minister Amir Peretz.
Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz (L) speaks to the media after a Qassam rocket attack in the southern city of Sderot May 31, 2006. Palestinian militants firing rockets from the Gaza Strip came close on Wednesday to hitting the home of Peretz. A house about 100 metres (330 ft) from Peretz's residence in the town of Sderot was damaged by one of three rockets that Islamic Jihad militants said they fired into southern Israel. ISRAEL OUT REUTERS/Maariv/Edi Israel
Two other Kassams exploded in yards of residential homes, causing damage to the structures. One of them took a chuck off the roof of a house before landing in the yard below. A fourth Kassam landed in an open area in Sderot's neighboring Kibbutz Or HaNer.
Maybe I'm just tired, but I thought this headline was funny:
New invertebrate species found in Israel
