More than a thousand Israeli Arabs congregated in Lod to mourn George Habash, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group. Habash was buried last week in Amman, Jordan, after dying of a heart attack at the age of 81. The choice of Lod as a place to mourn Habash may be particularly stinging to Israelis since the city was the site of one of the PFLP’s deadliest terror attacks. In 1972, the PFLP gunned down 27 people at Israel’s Lod airport. “Habash was buried in Amman but he must be buried in [his birthplace of] Lod. Habash’s death was one of the biggest losses of the Palestinian people and Arab nation,” said Jamal Zahalka, a leader of the Israeli Arab Balad party, which holds Knesset seats. The memorial ceremony was replete with glowing eulogies of Habash. In a march through the streets of Lod, participants brandished Palestinian flags. Local and national representatives of the Israeli Arab Hadash party were also present to mourn Habash, whose PFLP also took credit for a suicide bombing in Dimona this week that killed one civilian and wounded eleven others. Attacks and Talks: Two Sides of a Coin Suicide bombings and peace negotiations don’t contradict each other, according to the military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah organization, which also took credit along with the PFLP for this week’s deadly suicide bombing. “We need both tracks, negotiations and martyrdom attacks, in order to achieve our goal of liberating our lands,” said Abu Ahmed, a senior leader of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the northern Gaza Strip, speaking to WorldNetDaily shortly after the bombing. This week’s bombing was the latest in a string of attacks carried out by members of Abbas’s Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades since November’s U.S.-sponsored Annapolis summit. Still, senior Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met over the past few days to further the negotiations that are designed to create a Palestinian state by the end of the year. Terrorist Leaders: Israel Is Paper Tiger The Winograd Commission report proves the Jewish state is a “paper tiger” that can be destroyed, Palestinian terrorist leaders told WND in a series of interviews. “The report shows how Israel was defeated in war and proves the Zionist army is a paper tiger and that any other Arab and Muslim organization that has a real will like Hizbullah can defeat the Zionist army,” said Muhammad Abdel Al, spokesman and senior leader of the Popular Resistance Committees terrorist organization. Muhammad Saadi, a leader of Islamic Jihad in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, said the war probe “proves that without the help of the Americans, Israel will very soon disappear. Only the American support keeps Israel in the region. The Zionist army we thought was invincible has been defeated.” Weapons Into Gaza Large quantities of advanced weaponry were transferred into the Gaza Strip after the territory’s border wall with Egypt was breached by Palestinians two weeks ago, Yuval Diskin, chief of Israel’s Shin Bet Security Services, announced. Diskin told the Knesset that the Palestinians transported into Gaza long-range rockets, anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles, arms, ammunition, explosives and materials used for rocket production. Diskin also warned that Gaza-based Palestinian terrorists who crossed into the Egyptian Sinai desert during the past two weeks relocated themselves to form terror cells in strategic areas bordering Egypt. Israel has a long border with the Egyptian Sinai desert, much of which is currently unprotected.
Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.com. He appears throughout the week on leading U.S. radio programs and is the author of the recently published book “Schmoozing with Terrorists.”