Daniel Wultz, the Florida teenager critically injured in a suicide bombing last month in Tel Aviv, is the “best target combination we can dream of – American and Zionist,” said Abu Nasser, a leader of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, one of the groups responsible for the deadly blast.
“It is known that the Jews are sly and not honest, and they are leading into this trap of the Middle East in order to carry out their plan of controlling the world,” Abu Nasser told WorldNetDaily.
Abu Ayman, a leader of Islamic Jihad, which also took responsibility for the April 17 bombing in which Wultz was injured, threatened all Americans and Jews worldwide and expressed regret Wultz is still alive. Wultz lost his kidney, spleen and a leg in the bombing and is reportedly still fighting for his life. (See story, page 3.)
“The Americans are now the typical enemy of the believers like it is mentioned in the holy Koran. They think that they are all mighty and invincible, and they seem to not have the right conclusions from what happened to them in the last few years. The Americans are now the best representatives of the devil on earth,” Abu Ayman said.
Asked whether his terror group would target a restaurant here if they were informed it contained American civilians and not Israelis, Abu Ayman replied, “This is a hypothetical question, but in my opinion at the execution step [of an attack] nothing changes.”
The terrorist said Jews of all backgrounds are targets: “The meaning and the goal of our lives is to fight the devil spiritually and physically. The Jews are the expression of both kinds of devil. No mercy for devils.”
Wultz’s family have requested people around the world pray for Daniel, whose Hebrew name is Chaim Meir Naftali, son of Sara.
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Five months after their organizations urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pressure Israel into accepting a border deal that may have facilitated a major planned suicide operation last week, leftist American Jewish leaders assert they stand by their vocal support for the international agreement.
The Jewish leaders made the statements despite evidence that Rice’s Rafah border deal has allowed terrorists to infiltrate the Gaza Strip, where they are poised to attack Israel. It also grants Gaza-based terrorists freedom to travel into the nearby Sinai desert where they can meet with regional jihadists – as officials say was the case with last week’s thwarted major bombing at the Karni crossing, the main cargo checkpoint between Gaza and Israel.
The Jewish leaders were also unapologetic after hearing that Israeli security officials are now calling Rice’s border agreement an “abject failure” that threatens the country’s security.
“We have absolutely no regrets. Of course not. It was the right thing. The Palestinians must have freedom of movement,” said Seymour Reich, president of the Israel Policy Forum.
Reich was one of several leftist Jewish leaders who pressed Rice during a meeting prior to her trip to Jerusalem this past November to pressure Israel into signing a deal regarding security at the Rafah crossing, the main checkpoint betwen Egypt at Gaza.
The deal transferred security of the crucial crossing from Israel to the Egyptians, Palestinians and European monitors.
The Europeans have fled their positions many times, and dozens of senior terrorists have openly entered Gaza through Rafah since the deal was implemented.
WND reported just before Rice brokered the deal in November that several leftist Jewish groups encouraged her to take a tough line with Israel against settlement expansion and involvement in Palestinian border affairs. A source close to those pressuring Rice said that one senior Jewish leftist leader told the secretary of state her tough stance against Israel would result in strong support from American Jews.
Lewis Roth, assistant director of Americans for Peace Now, said, “The fact of the matter is the Palestinians need some opening to the outside world. Rafah certainly provides the best arrangement. There are some issues that need to be addressed, but we still support the deal.”
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Prime Minister Ariel Sharon did not support withdrawing from the West Bank, and opposed unilaterally vacating any of the territories’ Jewish communities, according to one of Sharon’s closest confidantes.
Officials from the ruling Kadima party, which Sharon founded prior to his massive stroke in January, have been claiming for months that West Bank withdrawal was a policy initiated by Sharon.
“If he was fully functional today, Sharon would have told the world, ‘Look what we got from [withdrawing from Gaza and] making concessions for peace. So if you think I am going to give one inch of more land, you are very wrong,'” said author and columnist Uri Dan, who enjoyed a special relationship with the prime minister.
Kadima officials, including Ehud Olmert, have said many times that Sharon envisioned a West Bank withdrawal. During the weeks leading up to the election in March, Olmert said his victory would be a referendum on the Israeli public’s support for his withdrawal plan. One of the major slogans of Kadima’s election campaign featured a catch phrase that announced the party was “following in the footsteps of Ariel Sharon.”
“There is no greater insult to Sharon than these declarations, as he battles valiantly for his life in Hadassah hospital,” said Dan, who added that Sharon’s future policy supported President Bush’s road map, which calls for the dismantlement of Palestinian terror groups before negotiations can be conducted regarding any land transfers.
“But at a time like this, a promise of further withdrawals only encourages Hamas to intensify its extremist positions. …Would Sharon have gotten up and announced the fact at a time when Israel is waging an international struggle against Hamas’s legitimacy? Of course not,” said Dan.
Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.com. He is a co-host of ABC Radio’s nationally syndicated John Batchelor Show and is frequently heard on talk radio.