AP Gets Cozy With Islamic Jihad

It appears this fellow didn't get the memo.

Must be part of that 0.1% of Muslims who's causing trouble for the other 99.9%.

And isn't it interesting how easily the Associated Press gets access to him to enjoy his pearls of wisdon while the children frolic about?

The militant known as Abu Hamza is constantly on the run from Israel, and his hideout today is a dank room at the back of a nondescript house filled with adults and frolicking children.

The room is barren except for a computer hooked up to the Internet, which the Islamic Jihad commander said is used to plan rocket attacks on southern Israel. He pledged to keep up the violence despite the growing likelihood of a major Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"We must create a balance of terror with the enemy," he told The Associated Press in a rare interview.

Abu Hamza is a small, soft-spoken man with a wide smile, but the rockets that Islamic Jihad fires into Israel almost daily serve as constant reminders that renewed talk of Mideast peace remains a distant dream in the violence-torn Gaza Strip.

Israel's military says Gaza militants have fired some 980 rockets into Israel since June, when Hamas seized power in the coastal territory. That compares to 440 in the preceding four months. In all, thousands of crude rockets fired over the past seven years have killed 12 Israelis, wounded dozens and disrupted life for thousands.

Israeli troops and settlers withdrew from Gaza more than two years ago — and Israel has begun a fledgling peace process with the moderate Palestinian forces now in control of the West Bank. So why is Islamic Jihad still raining missiles on Israeli towns, provoking fierce retaliation and a new Israeli threat to cut off Gaza's electricity?

Uh, because they hate Jews?

Could that be a possibility, Mr. Steven Gutkin, Associated Press Writer?

Islamic Jihad, a virulently anti-Israel group backed by Iran and Syria, has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings and is believed to have about 2,000 militants armed with M-16 and AK-47 automatic rifles, grenades and anti-tank weapons.

It operates independently of the much larger Hamas, whose tolerance and sometimes encouragement of rocket attacks have increased Gaza's isolation. Hamas' blind eye to Islamic Jihad rockets — along with mortar fire by its own militants — has helped burnish its credentials among Gazans as a "government of resistance." But it is also endangering Hamas' rule in Gaza by contributing to the economic decline.

Contacts known by AP journalists to be Islamic Jihad members arranged the meeting with Abu Hamza, his nom de guerre that is well known in Gaza even if his face is not. He spoke to AP reporters without donning the black ski mask usually worn by senior militants in press interviews, but he refused to allow himself to be filmed, photographed or recorded.

During the session, he wore a loose-fitting shirt instead of the military fatigues associated with Islamic Jihad. Though he carried no weapon, some of the men around him did — sitting nearby on ragged floor mats in the paint-chipped room. No food or drink was served in observance of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Getting to the interview required a long, labyrinthine car drive through the back alleys of the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis — stopping every few blocks to wait for phone instructions on how to proceed. At times, men popped their heads out of doorways along the street to give the all-clear signal.

Abu Hamza spoke softly and methodically, making frequent eye contact with an American reporter. But there was no mistaking the bitterness of his words.

"Resistance must continue until we uproot the occupation from all the land of Palestine ... from the sea to the river," he said, outlining Islamic Jihad's position that a future Palestinian state must replace Israel, not live alongside it.

Seems the AP has quite the cozy relationship with these militants.

Is it any wonder so often they and other news services (hello, Reuters) always seem to be at the right place for photo ops?

At one point, Abu Hamza said his group would consider a temporary halt to rocket fire if Israel stopped pursuing militants and opened Gaza's borders. But that statement was rendered meaningless by his subsequent assertion that other forms of "resistance" — such as suicide attacks and roadside bombs — would continue during any rocket truce.

Israeli intelligence officials declined to discuss Abu Hamza, saying they prefer not to divulge information about wanted militants who are still on the run.

But a top architect of Israel's military policy in Gaza was quoted Thursday in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot as saying the rocket attacks will have to be confronted with a major display of armed force.

"A ground operation is a question of timing," said Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky, the Israeli army's recently reassigned deputy chief of staff.

Meaning this thug's days may be numbered. Still, the benefactors involved must be dealt with.

Wonder who they could be?

The interview with the AP took place in a house where toddlers laughed and played. Islamic Jihad has often been criticized for operating among civilians, exposing them to the risk of Israeli fire.

Abu Hamza denied the assertion by Israel and much of the world that Islamic Jihad gets money and other backing from Iran and Syria, calling it "completely ridiculous."

But Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Gaza's Al Azhar University, said there is no doubt Syria and Iran are involved.

"There are outsiders giving orders from outside the Gaza Strip, whether from Damascus or Tehran, for their own reasons," Abusada said. "They (Gaza militants) are doing this because they're getting paid for it."