According to the Israeli propaganda unit DEBKAfile, "Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s Gaza cell is gearing up for a major terrorist attack against" Hamas. "Zarqawi’s agents from Jordan and Egypt are positioning operational cells on the West Bank too, ready for strikes against both Israel and the Hamas-ruled Palestinian Authority." Since Palestinians continue to struggle against Israeli occupation and remain undeterred in their long-standing effort to establish a state, they must now be excised from the loop.

"Zarqawi no longer relies on local Palestinian groups for strikes in Israel and Palestinian areas. He is deploying terrorist manpower from Iraq. Syria, and Jordan, who enter Gaza freely through the Rafah crossing, with Egyptian border officials turning a blind eye." Since the Rafah crossing is essentially the main gateway for the open-air prison known as the Gaza Strip, it makes sense for the Israelis to claim it is basically a turnstile for terrorists, especially in the wake of much ado about the crossing made by "Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement for the Quartet on the Middle East" James Wolfensohn, the former president of the neolib loan sharking operation, the World Bank, now run by the Straussian neocon Paul Wolfowitz. Israel is not interested in a foursome of nations and international entities (i.e., the neoliberal global elite) brokering "peace" between Israel and the Palestinians and have consistently worked to subvert any progress made by the so-called "Quartet."

DEBKAfile believes "Al Qaeda now targets Hamas and Abu Mazen equally. Since taking office, Hamas is perceived as weak for shelving its war option against Israel in favor of an informal truce," in other words, the fact Hamas omitted its call for the destruction of Israel from its election manifesto is regarded as a threat, as the Islamic boogieman, a onetime asset of Israel and a stepchild of the British and U.S. intelligence penetrated Muslim Brotherhood, now has considerably fewer sharp teeth and may be regarded a bona fide political orgnaization representing the Palestinian people. Thus the CIA-ISI Frankenstein "al-Qaeda" must be dispatched to the Occupied Territories.

Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority, is following the Israeli playbook closely. "We have indications about the presence of al Qaeda in Gaza and the West Bank. This is intelligence information. We have not yet reached the point of arrests," Abbas told the London-based al-Hayat newspaper early last month. "If al Qaeda carried out a massive attack, it would steal the limelight from Hamas and provoke an Israeli response," Dr. Yoram Kahati of the International Policy Institute on Counter-Terrorism and the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center told CNS News.

A few days later, according to WorldNetDaily, "a pamphlet distributed in the Gaza Strip" supposedly revealed "Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi will soon reveal himself in the Palestinian territories and orchestrate local and global jihad from the area," a claim now amplified by DEBKAfile. "Is there now among us a person like Saladin, like Sheik Osama bin Laden, like Abu Musab Zarqawi? The answer is yes. We have this man and he will appear with the help of Allah very soon on the land of Palestine," said the pamphlet issued by the Jaish al-Jihad, or Army of Jihad. Moreover, the tract declared "we will fight all the corrupted and unbelieving politicians. It will be a great war for the purity of the land of Islam and Palestine," Yedioth Internet reported last month.

"Mideast watchers warned against overstating the al-Qaida presence because the issue is easily manipulated for political ends," the Associated Press reported on March 22. "Israel has a lot to gain by portraying its local conflict with the Palestinians as part of the global war on terror, and Abbas, badly damaged by the recent political rise of Hamas militants, wants 'to show that he is needed by the West,’ said Israeli security analyst Dan Schueftan."

Indeed, Israel attempted to exploit the phantom "al-Qaeda" in late 2002. "Palestinian security forces have arrested a group of Palestinians for collaborating with Israel and posing as operatives of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network," the Sydney Morning Herald reported. "The hardline Israeli leader [the now comatose Ariel Sharon] … charged other members of the terror group were cooperating with Lebanon’s Shi’ite militia Hizbollah," and thus Iran, accused of collaborating with "al-Qaeda," according to the nine eleven whitewash commission and the Straussian neocons, blood brothers of and co-conspirators with the Jabotinsky Israelis, now considered "centrists" belonging to the Kadima party.

According to the late British MP Robin Cook, "Bin Laden [and al-Qaeda] was … a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies…. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way [in Afghanistan], Bin Laden’s organisation would turn its attention to the west." In fact, "al-Qaeda" was a product of monumental intelligence agency calculation and it was methodically unleashed in the Middle East, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya, Indonesia, and now Palestine "for political ends."

It makes perfect sense for Israel to expand on the CIA-ISI "al-Qaeda" contrivance, so effective in scaring the pants off somnolent Americans. Israel has a long and sordid history of false flag terrorism, most notably the Lavon Affair in 1954 when Israeli operatives planted bombs in a United States diplomatic facility in Egypt (and planned to blame it one Arabs) to attacking the U.S.S. Liberty (and attempt to blame it on Arabs) to fooling the United States into believing Libya was responsible for killing U.S. soldiers in Germany (resulting in Reagan bombing Libya, killing civilians, including Khadaffi’s daughter). For more on Israel’s false falg terrorism, see my Galloway and the Stampeding of Arab Jews, Part I and II.