Al Qaeda comes to Palestine

There was a time when the Palestinian Authority accused Israel of cynically waving the red flag of Al Qaeda to justify its military operations in the Territories. It was, after all, terribly tempting for Ariel Sharon, the Israeli Prime Minister in the aftermath of 9/11 – to jump at the unexpected chance offered him to finally be rid of his old foe, Yasser Arafat, and to promote his own “cause” within the international community, in a receptive state of shock. Especially the United States. The (in)famous “irrefutable proof” about the presence of Al Qaeda cells with which Ariel Sharon badgered the Arab and Western chancelleries in late 2002, was in actual fact part of a vast hoax that the Palestinian government efficiently dismantled (using unfabricated evidence as proof) and made public : Israeli intelligence agencies had wanted to find Al-Qaeda cells in the territories so badly that they’d gone and started some themselves…

Abbas says Hamas let Al Qaeda in via Egypt

In the circumstances, pulling the apparently overused Al Qaeda bugaboo back out of the Palestinian closet takes chutzpah, or seems almost like tempting fate. Whereas Israel now favors the trendier argument of Syrian and/or Iranian support for armed Palestinian branches’ actions to justify their own offensives, since the 2006 Hamas victory, the Palestinian Authority swears they really have seen the wolf. “I can state without the shadow of a doubt that Al Qaeda is present in the Palestinian territories, and that this presence has been facilitated by Hamas, particularly in Gaza”, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said with a straight face, in an interview with the Pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat on February 27.

The Islamist party, which controls the Gaza Strip, has, according to Abbas, “brought in Al Qaeda”, their “ally”, and “helped them to enter and exit (the Territory) through known means”, particularly the opening created for a few days between the Gaza Strip and Egypt after a portion of the Wall of Separation was blown up in January of this year.

The Palestinian president has no actual proof of Al Qaeda’s presence in the Territories, but he does have an intimate “conviction,” which sufficed to drop a bomb. From the safety of a sheltered position. It is true that in addition to having shared allies, Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert also share a common enemy : Hamas. And just like Arafat’s government’s answer to the “foe” Sharon in 2002, the Islamic Resistance Movement (a translation of Hamas’s initials) categorically denies the Palestinian president’s allegations, accusing him of hoping to “mobilize the international community against Hamas”. And of playing right into Israel’s hands…

Already known as the “Palestinian Karzai” by Al Qaeda leaders, Mahmud Abbas has nothing left to lose by bringing grist to the mill of all those who already condemn him as a “traitor” to the Palestinian cause for having gone along with political agreements that, to make matters worse, weren’t even respected. He has nothing else to gain either, except perhaps to attempt to hold on to international donors’ support and their much-needed financial perfusions, by designating consensual villains, both within (Hamas) and without (Al-Qaeda) the better to explain his own powerlessness to run his “Nation”.

Bin Laden decides to lead jihad to “liberate” Palestine

Still, above and beyond whatever reasons he has for bandying about, without a shred of evidence, the idea of a supposed Al-Qaeda infiltration into Palestinian ranks, Mahmoud Abbas may have cried wolf because he actually glimpsed it prowling about…

In December 2007, Osama bin Laden broke a taboo by announcing, in the course of an argument advocating unity in the ranks of resistance in Iraq, that hitherto, “our jihad is to liberate Palestine, all of Palestine, from the River Jordan to the sea”. The Palestinian people should “rest assured”, he declared in this recording broadcast via jihadi forums, “we will enlarge our jihad”, because “we do not recognize the boundaries of Sykes-Picot*” any more than “those international charters that recognize Zionist entities in Palestine (…) Blood calls forth blood and demolitions will reply to demolitions”.

Up until then, the Territories had been the preserve and monopoly of Islamist Palestinian Liberation movements, who had both a historical legitimacy in terms of armed struggle against “the Jewish foe,” and fervent popular support that would brook no competition. The situation was in good hands, which weren’t about to let it go.

The spot being seen as taken, Al-Qaeda leaders were careful not to act like squatters or overstep their welcome. They stopped at appropriating, not “the cause,” itself, but its defense, in order to sustain their argument for justification and legitimization of Holy War, Al Qaeda style.

Hamas criticized by the hardest-line jihadis

Since their entrance onto the political scene and the compromises that the exercise of power inevitably leads to, Hamas’s leadership has been the target of virulent criticism from within the jihadi sphere… almost as harsh as the terms of endearment usually flung in the face of President Abbas. Slipping from its former, virtualy sacred pedestal, Hamas has lost its halo and been called a Judas. This accusation of betrayal conveniently opens a crack in the wall of Hamas’s monopoly, allowing Al Qaeda cadres to consider a new strategy in regard to the territories, and a perfect chance to get a foothold there.

Official benediction from the highest level for this new policy aiming to conquer Palestine and the “occupied” holy places, has overturned the last barriers still restraining members of the jihadi movement, who long for direct confrontation with Israel.

Flurry of suggestions for getting into place

Bin Laden’s announcement was not only unanimously welcomed as THE “bushra” –Koranic glad tidings – the jihadi community had been waiting for, it also generated intensive mobilization within active groups, who immediately began proffering advice and suggestions for bringing the grand scheme to fruition.

One of the biggest current operational stars in the jihadi galaxy, the Emir of the Islamic State of Iraq, spoke the loudest. In a long sound file uploaded onto jihadi forums and dated February 14, in which he recited the “series of betrayals” Hamas is guilty of, Abu Omar Al-Baghadi established a precise checklist of the actions to set into motion in order to establish Al Qaeda networks in Palestine. A sort of multi-staged “road map” aimed at combatants in both the Territories and the rest of the world.

But no one missed the roll call. In addition to the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), the Fatah Al-Islam in Lebanon and its Palestinian branch, and the Algerian Al Qaeda organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM, formerly the GSPC, or Salafist Group for Call and Combat), regional and local branches of the organization all stood up to be counted, vie communiqué or downloadable DivX, to declare their ecstatic commitment to furthering this goal.

Some, like the AQIM, promised to focus on Israeli and Jewish targets wherever they attacked. Others, like Fatah Al-Islam and the ISI, advocate miring the “Crusading Zionist” enemy down on various fronts, the better to distract it from Palestine, thereby facilitating the brothers’ arrival there. Some even offered to send their own men if need be, and to be responsible for logistics. Even Mullah Omar gave the grand scheme his blessing and promised to keep western forces in Afghanistan busy while it was being achieved…

Strategy for the next two years

So when’s it going to be ? “By 2010”, according to an Al-Qaeda commander with the discreet pseudo of Assad_Al-Djihad2, who also sent a list of “suggestions” to those same forums. In other words, at the end of the third and current phase of the major long-term program elaborated in 2005 by the organization’s military strategists and entitled “Al-Qaeda Strategy Through 2020”, which projects “direct confrontation with the Jews in occupied Palestine” at that stage. That leaves less than two years to prepare the terrain. And to let it be known when the time comes. In any case, our man adds, as though he were simply stating the obvious, “Al-Qaeda’s appearance in Palestine won’t make itself known until after the American elections”. (sic). Lucky Bush…

* Signed in 1916, the Sykes-Picot agreement between France, Britain and Russia, divvied the Middle East up into spheres of influence.

Translated by Regan Kramer

Pour lire ou relire cet article en français :

Al Qaïda s’invite en Palestine