1. By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Abu Mohammed picked up his rifle, said farewell to his wife and six children and went out to face the Israeli tanks, helicopter gunships and missile-firing airborne drones.

"Being unable to defeat Israel is no reason to surrender," the Hamas fighter said with a smile as he headed to the Gaza Strip's front line last Saturday, ignoring pleas from his family to stay.

"My children and wife are very dear to me," he said. "But reward in Heaven and the homeland are dearer."

The 38-year-old furniture salesman says he is not afraid to die for the cause of destroying Israel and forging a Palestinian state on all Israel's territory, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

To Israel and its allies, Abu Mohammed and his comrades are Jew-hating terrorists. But Abu Mohammed sees himself on a mission from God to rescue his people from 60 years of misery as refugees since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.

Though that conviction may, in some, mingle with bravado and self-interest, it does make Hamas an enemy to be reckoned with, for all that Israel's hi-tech army easily outguns their rifles, home-made rockets and, if they choose, their suicide bomb belts.

After five days of air strikes and ground assaults that it said aimed to halt Hamas rocket fire, Israel pulled out its troops on Monday after appeals from the United States that followed at international outcry at the dozens of civilians among over 100 dead.

BROKEN HAND

Abu Mohammed survived, though he broke a bone in his hand diving for cover. The rocket fire resumed and Hamas and its fellow Islamist allies vowed to battle on, despite losing close to 60 fighters. Estimates vary but there may be 20,000 or more Abu Mohammeds left to continue the war in Gaza alone.

Islam forbids suicide, but rewards "martyrdom" with glory in this world and paradise in the next. For the 1.5 million Palestinians in the slums and refugee camps of the Gaza Strip, the question of why one of their compatriots would sacrifice his or her life to kill Israelis needs little soul-searching.

"An Islamist fighter has two motives: a religious motive -- God's reward; and a social motive -- appreciation from the people he is defending," explained Fadel Abu Heen, a prominent Gaza psychiatrist.

And religion was the stronger motivation for Islamist fighters. "That is what makes them braver and more aggressive fighters than others," he said.

Older than most of his fellow combatants, Abu Mohammed said his family had fled to Gaza from a village nearby in 1948.

"We have the right to all of Palestine," he said in his three-room, one-storey house in Gaza City.

"If we are dead before we can liberate our land, then we did not give up. We have to set an example to our children that weakness is not an excuse for not putting up a fight."

TRUCE WITH CONDITIONS

Hamas leaders have offered a long-term truce with Israel in return for a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem -- terms Israel is unwilling to accept, preferring to negotiate with Hamas's secular enemies in the Fatah faction, which dominates the larger West Bank.

And the Islamist group, which routed Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, continues to say it will not formally recognize Israel. Its 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Abu Mohammed -- his familiar rather than formal name -- went to fight on Saturday with an AK-47 assault rifle, two spare clips, and three Hamas-made hand grenades bearing the words "Qassam Brigades", the name of Hamas's armed wing.

Before leaving, he turned off his mobile phone, which Israel could use to track his movements, and switched on a two-way radio that connects him to other gunmen.

"Just like an army," he said.

On the verge of tears, his wife, who did not want to be named, sat in silence. "I know Jihad is a religious duty, but we need you. I need you and the children do, too," she said.

Abu Mohammed only smiled.

"Smile, smile, that's all I get whenever I ask," she said.

Nearly hit by Israeli missiles twice last week, Abu Mohammed said the fighting was "very tough" but added: "I am optimistic.

"In the end, Israel will have to agree to our terms. There is no alternative to returning all of our Palestine."

(Editing by Adam Entous and Kevin Liffey)

© Reuters 2008 All rights reserved


2. by Aaron Klein, Reviewed by Lori Lowenthal Marcus

The people who kill Jews and other westerners for a living would seem to be a bit hard for nice Jewish boy to sit down and chat with about why they do what they do. But in Schmoozing with Terrorists, Aaron Klein -- Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily -- shares the wide-ranging conversations he has had with many of the top Arab Palestinian terrorist leaders in Israel about exactly that topic.

Klein's conversations covered the gamut from why Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades endorse the use of homicide bombing in light of the Koranic ban on suicide; to the way in which the terrorist leaders nakedly reject documented archeological and historical connections between Jews and Israel; to the ongoing persecution of Christians by Muslims in Bethlehem, Gaza and other cities.

Klein's style is conversational and personal: he never hides his own perspective or the fact that he is an Orthodox Jew. And yet those whom he interviews, although occasionally bridling at some of Klein's questions, are perfectly comfortable meeting with him and articulating their views and goals.


The Arab Palestinian leaders with whom Klein spoke are very candid about their dreams not only to wipe out Israel, but to establish a worldwide caliphate.


The Arab Palestinian leaders with whom Klein spoke are very candid about their dreams not only to wipe out Israel, but to establish a worldwide caliphate. Their plans for American society should awaken anyone who thinks the Arab terrorists are only Israel's problem. And it should also smack awake all the moral relativists who equate Israel's security measures with hegemonic brutality.

A deputy commander of Fatah's al Aqsa Martyrs Bridade, Nasser Abu Azziz, explained to Klein that when sharia law is imposed in Western countries, "these sick people [homosexuals] will be treated in a very tough way," explaining that the Islamic leadership will "prevent social and physical diseases like homosexuality." All the terrorists whom Klein interviewed agreed that homosexuality would not be tolerated in the US once Islam rules.

And homosexuality is not all they condemn. The failure of western women to conform to Islamic standards of dress will reap harsh responses including, if necessary, torture. Sheik Hamad, a Hamas cleric, said those women who refuse to cover themselves in conformity with Islamic values would be punished either by imprisonment, whipping or stoning. And we aren't just talking about Madonna's bustiers: under the standard described by Klein's interviewees, even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- who does in fact wear a robe -- would be a target for stoning. She's omitted the head covering.

Given the opportunity to explain the source of Arab Palestinian terrorism, Klein's subjects contradict standard lore. Klein was told by Abu Ayman, the commander of Islamic Jihad in Jenin, that Muslims are strictly forbidden from becoming suicide bombers if they are motivated by anything -- including desperate poverty or revenge for Israeli wrongdoing to this individual -- other than love of Allah. When Klein pointed out to a young man in training to become a "martyr" CNN's claim that suicide bombing was motivated by poverty and despair, Abu Ahmed was visibly affronted and called it "Israeli propaganda."

The most bizarre and brazen interview Klein describes is with Sheikh Taysir Tamimi, the chief Palestinian Justice and one of the most important clerics in the Middle East. Tamimi lectured Klein that "there is no Jewish historic connection whatsoever to the Temple Mount or Jerusalem," and that the "Jews came to the [Temple area] in 1967 and not before."

Tamimi responded to Klein's recitation of archeological findings and historical connections: "These archeological things you cite are lies." Tamimi simply erases Judaism's connection to the Holy Land by ignoring irrefutable and concrete evidence of inconvenient facts. Such distortions are particularly troubling because Tamimi is an enormously influential Imam whose view of history is eagerly imbibed by his followers. Echoing Tamimi is Nasser Abu Aziz whose rhetoric, while perhaps inelegant, was crystal clear: "We are fed up with this crap nonsense of the Temple Mount."

Klein's interviews show that Palestinian leaders have also, and repeatedly, perpetrated a vile hoax on their acolytes. The myth of the seventy-two virgins in paradise who await each martyr is a theme echoed and believed by those who extol and consider suicide bombing an option. Klein's subjects do not explain how the appetite for virgins fits with the love of Allah as an incentive for becoming a suicide bomber.

When asked about the source for the promise of the 72 virgins, Ala Senakhreh, West Bank chief of Fatah's Martyrs Brigade, insisted such a promise was made in the Koran. When pressed about where exactly that promise could be located, neither Senakhreh nor any of his dozen henchmen clerics present could find such a passage. After much anxious searching, the Sheik became increasing hostile and Klein quickly left. He had apparently discovered the point at which the terrorists' hospitality collided with their refusal to be questioned closely about their ideological weapons.

I worry that this enlightening and highly readable book may not reach as many readers as it should because its name and title undercut its serious subject. The word "schmoozing" is known by and appeals to a rather limited audience. The cover picture shows a large grenade seated on a leather armchair. Perhaps the picture is easy shorthand for what he did, but there is something lighthearted about it that undercuts the gravity of Klein's book.

Nonetheless, and in addition to the glimpses Klein provides, at least two overarching questions are raised by this book.


are the rest of the journalists who call Israel their beat unable to obtain the same information?


First, Aaron Klein, a product of Philadelphia suburban Jewish religious schools, moved to Israel and within a few years was able to gain audiences -- as an identified Jew and a journalist -- with the most senior Arab Palestinian terrorists, who spoke to him frankly about their plans and their views. This forces us to ask: where is the rest of the press corps? If these murder merchants happily speak at length about their desire to murder and torture those who don't fit their religious profiles, why are the rest of the hundreds of journalists who call Israel their beat unable to obtain the same information? Do they prefer to stick with the standard mendacious narrative, either because they believe it or because they are too afraid to approach the terrorist leadership? Neither answer says anything favorable about the press corps.

Second, why are all those on the political left, those who identify themselves as advocates for minorities, so convinced that Israel is the villain and the Arab Palestinians are the victim? Anyone who claims to favor women's rights, gay rights, ideological tolerance, freedom of the press, of speech, of association, of religion, in fact, nearly all of the icons of the political left, should logically support the Israeli narrative. Instead, most of those in this country who fit the profile of the left support the Arab Palestinian narrative. Yet Klein's interviewees freely articulate their categorical rejection of the ideas these groups hold dear. And when these people categorically reject an idea, we're not talking polite disagreement over cocktails: we're talking beheading in the town square, as Klein's interviewees state in plain English. Yet these groups -- QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terror) is my own personal favorite -- continue to support terrorists who would happily slaughter their western advocates if they attained the power they seek.

While Klein's book doesn't answer these questions, it provides the necessary proof that willful ignorance and cowardice play a strong role in the current widespread distribution of sympathy for the Arab Palestinian narrative.

1. By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Abu Mohammed picked up his rifle, said farewell to his wife and six children and went out to face the Israeli tanks, helicopter gunships and missile-firing airborne drones.

"Being unable to defeat Israel is no reason to surrender," the Hamas fighter said with a smile as he headed to the Gaza Strip's front line last Saturday, ignoring pleas from his family to stay.

"My children and wife are very dear to me," he said. "But reward in Heaven and the homeland are dearer."

The 38-year-old furniture salesman says he is not afraid to die for the cause of destroying Israel and forging a Palestinian state on all Israel's territory, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

To Israel and its allies, Abu Mohammed and his comrades are Jew-hating terrorists. But Abu Mohammed sees himself on a mission from God to rescue his people from 60 years of misery as refugees since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948.

Though that conviction may, in some, mingle with bravado and self-interest, it does make Hamas an enemy to be reckoned with, for all that Israel's hi-tech army easily outguns their rifles, home-made rockets and, if they choose, their suicide bomb belts.

After five days of air strikes and ground assaults that it said aimed to halt Hamas rocket fire, Israel pulled out its troops on Monday after appeals from the United States that followed at international outcry at the dozens of civilians among over 100 dead.

BROKEN HAND

Abu Mohammed survived, though he broke a bone in his hand diving for cover. The rocket fire resumed and Hamas and its fellow Islamist allies vowed to battle on, despite losing close to 60 fighters. Estimates vary but there may be 20,000 or more Abu Mohammeds left to continue the war in Gaza alone.

Islam forbids suicide, but rewards "martyrdom" with glory in this world and paradise in the next. For the 1.5 million Palestinians in the slums and refugee camps of the Gaza Strip, the question of why one of their compatriots would sacrifice his or her life to kill Israelis needs little soul-searching.

"An Islamist fighter has two motives: a religious motive -- God's reward; and a social motive -- appreciation from the people he is defending," explained Fadel Abu Heen, a prominent Gaza psychiatrist.

And religion was the stronger motivation for Islamist fighters. "That is what makes them braver and more aggressive fighters than others," he said.

Older than most of his fellow combatants, Abu Mohammed said his family had fled to Gaza from a village nearby in 1948.

"We have the right to all of Palestine," he said in his three-room, one-storey house in Gaza City.

"If we are dead before we can liberate our land, then we did not give up. We have to set an example to our children that weakness is not an excuse for not putting up a fight."

TRUCE WITH CONDITIONS

Hamas leaders have offered a long-term truce with Israel in return for a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem -- terms Israel is unwilling to accept, preferring to negotiate with Hamas's secular enemies in the Fatah faction, which dominates the larger West Bank.

And the Islamist group, which routed Fatah forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, continues to say it will not formally recognize Israel. Its 1988 founding charter calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Abu Mohammed -- his familiar rather than formal name -- went to fight on Saturday with an AK-47 assault rifle, two spare clips, and three Hamas-made hand grenades bearing the words "Qassam Brigades", the name of Hamas's armed wing.

Before leaving, he turned off his mobile phone, which Israel could use to track his movements, and switched on a two-way radio that connects him to other gunmen.

"Just like an army," he said.

On the verge of tears, his wife, who did not want to be named, sat in silence. "I know Jihad is a religious duty, but we need you. I need you and the children do, too," she said.

Abu Mohammed only smiled.

"Smile, smile, that's all I get whenever I ask," she said.

Nearly hit by Israeli missiles twice last week, Abu Mohammed said the fighting was "very tough" but added: "I am optimistic.

"In the end, Israel will have to agree to our terms. There is no alternative to returning all of our Palestine."

(Editing by Adam Entous and Kevin Liffey)

© Reuters 2008 All rights reserved


2. by Aaron Klein, Reviewed by Lori Lowenthal Marcus

The people who kill Jews and other westerners for a living would seem to be a bit hard for nice Jewish boy to sit down and chat with about why they do what they do. But in Schmoozing with Terrorists, Aaron Klein -- Jerusalem bureau chief for World Net Daily -- shares the wide-ranging conversations he has had with many of the top Arab Palestinian terrorist leaders in Israel about exactly that topic.

Klein's conversations covered the gamut from why Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades endorse the use of homicide bombing in light of the Koranic ban on suicide; to the way in which the terrorist leaders nakedly reject documented archeological and historical connections between Jews and Israel; to the ongoing persecution of Christians by Muslims in Bethlehem, Gaza and other cities.

Klein's style is conversational and personal: he never hides his own perspective or the fact that he is an Orthodox Jew. And yet those whom he interviews, although occasionally bridling at some of Klein's questions, are perfectly comfortable meeting with him and articulating their views and goals.


The Arab Palestinian leaders with whom Klein spoke are very candid about their dreams not only to wipe out Israel, but to establish a worldwide caliphate.


The Arab Palestinian leaders with whom Klein spoke are very candid about their dreams not only to wipe out Israel, but to establish a worldwide caliphate. Their plans for American society should awaken anyone who thinks the Arab terrorists are only Israel's problem. And it should also smack awake all the moral relativists who equate Israel's security measures with hegemonic brutality.

A deputy commander of Fatah's al Aqsa Martyrs Bridade, Nasser Abu Azziz, explained to Klein that when sharia law is imposed in Western countries, "these sick people [homosexuals] will be treated in a very tough way," explaining that the Islamic leadership will "prevent social and physical diseases like homosexuality." All the terrorists whom Klein interviewed agreed that homosexuality would not be tolerated in the US once Islam rules.

And homosexuality is not all they condemn. The failure of western women to conform to Islamic standards of dress will reap harsh responses including, if necessary, torture. Sheik Hamad, a Hamas cleric, said those women who refuse to cover themselves in conformity with Islamic values would be punished either by imprisonment, whipping or stoning. And we aren't just talking about Madonna's bustiers: under the standard described by Klein's interviewees, even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg -- who does in fact wear a robe -- would be a target for stoning. She's omitted the head covering.

Given the opportunity to explain the source of Arab Palestinian terrorism, Klein's subjects contradict standard lore. Klein was told by Abu Ayman, the commander of Islamic Jihad in Jenin, that Muslims are strictly forbidden from becoming suicide bombers if they are motivated by anything -- including desperate poverty or revenge for Israeli wrongdoing to this individual -- other than love of Allah. When Klein pointed out to a young man in training to become a "martyr" CNN's claim that suicide bombing was motivated by poverty and despair, Abu Ahmed was visibly affronted and called it "Israeli propaganda."

The most bizarre and brazen interview Klein describes is with Sheikh Taysir Tamimi, the chief Palestinian Justice and one of the most important clerics in the Middle East. Tamimi lectured Klein that "there is no Jewish historic connection whatsoever to the Temple Mount or Jerusalem," and that the "Jews came to the [Temple area] in 1967 and not before."

Tamimi responded to Klein's recitation of archeological findings and historical connections: "These archeological things you cite are lies." Tamimi simply erases Judaism's connection to the Holy Land by ignoring irrefutable and concrete evidence of inconvenient facts. Such distortions are particularly troubling because Tamimi is an enormously influential Imam whose view of history is eagerly imbibed by his followers. Echoing Tamimi is Nasser Abu Aziz whose rhetoric, while perhaps inelegant, was crystal clear: "We are fed up with this crap nonsense of the Temple Mount."

Klein's interviews show that Palestinian leaders have also, and repeatedly, perpetrated a vile hoax on their acolytes. The myth of the seventy-two virgins in paradise who await each martyr is a theme echoed and believed by those who extol and consider suicide bombing an option. Klein's subjects do not explain how the appetite for virgins fits with the love of Allah as an incentive for becoming a suicide bomber.

When asked about the source for the promise of the 72 virgins, Ala Senakhreh, West Bank chief of Fatah's Martyrs Brigade, insisted such a promise was made in the Koran. When pressed about where exactly that promise could be located, neither Senakhreh nor any of his dozen henchmen clerics present could find such a passage. After much anxious searching, the Sheik became increasing hostile and Klein quickly left. He had apparently discovered the point at which the terrorists' hospitality collided with their refusal to be questioned closely about their ideological weapons.

I worry that this enlightening and highly readable book may not reach as many readers as it should because its name and title undercut its serious subject. The word "schmoozing" is known by and appeals to a rather limited audience. The cover picture shows a large grenade seated on a leather armchair. Perhaps the picture is easy shorthand for what he did, but there is something lighthearted about it that undercuts the gravity of Klein's book.

Nonetheless, and in addition to the glimpses Klein provides, at least two overarching questions are raised by this book.


are the rest of the journalists who call Israel their beat unable to obtain the same information?


First, Aaron Klein, a product of Philadelphia suburban Jewish religious schools, moved to Israel and within a few years was able to gain audiences -- as an identified Jew and a journalist -- with the most senior Arab Palestinian terrorists, who spoke to him frankly about their plans and their views. This forces us to ask: where is the rest of the press corps? If these murder merchants happily speak at length about their desire to murder and torture those who don't fit their religious profiles, why are the rest of the hundreds of journalists who call Israel their beat unable to obtain the same information? Do they prefer to stick with the standard mendacious narrative, either because they believe it or because they are too afraid to approach the terrorist leadership? Neither answer says anything favorable about the press corps.

Second, why are all those on the political left, those who identify themselves as advocates for minorities, so convinced that Israel is the villain and the Arab Palestinians are the victim? Anyone who claims to favor women's rights, gay rights, ideological tolerance, freedom of the press, of speech, of association, of religion, in fact, nearly all of the icons of the political left, should logically support the Israeli narrative. Instead, most of those in this country who fit the profile of the left support the Arab Palestinian narrative. Yet Klein's interviewees freely articulate their categorical rejection of the ideas these groups hold dear. And when these people categorically reject an idea, we're not talking polite disagreement over cocktails: we're talking beheading in the town square, as Klein's interviewees state in plain English. Yet these groups -- QUIT (Queers Undermining Israeli Terror) is my own personal favorite -- continue to support terrorists who would happily slaughter their western advocates if they attained the power they seek.

While Klein's book doesn't answer these questions, it provides the necessary proof that willful ignorance and cowardice play a strong role in the current widespread distribution of sympathy for the Arab Palestinian narrative.