A secret hudna?

[Scurrilous]

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/381547.html

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"There has been a decline in the number of terrorist attacks in the last few months, Israeli defense establishment sources have noted, especially of suicide bombings inside Israel. Israeli spokesmen attribute this to the work of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet security service, claiming their preventative operations are succeeding in aborting most of the preparations for attacks and in thwarting the attempts to carry out suicide bombings.


The preventative measures include the separation fence, whose northern sections were recently completed, the roadblocks and walls in northeast Jerusalem, raids, arrests and the collective punishment imposed on areas that are staging grounds for terrorist squads.

The Palestinians, however, have a different take on the situation. Leading Palestinians maintain the Israeli measures have no more than a marginal effect. Last Wednesday, for example, a report appeared about an operation in the center of the country to arrest residents of the territories who were working in Israel without permits. No fewer than 1,150 workers were detained in one day. According to the Palestinian journalist who reported the figures, for every Palestinian worker who is arrested in an operation of this kind, there are at least 10 others who successfully hide and evade the security forces. In other words, despite all the fences and roadblocks, the raids and the punitive measures, thousands (some say tens of thousands) of Palestinians continue to infiltrate into Israel illegally to look for work. And if they can do it, there is no doubt that every youngster who is bent on committing suicide in the course of inflicting casualties on Israelis can do it just as easily."

<snip>

"At the same time, there are quite a few members of the Palestinian leadership who think that a secret hudna - cease-fire agreement - exists between Hamas and representatives of the U.S. administration. At the weekend, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a leading member of Hamas in Gaza, published a vigorous denial that any such hudna exists in the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. Similarly, Mohammed Nazal, a member of the Hamas politburo (who is considered one of the candidates to succeed Khaled Meshal as head of the movement's political bureau), declared that no understanding has been reached between Hamas and the Americans."