May 30, 2006:
Palestinian terrorists have just lost a major ally, Egypt popular support. This all happened because some Palestinian terrorists decided to help their terrorist brethren in Egypt. Big mistake.
Palestinian terrorists are heroes in the Arab world, especially for their suicide bomber attacks on Israeli civilians. But over the last few years, Israel has shut down nearly all terrorist attempts. This led to a truce, which the largest terrorist group, Hamas, has honored. As a result, some of the more radical Hamas members joined the small al Qaeda operation in Gaza. This led to links with Islamic terrorists in Egypt (and participation in the April, 2006 attacks that killed twenty people (mostly Arabs and Moslems) in an Egyptian Red Sea resort town. The renegade Hamas killers were apparently also involved with three assassination attacks against Fatah (the Palestinian old guard party that opposes Hamas) leaders in Gaza. Renegade Hamas terrorists have also shown up in Jordan, where they are trying to link up with local al Qaeda remnants.
The three al Qaeda operations (Gaza, Egypt and Jordan) are basically local terrorists who have bought into the al Qaeda philosophy. This means they are out to kill any who oppose them, using assassination or suicide bomb attacks. But since al Qaeda got run out of Afghanistan in late 2001, many radicalized Moslems, taken with the idea of a world dominated, and run, by Islamic zealots, have tried to set up local al Qaeda chapters. Few have gotten past the plotting, scheming and shooting your mouth off phase. The Sinai group was made up of angry Bedouins, some of whom developed connections with Islamic radicals in the cities. This led to some earlier terror bombings, and an alliance with the Gaza terrorists.
Most of the Sinai group have now been hunted down and arrested or killed. But given the poverty, and long history of bad treatment, the Sinai Bedouins will probably generate another bunch of Islamic terrorists. The situation in Gaza is different, because Islamic terrorists are still heroes there, even if they kill Palestinians. The Jordanian al Qaeda group is under a lot of pressure, mainly because of an al Qaeda attack last year that killed dozens of Arabs attending a wedding. Islamic terrorists have constantly undercut their support with atrocities like that. The Sinai terrorists made themselves very unpopular because they are not only killed lots of Egyptians, and foreign Arabs, but attacked the tourism industry, which is a major part of the Egyptian economy. This has turned Egyptians against Islamic radicals in the past. Going after government officials would be a popular act to most Egyptians, but that's difficult to carry out. So the terrorists just kill whoever they can get at. Yes, it's stupid, and we should all be grateful for that.