INFORMATION AWARENESS OFFICE

USING THE BEST TECHNOLOGIES AT OUR DISPOSAL,ALLOWS US TO FIGHT TERROR,ANYWHERE,ANYTIME. WE MUST BE ABLE TO ADAPT AND EVOLVE. THINK BIG,START SMALL,ACT FAST.FOUNDATIONS TODAY FOR A SAFER TOMORROW.

THREAT MATRIX PAGE8

Palestinian factions Hamas, Fatah reach unity deal

By Kevin Flower, CNN

updated 1:34 PM EST, Mon February 6, 2012

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, left, talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in December in Konya, Turkey.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Israeli PM Netanyahu says if Palestinian President Abbas implements the deal, he will have abandoned peace
PM Fayyad calls for elections soon as Palestinians meet in Qatar to sign a national reconciliation agreement
General elections are tentatively scheduled for May
Pressure grows from Arab countries and Turkey for Hamas to distance itself from Syria

Jerusalem (CNN) -- Rival Palestinian political factions Fatah and Hamas named President Mahmoud Abbas the head of an interim unity government during a televised signing ceremony Monday.

The deal was signed in Doha, Qatar, by Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who said last month he plans to step down from his post.

"The Palestinian reconciliation is no longer a Palestinian interest but also an Arab interest," Abbas said.

"Both parties are serious in moving forward to fold the page of strife between both parties and to strengthen the Palestinian national unity government," according to Meshaal.

Independent Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti said the agreement represents progress.

"What we see is a slow movement, and we hope that this meeting will give a push to reconciliation to go faster," he said. "I hope that the most important thing that this agreement will lead to is actual activation of (a) real democratic system and that all obstacles that are still in the way of election will be removed."

Prime Minister Salam Fayyad expressed hope that a government headed by Abbas will be formed quickly and hold elections, "which would consequently end the internal division."

"The prime minister said this achievement is a response to our people's aspirations and ambition to reunify the homeland and its institutions," a statement from the Palestinian Cabinet said. "This is an imminent national necessity in addition to being a cornerstone in utilizing our people's capabilities to guarantee ending the occupation and continuing our national readiness for the establishment of the independent State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital on 1967 borders."

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the PLO executive committee, said, "The international community has persistently used this division against us, particularly the U.S., when it described the Palestinians as not qualified for statehood because we are divided, so this would remove one pretext."

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented the agreement in a very different light.

"Hamas is a terrorist organization that strives to destroy Israel, and which is supported by Iran," Netanyahu said Monday at a meeting of the Likud party in the Knesset, Israel's parliament. "Hamas and peace do not go together.

"Over the past few weeks, Israel and elements in the international community have made great efforts to advance the peace process." If Abbas implements the deal signed in Doha, Netanyahu said, "he will have chosen to abandon the way of peace and to join with Hamas, without Hamas having accepted the minimal conditions of the international community. Not only does Hamas not recognize Israel and the (previously signed) agreements, it has not abandoned terrorism. It is continuing with terrorism and to arm itself in order to perpetrate even deadlier terrorism."

Netanyahu added a message to Abbas: "It is either peace with Hamas or peace with Israel; you cannot have it both ways."

The deal comes amid increased pressure from various Arab countries and Turkey for Hamas to distance itself from the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.

For more than 10 months, Syrian security forces have carried out a brutal crackdown against anti-government protesters. United Nations officials have said an estimated 6,000 people have died, and opposition activists estimate at least 7,300 people have been killed.

For years, Hamas has maintained its headquarters in Syria's capital, Damascus, and has received both monetary and military support from the al-Assad regime.

But in an apparent nod to changing regional politics, Hamas is distancing itself from its long-time patron.

In recent weeks Hamas personnel and their families have left Syria. In a recent regional trip, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya did not visit Syria.

The national reconciliation agreement came together last year after lengthy negotiations. The deal establishes a new parliament and a date for general elections, tentatively scheduled for May.

Both parties are serious in moving forward to fold the page of strife between both parties
Khaled Meshaal, Hamas leader

The move comes amid international efforts for statehood advanced by the Palestinian Authority's Abbas of Fatah. It could portend unity in the fractious Palestinian territories.

The two political factions have been close to civil war, culminating in 2007 when Hamas took control of Gaza after deadly fighting with Fatah partisans. Fatah retained control of the other Palestinian territory, the West Bank.

The Mideast Quartet -- made up of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations -- has called on the new government to renounce terror and recognize Israel.

The deal signed Monday also includes an agreement over security issues that have kept the two sides apart, Hamas officials have said.

For years, there has been a big divide between the hard-line, anti-Israel Hamas and Fatah, which has engaged in peace negotiations with Israel.

In the recent past, both sides sought reconciliation, but those efforts failed.

Hamas is an Islamist political movement based in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank.

It was formed in 1987 at the start of the first Palestinian intifada as an Islamic resistance movement to Israeli occupation. It took control of Gaza in 2007 after failing to maintain a coalition government with the Palestinian Authority, dominated by its rival Fatah.

The group's military wing, Izzedine al Qassam, has claimed responsibility for terrorist operations including suicide bombings, car bombings, and rocket attacks in Israel, as well as attacks on Israel settlers who live in the West Bank and previously lived in Gaza. Those attacks have claimed the lives of hundreds of Israeli civilians.

The United States and the European Union consider Hamas a terrorist organization.

Israel and militants in Gaza have fought continually for years. Israel has retaliated against Gaza militants who have fired missiles into southern Israeli towns.

Americans talk about an Israeli strike on Iran, but prepare own offensive
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 4, 2012, 11:16 AM (GMT+02:00)

Tags: Iran nuclear

Iranian war game

US military action

Israel

Syria

1,000 Israeli paratroops jump in big drill

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has been outspoken about a possible Israeli offensive against Iran taking place as of April and one American TV channel theorized simplistically Friday, Feb. 3, about Israel's tactics. At the same time, no US source is leveling on the far more extensive American, Saudi, British, French and Gulf states' preparations going forward for an offensive against the Islamic Republic.

Tehran too is gearing up for conflict: The Iranian Guards Ground Forces chief Brig. Gen. Mohammad Pakpour Saturday, Feb. 4 announced the start of a three-week exercise in southern Iran and the Strait of Hormuz under conditions of war. debkafile: The "exercise" is in fact an Iranian military buildup ahead of a possible American or Israel attack.

debkafile's military sources report a steady flow of many thousands of US troops for some weeks to two strategic islands within reach of Iran, Oman's Masirah just south of the Strait of Hormuz and Socotra, between Yemen and the Horn of Africa. (DEBKA-Net-Weekly 526 of Jan. 27 was the first world publication to reveal the massive concentration of American might on the two islands.)
This concentration was held by the White House as sufficiently urgent to relent on its refusal to admit the ousted Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Salah to America for medical treatment. He won permission in exchange for his consent to the Socotra military buildup.

There are now two potential triggers for a Middle East confrontation with Iran. They are closely interrelated: The urgent need for action this year to preempt Iran's nuclear bomb program before it is too late and the Syrian army's appalling and escalating butchery of civilians.
Even as world powers haggled over a bogged-down UN Security Council motion for ending the loss of life, a continuous Syrian bombardment beginning early Saturday, Feb. 4, is estimated to have left a record 350 dead and up to 1,300 wounded in the Homs district of Khaldiyeh. The casualty figures continued to climb Saturday as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov threatened a "scandal" if the Western-Arab text were put to the vote.
Bashar Assad was clearly determined to wipe out every family and home in the defiant Homs suburb in case the world body agreed on a ceasefire resolution.

Our military sources report that the Saudis this week wound up their own intensive preparations for war. Large forces are now deployed around Saudi oil fields, pipelines and export facilities in the eastern provinces opposite the Persian Gulf, backed by anti-missile Patriot PAC-3 batteries. American, British and French fighter-bombers have been landing at Saudi air bases to safeguard the capital, Riyadh.

Israel has accelerated, expanded and focused its military drill regimen for the coming conflict. Tuesday, Jan. 31, a division-scale exercise practiced the drafting of reservists under projected heavy missile bombardment of military bases, induction centers, national highways and towns from at least three directions: Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, as well as Iran.
Thursday, Feb. 2, Military Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Avivi Kochavi disclosed that 200,000 missiles and rockets, including thousands of long-range projectiles, were currently pointed at Israel, the only country in the world facing a threat on this scale.
Two weeks earlier, the IDF Paratrooper Brigade staged its biggest exercise in over 15 years: More than 1,000 paratroopers jumped from the sky over southern Israel together with their departmental and squadron commanders. Israel sought to demonstrate that it commands enough fighting manpower to operate deep inside enemy territory, as well as the planes for delivering the combatants.

In his sermon to followers Friday, Feb.3, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made it clear that Iran's allies would be involved in any confrontation and Israel was a prime target: Iran, he said, is ready to help anyone who confronts "cancerous" Israel. He also warned Washington, "The war itself will be ten times as detrimental to the US."
Khamenei credited Iran's help for achieving Hizballah's "victorious" attack on Israel in 2006 and for Hamas' "success" in beating back Israel's anti-missile operation in Gaza that year.

The Supreme Leader was clearly egging on Iran's allies, Syria, Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami, to go for Israel again.

debkafile's Middle East analysts challenge the hypothesis heard in Israel and other places that the massive war preparations going forward at this time are backing for sanctions, contrived to propel Iran to the negotiating table and accept a deal for halting its nuclear weapon program.
Our sources stress that these military preparations are for real and are taken very seriously by all the governments concerned because Tehran is far from being intimidated by threats.

Khamenei confirmed authoritatively Friday what other Iranian officials have consistently maintained, that Tehran will not give up its nuclear plans no matter how much pressure is brought to bear. Iran had its chance to cool some of the pressure by opening up to a team of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who visited Tehran last week - but chose not to do so.

In their three-day stay, the inspectors were denied access to any Iranian nuclear facility, notably the Parchin plant 30 kilometers southwest of Tehran, which is developing nuclear bombs and warheads - or even interview the scientists employed there.

While Israel's military preparations for hostilities with Iran are now widely reported, two gaps remain to be filled, says debkafile:
1. As the ayatollahs witness the vast US, Saudi, Israel, British, French and Arab Gulf war preparations around their borders, will they opt to watch and wait for the sword to fall, or will they try and get in first with a hammer blow against Israel, a course Khamenei hinted at broadly in his latest speech.
2. Are Washington and Jerusalem in alignment – or at least in tacit accord – on who goes first against Iran's nuclear installations? The reports and statements coming from US sources make it sound as though only an Israeli attack is in the offing. Informed circles in Tehran, Damascus, Riyadh and Jerusalem are not so sure