Don’t miss the significance of this news item: Hamas just announced that they were responsible for the April, 2003 bombing of Mike’s Place in Tel Aviv:
The Hamas declaration of responsibility for the event was at least externally similar to declarations of responsibility claimed by the organization for other attacks. But the content reveals what has been a mystery since the bombing – the identity of the organization that conducted the only successful terror attack inside Israel that emanated from Gaza.
More significantly, strategically, for the first time the organization presents one of its actions as part of a global Islamic struggle and for the first time, it used non-Palestinian suicide bombers.
Hamas, formally founded in 1987, has so far emphasized the local nature of its goals and character. Any attempt to tie it to Islamic organizations like al-Qaida were met by vehement denials by its spokesmen.
So while news outlets continue to insist that terrorist Islam among Palestinians is local in nature, and tied to Israeli occupation, Hamas themselves have now declared their ideological ties to al Qaeda et al. Note that the AP report on this development, however, does not mention this element of Hamas’ declaration.
