Although Monday, March 15, went by without an unusual level of Palestinian violence, aside from sporadic rock-throwing incidents against Israelis, Fatah factions opposed to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas called on the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli Arabs to mark Tuesday as a "Day of Rage."

In the Gaza Strip, Halil al Haya, speaking for the ruling Hamas said "rivers of blood must be caused to flow," while the radical Muslim leaders of the Israeli Arab communities threatened to descend on Jerusalem in force.

Abu Ala, former Palestinian prime minister and peace negotiator with the Olmert government, and Hatem Abdul Qader, head of the Jerusalem desk in the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, said the Day of Rage must be the opening shot for a fresh uprising (intifada) against Israel.

In rabid anti-Semitic diatribes, they are again accusing "the Jews" of "plotting to seize al Aqsa" in order to build their Third Temple and at the same time, deny all Jewish claims of an ancestral connection to Jerusalem "as one big lie" for the purpose of rewriting Muslim history.

(...)

According to debkafile's military sources, Monday night, Mahmoud Abbas was still deploying his US-trained Palestinian security forces in an effort to thwart West Bank demonstrators' attempts to forcibly break through heavily-reinforced Israel roadblocks protecting the West Bank approaches to Jerusalem.

But he is laboring under heavy pressure to let large Palestinian mobs fight their way through to Temple Mount.
Israeli security chiefs are taking into account that Abbas might rethink his orders or lose control of the situation, in which case a bloody showdown may ensue between inflamed Palestinian mobs and Israeli security forces. Terrorist squads may also be preparing to launch raids into Israel from the West Bank.

Israeli security chiefs are not ignoring a possible conflagration flaring first Jerusalem or any other part of Israel where security forces are thin on the ground.

Monday night, police began monitoring the traffic on the section of Highway 65 leading out of the Arab Triangle of eastern Israel, the vehicles driving through the Jordan Valley's Highway 90 and along the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem Highway 1. They turned back buses and other vehicles packed with Israeli Arabs heading for Jerusalem.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas units were seen gearing up for attack, both for launching terrorist raids against neighboring Israeli towns and resuming missile and mortar fire, which had almost petered out in the year since Israel's Operation Cast Lead in the enclave.

[link to www.debka.com]

Senior PLO member warns building in east J'lem will lead to intifada

PLO executive committee member Ahmed Qureia warned Monday that if Israel continues to build Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem and raze Arab homes "another intifada will break out."


Speaking to reporters in Abu Dis, Qureia, a former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, said, "If matters remain at this level, regardless of whether we take the decision or not, it is coming. If Israel continues these practices, it is coming," he said.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Israel's actions in Jerusalem are "absurd, an evasion, maneuvering and an attempt to suffocate the Palestinians."


Aboul Gheit said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to have a desire for peace when he visited Egypt in December.


"But the recent measures revealed that there is nothing new, only a desire to waste time. This requires a stance from the international community," Aboul Gheit said following a meeting with Ashton. "Israel must know there is a price to pay."

[link to www.ynetnews.com]