Call me skeptical.

It comes from years of following the Hamas and their activities. Even in the event of a power struggle, the Hamas must love it when the PIJ’s rockets hit their soft targets.

H/T: The Vladmeister.

 

Who is behind Gaza rocket fire on Israel?:

The lives of more than a million Israelis are plagued — almost on a daily basis — by rocket fire from Gaza. Just this month, in October, militants fired over 180 Katusha, Grads and Mortars on the communities of Southern Israel. No one was killed but a few foreign workers were injured and there was structural damage. So who is firing these rockets? As you’ll see the answer is quite complicated. There’s more than just one culprit — it goes far beyond the Hamas terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip.

There’s a power struggle going on in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and its main rival, the Iranian-backed terrorist group known as the P-I-J or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The P-I-J has taken responsibility for most of the rockets fired at Israel in the last few months…Hamas by and large has kept the cease-fire it agreed to.

Many terror experts believe the PIJ is trying to goad Hamas into an unwanted war.

IDC Terror Expert Dr. Jonathan Fine:

“Hamas now does not want a full confrontation with Israel. Hamas cannot afford itself another operation Cast Lead. The people can’t take it and they do not want to lose their grip on the regime. Unlike the Palestinian Islamic Jihad which is a 100% Iranian proxy that doesn’t really have a local social economic agenda.”

Toppling Hamas may be their only local agenda by firing rockets, the PIJ can win the popularity of Gazans and at the same time avoid being held accountable for the terrible state of Gaza’s economy and its poor governance. On both fronts, the PIJ undermines Hamas’s authority.

IDC Terror Expert Dr. Jonathan Fine:

“The Palestinian Islamic Jihad is an Iranian proxy, now, from an Iranian point of view in order to divert attention from a nuclear program and the sanctions and all this accumulation immense pressures on Iran, they would love to see this whole area blow up, especially on this part of the world, this will divert the attention from what’s going on there and here. There are conflicting agendas between the PIJ and the Hamas.”

Since the Egyptian revolution, the PIJ now has some new allies in its fight against Hamas and Israel. A number of global Jihadi groups inspired by al-Qaeda are mounting attacks against Israel from the lawless Sinai desert. Experts believe one of their goals is to provoke war between Egypt and Israel, breaking the peace treaty once and for all.

IDC Terror Expert Dr. Jonathan Fine:

“They want to drag Israel into a what I would say is an ‘overwhelming reaction’ either in Sinai or in Gaza, which will leave Morsi in an impossible position from his point of view to react. So everybody is walking on a very very tight rope, nobody wants to trip, nobody wants to fall.”

Israel’s priority is to stop the rockets, avoid war and preserve the peace treaty with Egypt even if it’s a cold peace. It’s a priority for Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi too — billions of dollars in US aid and his international standing depend on it.

The death of Egyptian soldiers in a recent cross-border attack on Israel has also sobered Morsi up to the fact that the Jihadists and the PIJ are a threat to his government as well as Israel’s.

The Israeli army will continue to root out PIJ, Hamas and Jihadi terrorists in Gaza and increasingly in the Sinai. But many believe the pointed counterstrikes are a temporary solution.

IDC Terror Expert Dr. Jonathan Fine:

“One missile in the wrong place hitting a school bus, hitting a kindergarten or a lot of civilian fatalities would of course end with an overwhelming Israeli reaction in Gaza, which in my humble opinion is sooner or later is going to come.”

But Israeli leaders now say they don’t want any conflict in Gaza.

Jordana Miller, JN1, Jerusalem