Steve & Olaf: Kidnappers Are Trying To Discredit Abbas & Haniyeh

This Time Magazine story tries to explain “What’s Really Driving the Fox News Kidnapping.” Despite the prisoner release demand, “Palestinian security sources tell Time that the conditions presented Wednesday are little more than a stall tactic, and that the seizure of the two men has much more to do with internal Palestinian and Islamic militant politics than with striking a blow against Israel and the U.S.”

This story is a must-read. The sources say the Holy Jihad Brigades “is made up of gunmen who belonged to one of the many armed groups that splintered apart from the late Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement,” and that it was probably created “for the sole purpose of carrying out this kidnapping.”

More: “The true motivation behind the kidnapping, say these security sources, was to discredit both Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority — who rashly told U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he could free the pair of journalists swiftly — and Ismael Haniyeh, the Palestinian prime minister, whose Hamas-led government has tried to crack down on Fatah splinter groups’ roaming death squads and extortion rackets in Gaza.” More…