A spokesperson for the terrorist group Islamic Jihad has announced that the group has "stopped the rocket fire into Israel for internal Palestinian purposes - first and foremost to help end the siege on the Gaza Strip". This is newsworthy because unlike Hamas, which has periodically agreed to such cease-fires after discovering that running a territory comes with political pressures incompatible with blowing people up all the time, Islamic Jihad has persistently cast itself as the more radical alternative to Hamas (and has far fewer political constituencies it must be accountable towards).
Of course, it is possible that they're lying. And it's also possible that the slack will be picked up by new, yet more radical al-Qaeda-linked groups that have been spotted in Gaza. But for now, good news! Does it mean that Israel will lift the boycott on the territory (i.e., is it working or has it worked)?
Sounds like wishful thinking. Maybe Islamic Jihad will follow its prescription, at least for a while. Then again, when Arafat was in power, he was publicly condemning terror attacks while, at the same time, funding them and, most likely, planning them.
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