PA holding 50 Islamic militants, fearing terror attack will give election to Likud
Hamas officials call it the biggest round-up in years, say security coordination with Israel constitutes treason.
By Amos Harel, Jack Khoury and Reuters | Mar. 10, 2015 Haaretz
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Palestinian Authority security services have arrested some 50 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank over the last two days, acting out of apparent fear that a terror attack in the coming days would give the Israeli election to Likud.
There’s a well-known precedent for this: the firebombing of a bus in Jericho on the eve of the 1988 Knesset election, which killed five Israelis, including a mother and her three children.
In later years, that incident was cited as having cost the Labor Party the victory by shifting votes from Labor to Likud at the last moment. Shimon Peres, who was Labor’s prime ministerial candidate at the time, claimed the attack had cost the left two or three Knesset seats, and that if not for this attack, Labor would have won the election.