The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) Arab terrorist group, which assassinated Rechavam Ze'evi (Gandhi) Ze'evi, has threatened to kill Knesset Member Avigdor Lieberman.

 

Responding to the Arab riots in Akko (Acre), PFLP spokesman Abu Jamal said on PFLP's radio station, "Our fingers are on the triggers of our weapons and we know where to direct our fire ... The fate of the Zionist Lieberman will be similar to Ze'evi's."

 

Ze'evi was killed in a Jerusalem hotel when he was Tourism Minister in 2001. MK Lieberman is head of the Israel Is Our Home (Yisrael Beiteinu) party and has supported swapping the Palestinian Authority Arab-population centers in Israel for Jewish population centers in parts of Judea and Samaria.

 

Yisrael Beiteinu MK Yitzchak Aharonovich took the PFLP threat seriously. "The government must use an iron fist against any provocation on the part of the terrorist groups," he said.

 

The Hizbullah terrorist faction, which has increased its influence within the Lebanese government, joined the fray and praised Israeli Arabs who rioted against Jews on the evening of Yom Kippur and continued the violence for several days. Hizbullah said it lauded the "heroic resistance aimed at protecting land and honor... [from] the violent and barbaric assaults by the Zionists."

 

Syria, which this week officially established diplomatic relations with Lebanon after having begun indirect talks with the Olmert administration, unleashed a verbal assault against Israel. Referring to the riots and counter attacks by angry Jews, the government's official newspaper Tishrin declared, "Israel is trying to frighten the Arabs in an effort to drive them out. This is additional proof that Israel hates Arabs and wants to 'purify' its territory from all Arab presence."

 

In Israel, Arab legislators were up in arms over the arrest of the Arab driver who touched off the riots by driving into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood despite the sanctity of the Yom Kippur holiday, when few Jews are seen driving.

 

Tawfik Jamal was arrested on suspicion of reckless driving and for insensitivity. Arab MK Ahmed Tibi said the arrest was a surrender to "Jewish hooligans," adding "I wonder if they will start to arrest Jews who eat and drink during the month of Ramadan." Hadash MK Mohammed Barakeh charged that Knesset Member Effie Eitam (National Union) was behind demands for the driver's arrest.

 

During the riots, mobs of Arabs, many of them masked, stormed into the streets with knives, clubs and chains and damaged more than 150 stores and vehicles. Jews responded with firebombs that burned three Arab residences until a tense calm was restored after five days of violence.

  

Akko resident Hanna Tibi told The New York Times, "It was a clear provocation." She said she was "1,000 percent sure" that the riots were pre-planned.