Al-Qaida is using the Internet to bypass physical borders and recruit susceptible Muslim Israelis and Palestinians for jihad.

The recent arrest of two Beduin from Rahat, who are accused of scouting targets for terror attacks, marking out the Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv, and gathering intelligence on IDF bases in the Negev, marks the latest known infiltration of al-Qaida into Israel, but also demonstrates that Israeli counterterrorism agents have followed the jihadis into the digital arena.

Ever since the destruction of its training camps in Afghanistan by the United States in 2001 following the September 11 attacks, al-Qaida has relied almost exclusively on the Web to indoctrinate, train and raise a global army.

Over the past decade, it has founded a virtual base of operations in the form of thousands of Web sites.

Since al-Qaida has no territory on the planet in which it can freely operate, the Internet has become a natural safe haven for it. Israel has so far ranked low on al-Qaida's list of targets - jihadis have been preoccupied with striking Arab-Muslim countries they view as heretical, launching sporadic attacks in Western states and battling coalition forces in Iraq in a bloody bid to reestablish the caliphate there.

Recently, however, Israel has featured far more prominently in propaganda messages issued by jihadi leaders.

In May, Osama bin Laden released an audio message timed to coincide with Israel's 60th independence celebrations, in which he vowed, "We will not give up a single inch of Palestine as long as there is one true Muslim on earth."