The cowardly Hamas scum are now backing away from their threats against Americans, after getting a wake-up call yesterday from George Bush: Hamas May Target Sharon, Not U.S., to Avenge Yassin.

They’re promising that Americans are safe. They only want to murder Jews.

Amplifying the mood of spiraling conflict, Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi, the Palestinian Islamic group’s hard-line replacement for Yassin in Gaza, urged attacks on Israelis “everywhere.” The Jewish state vowed to target him and other militant leaders for death.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal was quoted as telling pan-Arab al-Hayat daily in Damascus that Hamas now had the right to “hunt down the big Zionist heads” including Sharon. But he added that any decision would depend on Hamas’s military wing.

The State Department told Americans that Hamas had threatened revenge on U.S. interests after Yassin’s death, urging them to leave the Gaza Strip and also advising against travel to Israel or the West Bank.

President Bush told reporters in Washington: “Whether it be an Hamas threat, or an al Qaeda threat, we take them very seriously in this administration.”

But Hamas officials later sought to reassure the United States, Israel’s chief ally, that they would confine their armed struggle to Israeli and Palestinian territory.

“It’s not in our policy to target Americans or American interests,” Hamas political leader Sayed Seyam told Reuters.