Looking inwards
Prodded by serious US and Arab pressure, Palestinians are rethinking the wisdom of suicide operations against Israeli targets
This week Palestinian Authority (PA) officials stepped up their criticism of militant attacks against Israeli targets, calling them "desperate acts of terror and violence that bring more harm than good to the just cause of our people," Khaled Amayreh reports.
Mahmoud Nofal, a PA official, said "we have no disagreement with Hamas on the legitimacy of resistance against the occupation." "But these operations," he said, "only give Sharon the needed pretext to continue this unrestrained war of annihilation against the Palestinian people."
Many Palestinians, including some within Hamas and other opposition groups, see some truth in this reasoning.
"We know that these operations do some harm to our image, but we have to defend ourselves, our children and our women. We can't accept a situation where only Palestinian blood is spilled," said Hamas's hard-line Gaza leader, Abdul-Aziz Al-Rantisi.
Much of the world, however, particularly the United States, turn a blind eye to Israel's terror inflicted against Palestinian civilians.
"If you can guarantee that Israel will not target Palestinian civilians, I guarantee that suicide bombings inside Israel will come to an end," Hamas founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, told reporters early this week.
Once justified by Hamas as a legitimate form of resistance against the Israeli occupation, martyrdom is now used by the militant group on a tit-for-tat basis to avenge Israeli killing of Palestinian civilians.
"If they [the Israelis] give themselves the right to attack and kill our civilians in Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin, I see no reason why our fighters can't operate in Netanya, Haifa and Tel Aviv. The blood of their civilians is not more precious than the blood of our civilians," argued Al-Rantisi.
For the time being, the PA, despite its seeming willingness, is unable to prevent suicide operations inside Israel. This is due, for one thing, to the obvious fact that the PA has effectively lost any semblance of security control throughout the West Bank, except perhaps in a small part of Ramallah, where the headquarters of Yasser Arafat is located.
Moreover, the PA cannot simply eradicate the "effect" without dealing with the "cause," which lies with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his army.
A great ,amu Palestinians have come to feel that they no longer have anything to lose, with the Israeli army firmly in control of Palestinian population centres and with much of the Palestinian civilian infrastructure reduced to rubble.
That Fatah, the erstwhile political backbone of the PA, is increasingly drifting away from the PA leadership -- probably fearing that too much association with Arafat could undermine their image ahead of the proposed elections -- is not helping either.
This, coupled with the virtual collapse of the PA security apparatus, has left the PA virtually toothless.
Meanwhile, Hamas has signalled its desire to participate in the proposed Palestinian municipal and general elections, expected to take place this fall and in the winter of next year respectively.
Hamas's moderate leader in Gaza, Ismail Abu Shanab, told reporters this week that the movement would seriously consider taking part in the elections "if they are conducted in a free and fair manner and are not governed by the Oslo Accords."
Hamas boycotted the Palestinian elections of 1996, a step many Palestinian intellectuals criticised, saying it gave Arafat free rein to rule autocratically, contributing to the spread of corruption and despotism.
Hamas's declared intention to participate in the elections seemed to have sounded alarm bells in Israel. Sharon had been calling incessantly for political reforms in the PA, mainly as a red herring to evade dealing with the real issue of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian homeland.
According to reliable Israeli sources, the Israeli Intelligence Service, the Shin Beit, has advised Sharon to tone down demands for political reforms within the Palestinian Authority, on the ground that democracy would empower the Palestinians.
Sharon's adviser, Ra'anan Gissin, this week echoed these recommendations, saying that Israel would not negotiate with elected Palestinian representatives if they held "extremist views." An ironic statement where one to consider that the Sharon's own government includes ministers of such extremist views as to openly call for the deportation, or ethnic cleansing, of the Palestinians from the West Bank.
The Palestinian elections, if held as promised, are likely to produce a more radical parliament than the standing Palestinian Legislative Council. The Intifada and Israel's ruthless repression have radicalised most Palestinians, alienating them from the reconciliatory views they had held before the 18- month long uprising.
Even if Arafat was re-elected as PA president, he would most likely have to deal with a powerful legislative council that would make sure that no crossing of the Palestinian national red lines takes place.
[www.ANTIC.org] Palestinians are rethinking the wisdom of suicide operations against Israeli targets
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