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Killings make hamas more formidable { April 25 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39999-2004Apr24.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39999-2004Apr24.html
Killings May Make Hamas More Formidable
Group's Military Wing Is Seen in Ascendancy
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 25, 2004; Page A01
GAZA CITY -- In the wake of Israeli airstrikes that have decapitated the leadership of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian militant group may become even more fragmented and radicalized than before, leading to new dangers for Israel, according to Palestinian political leaders and analysts familiar with the internal operations of the organization.
"The worst thing is a headless Hamas," said Eyad Sarraj, a prominent Palestinian psychiatrist and human rights advocate who has closely monitored the role of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. "A headless Hamas means too many heads, too many agendas. Then you can't control exactly what happens."
With the assassination of the most influential leaders of Hamas, and raids that have killed or captured nearly the entire West Bank military command structure, the military wing in the Gaza Strip has become the most dominant faction of the organization, according to Israeli military officials and Palestinian officials.
Mohammed Deif and Adnan Ghoul, the leaders of the military wing -- known as the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades -- remain in command, and the ranks of disciplined and well-armed fighters are largely intact, Palestinian and Israeli officials said. The two leaders are among Israel's most wanted men: Ghoul has survived at least three Israeli assassination attempts, including one that killed his son on June 27, 2003, and Deif has escaped at least four assassination efforts by Israel, though he reportedly lost an eye during an attack last September.
"The new generation of leaders thinks in only one way -- the military wings," said Imad Falouji, a Palestinian legislator and former Hamas member who has authored a book about the organization. "The new policy is more dangerous for Israel than ever before. Now there is only a military policy; there is nothing political now."
This shift is significant because of a potential contest among Palestinians for control of the Gaza Strip if Israel goes ahead with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza, pulling out all Israeli troops and Jewish settlers by the end of 2005.
The Islamic Resistance Movement, better known by its Arabic acronym, Hamas, was created in 1987 at the beginning of the first Palestinian intifada as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Egyptian-based Islamic fundamentalist organization with branches throughout the Arab world, including Gaza. In earlier years, Israel had allowed the Islamic movement to flourish in Gaza as a counterweight to the influence of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, then based outside the territories.
Hamas, which means "zeal" in Arabic, quickly expanded to provide social services to the impoverished in Gaza and became a political force, while also carrying out attacks on Israeli targets. With a charter that calls for the dissolution of Israel, Hamas has been a fierce rival to Arafat and his secular, nationalist Fatah movement, which advocates a two-state solution to the conflict. After Arafat and Israel signed the Oslo peace accords, Arafat returned to the territories in 1994. In the following years, the Palestinian Authority jailed most of the Hamas leaders and hundreds of activists.
In the current Palestinian uprising against Israel, which began in September 2000, Hamas's support among the Palestinian public has grown. At the same time, Hamas has claimed responsibility for 56 of the 104 suicide bombings that have killed or injured Israeli citizens, residents or visitors since the uprising began. Sharon said he approved the assassination of the Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin on March 22, calling him "the first and foremost leader of the Palestinian terrorist murderers." Hamas has been listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union.
In recent weeks, Hamas has engaged in intense discussion with other Palestinian factions over control of the Gaza Strip in the event that Israel pulls out.
The forum for those discussions -- a 13-member committee composed of representatives from all major Palestinian factions -- has served as a unique window into the internal debates within Hamas over whether and how to redefine the organization and its political goals, according to two committee members and other Palestinian officials familiar with the negotiations.
Though the committee has existed since 1996, members said it has been most active since the start of the uprising against Israel. The group has attempted to impose some order on the often conflicting Palestinian factions. The committee's weekly meetings had increased to two and three times a week but stopped with the assassination April 17 of Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi, members said.
While many members of the panel hold permanent seats, Hamas has rotated its participants, giving other members a glimpse into the personalities and structure of the secretive group.
Hamas participants on the committee have included Yassin, the organization's spiritual leader and founder, killed by an Israeli rocket attack; Rantisi, a pediatrician by training and an influential leader of Hamas, killed by an Israeli airstrike on his car; and Ismail Abu Shanab, who was killed in an Israeli missile attack on his car last August.
The senior leadership also shared the seat with the next tier of Hamas political officials, who are now the highest-ranking members of the Hamas political hierarchy in Gaza. They include Mahmoud Zahar, a 53-year-old doctor who once headed the Gaza Strip Medical Society; Ismail Haniya, 40, who had served as Yassin's chief aide; and Said Siyam, a teacher who has emerged as a participant in factional political negotiations in just the last year.
Zahar and Haniya are considered potential successors to Rantisi, though the Hamas leadership in Damascus, Syria, has said it will not announce the name of the new chief in hopes of avoiding or delaying his assassination. Zahar survived an assassination attempt on Sept. 10, 2003, when an Israeli F-16 fighter plane dropped a bomb on his house, killing his eldest son and an aide and injuring his wife and a daughter. Haniya also escaped an Israeli missile strike on Sept. 6, 2003, during a meeting with Yassin and other senior leaders and was injured in his right arm.
After making appearances at the family mourning ceremony for Rantisi, both men -- like all other Hamas leaders in Gaza -- have gone into hiding.
"No one person monopolized the decisions of Hamas," said Ziad Abu Amr, an independent Palestinian legislator who sits on the committee.
In the absence of Yassin and Rantisi, it is unclear how power will be wielded inside Hamas, but the key players are certain to include the leaders of the Gaza military wing as well as whoever assumes control of the political faction.
Yassin was particularly insistent on consulting Hamas leaders in Gaza as well as in Damascus and Beirut before making decisions, other committee members said. The most moderate of the Hamas representatives was Abu Shanab, who participated in the committee until his assassination, according to Abu Amr and others.
"Rantisi was known for his stubborn, radical stances," said Abu Amr. "Abu Shanab was totally opposite. Zahar and Haniya are very political, with an easy give-and-take."
"Abu Shanab was the most moderate of all," said Abdul Aziz Shaheen, the committee representative for Arafat's Fatah movement. "Why assassinate him?"
In the past, Hamas has boycotted elections of the Palestinian Authority, created as a result of the Oslo accords, which Hamas rejected. That prompted some Hamas activists, such as legislator Falouji, to leave the organization because they believed it should play an active role in governing Palestinians. Hamas does participate in trade-union and university elections throughout the Palestinian territories and in recent years has won a growing number of victories over Fatah candidates.
But Hamas has refused to participate in any official governance with the Palestinian Authority as long as the West Bank and Gaza Strip territories are occupied by Israel.
When Sharon this year proposed the Israeli pullout from Gaza, some Hamas officials -- particularly more politically moderate and pragmatic leaders -- began searching for options that would allow Hamas to participate in governing Gaza without compromising its overall policies, according to Hamas officials and members of the committee.
"We're not looking for seats in the Palestinian Authority," Haniya told the weekly Gaza newspaper Ara Salah in an interview published before Rantisi's assassination. "We have to debate the establishment of a national administrative framework for the Gaza Strip."
Support for Hamas has often grown in times of conflict. Twenty percent of Palestinians polled in March said they supported Hamas as a political party, double the number who said they supported the group in 1999, the year before the intifada began, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
During the same period, support for Arafat's Fatah movement fell from 40 percent to just under 27 percent, according to the survey.
Two weeks ago, when Hamas issued a call in Gaza for public donations to support its military operations, hundreds of Palestinians streamed into 26 mosques offering cash, gold jewelry, bullets and in at least one case, a new car, according to Palestinian officials. The newspaper Ara Salah, which translates as The Message, estimated the organization raised about $1 million in cash and donated items.
While some Palestinian officials said the collection might have been an effort to bolster coffers that have been squeezed by international efforts to stop the money flow to Hamas, others said the organization conducted the campaign to demonstrate its popularity with the Palestinian public.
Israeli officials said that despite the damage to the Hamas infrastructure, the organization has not lost its capacity to launch serious attacks against Israelis.
"On the operational level, we managed to put a lot of constraints on them," said a senior Israeli intelligence official who spoke on the condition that he not be identified by name. "We've been successful, relatively speaking. But it's not the end. It's a wide and deep organization."
"They are really weakened," said Ghazi Hamad, editor of Ara Salah, which serves as a voice for many Hamas officials and policies. "It's not easy to replace such leaders. But it's temporary. Hamas will overcome."
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