A CONSIDERED POLICY OF ATTACKS
(Commentary by Danny Rubinstein, 'Ha'aretz', 23.2.94, p.B1)
IT APPEARS THAT HAMAS ACTIVISTS WILL CHOOSE TO ATTACK ISRAELIS OUTSIDE
OF THE AREAS WHERE THE PALESTINIAN SELF-GOVERNING AUTHORITY IS TO BE
ESTABLISHED.
The method used by HAMAS in its recent attacks provides an indication of
how the organization will carry out future attacks. The Iz A-Din
al-Kassam squads which attack Israeli settlers and security personnel do
this in order to achieve a political objective: to undermine the
Israel-PLO agreements. 'The continuation of the occupation is a thousand
times better for us than the Gaza-Jericho Agreement,' wrote Ibrahim
Gusha, a HAMAS leader (from Jordan), recently in the journal 'Falastin
al-Muslima', published in London. However, the command to attack
Israelis may soon prove to be problematic for the Muslim radicals, since
it may clash with their strict prohibition against being drawn into a
Palestinian civil war.
This prohibition is no less important to HAMAS activists than the
command to attack Israelis. Every time that there have been internal
clashes between the Palestinian factions, especially in Gaza, HAMAS
leaders issued harsh warnings to their people not to get into internal
confrontations with members of Fatah and other organizations. After the
murder of several Fatah leaders in Gaza in the past year, HAMAS
pointedly announced that its members were not responsible and severely
condemned such acts.
As long as the Gaza-Jericho agreement is not implemented and there is no
Palestinian self-governing authority (SGA), the situation is a paradise
for HAMAS. Its members can fulfill the command and attack Israelis
without being concerned that they may violate the prohibition and clash
with the PLO's police force. However, what will happen when the
arrangement is implemented and the Palestinian SGA is established? How
will the HAMAS squads be able to continue attacking Israelis and, at the
same time, prevent a civil war?
The answer, according to HAMAS' recent actions, is to try to carry out
the attacks away from the areas where the PLO's SGA will be in control.
According to press reports, the Israeli security establishment already
knows that a considerable number of the recent attacks in the Hebron and
Ramallah areas, and in Samaria, were carried out by young men who came
from Gaza. Also, the announcements about several of these attacks were
issued by Iz A-Din al-Kassam squads, whose center is in Gaza.
It appears that this will be HAMAS' modus operandi in the future as
well. Instead of attacking settlers in Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip and
risking confrontations with their brothers from the SGA to be
established in Gaza, HAMAS men will move the center of their terrorist
activity to Nablus, Hebron, Jerusalem, and perhaps even in other parts
of Israel. They will thus avoid having to confront the autonomy police,
they will continue to be popular among the Palestinian population, and
Israel will find it difficult to lodge complaints with Arafat and his
people.
After all, there will be no PLO policemen in Hebron, on the
Trans-Samaria Highway and certainly not in east Jerusalem. PLO
representatives will be able to claim with a certain amount of
credibility that they cannot be responsible for security in places
over which they have no control.
The organized squads of Iz A-Din al-Kassam do not carry out suicide
attacks (in contrast to attacks by individuals, mostly knife-wielders,
who are prepared to die and who, after the fact, associate themselves
with HAMAS). The recent attacks by squads of Muslim radicals were
well-organized so that those who carried them out would not be caught.
The planning of the attacks included withdrawal and escape paths and
hiding places were prepared. A public relations campaign was also
organized, which explained the significance of the attacks in leaflets
and in wall graffiti, and there were even official HAMAS announcements
to the media and telephone calls to IDF Radio.
All of this indicates the existence of a leadership, or headquarters,
which gave thought to carrying out the attacks. It also may include a
political viewpoint: preparing an infrastructure for terrorist activity
far removed from Gaza and Jericho.
Along with the advantages of the proposed arrangement in the
territories, which is for an interim period and includes only Gaza and
Jericho, there are also disadvantages. The greatest of these is the
postponing of the negotiations on the difficult problems of the
settlements and east Jerusalem.
This gap invites vigorous activity by HAMAS. HAMAS activists will not
engage (and do not currently engage) in struggles over positions of
power in the governing apparatus which the PLO is about to set up;
rather, they will send (and are already sending) the Iz A-Din al-Kassam
squads to attack Israelis in places left open to negotiation: Kiryat
Arba, Ariel and Jerusalem.
In this way, the prestige of the Islamic radicals rises among the Arab
population and their political strength will increase in the Palestinian
power centers. This is similar to the Hizballah terrorists who operate
in southern Lebanon, for among other reasons, in order to strengthen
their standing in the central government in Beirut.
It is difficult to know how the PLO will react to this. It will also be
difficult for the Israeli security establishment to find ways of
defending Israelis from what appears to be a new, and well thought out,
policy of attack by HAMAS.