TERRORISM-S ENIGMATIC LOGIC - 02-Aug-96

TERRORISM'S ENIGMATIC LOGIC

(Commentary by Danny Rubinstein, "Ha'aretz", Aug 2, 1996, p.B2)

A DECLINE IN THEIR OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY IS THE PRIMARY REASON FOR THE ABSENCE OF ANY HAMAS OR ISLAMIC JIHAD ATTACKS IN RECENT MONTHS. WHILE THEY NEED NO EXCUSES TO ATTACK ISRAELIS, IN RETROSPECT, THERE HAVE UNDOUBTEDLY BEEN DIFFERENT STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT IN THEIR ACTIVITIES EACH WITH ITS OWN CIRCUMSTANCES AND EXPLANATIONS.

Why did the series of HAMAS attacks stop about five months ago? According to the information of the Israeli defense establishment, the two recent shooting attacks near Beit Shemesh (last week and two months ago) were not carried out by HAMAS members, but rather by PFLP terrorists who killed three members of the Munk family from Mevo Beitar, and Yaron and Efrat Unger of Gush Etzion. Ballistic tests reveal that the terrorists used the same weapons to kill IDF doctor Oz Tibon and Sgt. Yaniv Shimmel near Beit Omar, north of Hebron, in January of this year. Members of this squad, called the Halhoul Gang by the Israeli establishment, have struck three times in recent months, killing seven Israelis. And yet, they have given no details about the identity of organization on whose behalf they are operating.

In the past, it rarely occurred that no Palestinian group accepted responsibility for attacks in Israel. Moreover, in the early-1970s, there were even instances when several Palestinian groups accepted responsibility for a certain attack, boasting to be the only group involved. Through this publicity, these organizations amassed power, and their prestige soared. The fact that, this time, no organization claimed responsibility for these attacks indicates that the members of this gang are prepared to concede political credit, just for the sake of not having to pay the price connected with such an announcement assisting Israeli and Palestinian Authority investigators to expose them. If, for example, spokesmen for George Habash's PFLP had distributed leaflets in the territories, or announced in Damascus, that they murdered the Israelis near Beit Shemesh, they would have caused pressure to be put on PFLP members in the Hebron area. Such publicity would have helped both the Israeli and Palestinian defense establishments in tracking down the terrorists.

In contrast, HAMAS and Islamic Jihad have always assumed responsibility for their attacks, which had clear political objectives against Israel, against the peace process and even against the Palestinian Authority. In other words, while their attacks were directed against Israelis, they were also intended to prove to the Palestinian public that they do not accept the political line of the Palestinian Authority and that they do not follow Arafat. The prestige accumulated by these Islamic groups, as a result of these attacks, was important to them. Thus, from their standpoint, there was no reason to execute an attack without accepting responsibility, and broadly publicizing its reasons. This was also the case with most suicide attacks. Incidentally, these Islamic groups do not define these attacks as suicide attacks, since suicide is forbidden by Islam; they refer to such attacks as acts of self-sacrifice, or as death in God's name.

It is sufficiently clear that the primary reason there have been no HAMAS or Islamic Jihad attacks in recent months is a decline in their operational capability. After the attacks in February and March, Arafat's security services detained almost 800 HAMAS members. The Israeli security services detained almost another 1,000. In Hebron, an Israeli unit even succeeded in wounding and detaining (in mid-May) Hassan Salameh, a Khan Yunis resident who had arrived in Hebron sometime earlier and directed the HAMAS bus attacks from there. The price paid by these groups for the attacks was thus, from their perspective, too high.

Understandably, HAMAS spokesmen have never admitted to halting their activities because their capabilities have been impaired. On 17.05.96, in anticipation of the Israeli elections, Dr. Mahmud a-Zahar, a prominent HAMAS political leader in Gaza, said that his group is temporarily halting attacks so as not to be accused of interfering in Israel's elections. It is difficult to know the extent of A-Zahar's authority to make such statements, which also obligate the Az a-Din al-Kassem squads of HAMAS. In any event, other leaders, such as Sheikh Ibrahim Rosha of Jordan, responded that the results of the Israeli elections are of no interest to them. According to Rosha, both camps competing in the Israeli election represent two sides of the same coin the Zionist entity which, he believes, must be fought relentlessly, without any pause.

During the same period, about two months ago, a number of statements were also issued by the military arm of HAMAS, including one involving the possibility of a ceasefire with Israel, in exchange for Israel's compliance with a series of demands from the release of all Palestinian prisoners and a willingness for far-reaching Israeli concessions, to a complete withdrawal form the territories and eastern Jerusalem. One of these leaflets, the last one (issued after the elections), contained an interesting addendum, according to which even if Israel accepted the ceasefire HAMAS reserves the right to avenge the deaths of over 100 Lebanese citizens, mostly women and children, in the Kfar Kana bombing during Operation Grapes of Wrath.

Generally, statements by Islamic groups offer reasons for their terrorist acts military activities, in their words referring to them as revenge for Israeli aggression. This is how, for example, HAMAS and Islamic Jihad members explained that the suicide bombers who attacked the buses in February and March were sent to avenge the assassination of Yihye Ayash (the Engineer) in Gaza and last year's murder of Islamic Jihad leader Fathi Shakaki in Malta. The prior wave of HAMAS attacks Netzarim Junction, Beit Lid, and the buses in Ramat Gan, at Dizengoff, in Ramat Eshkol (in Jerusalem) and Kfar Darom was explained in HAMAS and Islamic Jihad leaflets stating that the attacks were a response to Israeli persecution of their members.

While HAMAS and Islamic Jihad do not need excuses to attack Israelis, in retrospect, there have undoubtedly been different stages of development in their activities each with its own circumstances and explanations. At the start of the intifada, during the early days of HAMAS, the groups focussed on activities against those collaborating with Israel and against those who they considered corrupt Palestinians drawn to the tainted culture of the West. They pursued drug dealers and those involved in prostitution. They attacked distributors of pornographic movies, owners of gambling establishments and those selling liquor. Attacks against Israelis were of secondary importance.

During the Succot holiday in 1990, the Temple Mount massacre took place. Israeli police and soldiers, who burst into the plaza in front of the mosques there when rocks were thrown on Jews at the Western Wall killed 18 Moslem worshippers near Al-Aqsa. After this event, devout Muslim youths began attacking Israelis inside cities. The knife attacks were carried out by individuals, without the aegis of an organized group.

In those days, and after the period of the Madrid Conference, a wave of attacks by Muslim extremists against IDF soldiers and Israeli security personnel ensued. In 1994, on Purim, the massacre at the Tomb of the Patriarchs took place; only then did the suicide attacks against buses begin.

Now, it appears that the HAMAS and Islamic Jihad squads have no direct cause to attack Israelis. Senior Palestinian Authority officials now say that the HAMAS attacks of five months ago were intended to topple the Peres government and to destroy the peace process and, all things considered, it can be said that they succeeded. Ghassan al-Khatib, a leader of the People's Party (the former Communists), half-jokingly says that HAMAS no longer needs the attacks to halt the peace process, since the Netanyahu government is doing all the work.

Beyond this, findings of a survey conducted by the Nablus-based Institute of Public Opinion Research point to a decrease in Palestinian public support for violent actions against Israel. This trend has continued for a while, and one of its reasons is the economic damage and the great suffering caused to the Palestinian public by the closure of the territories in the wake of the attacks. Moreover, HAMAS rose in popularity when its members mainly attacked Israeli targets defined as military objectives. Its popularity peaked when its members murdered (in Jerusalem and Ramallah) GSS control agents, and when they abducted and murdered Israeli soldiers and Border Policemen; during the abduction of Nachshon Wachsman, they were even tried to negotiate his release.

On the other hand, bus attacks do not win public support. Public opinion in the West Bank and Gaza recoiled from the brutality of the mass attack against civilians. In recent attacks, for the first time, the Palestinian media did not refer to HAMAS "military actions," defining them as terrorist acts.

Veterans of Palestinian groups recall the inter-faction disputes regarding the nature of the actions against Israel. Fatah generally boasted about operations of a military nature, dissociating themselves from (for example) the PFLP, which hijacked and detonated civilian aircraft. Fatah also carried out a number of attacks against civilian targets, but its members often tried to disguise this by using, for example, the name "Black September" as during the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.