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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 November 1999 Issue No. 455 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 November 1999 Issue No. 455
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Profile Travel Books Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Hamas distances itself from Netanya bomb
By Khaled AmayrehThe pipebomb blast in the Israeli town of Netanya last weekend, which slightly hurt around 20 people, has continued to puzzle observers as to the identity of the perpetrators. Not only has no Palestinian organisation taken credit for the attack, but some Palestinian officials, including Yasser Arafat, have suggested that the incident might have been perpetrated by rival gangs of the Israeli mafia.
However, Israeli political leaders and security officials immediately pinned the blame for the attack either on the Islamist group Hamas or on another group, Islamic Jihad.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak issued a strongly worded statement, vowing to deal a knockout blow to terrorists. He argued that the bombing was aimed at stalling the peace process, having been carried out on the eve of the resumption of the final status talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah on 8 November. He stressed that he didn't intend to slow down the pace of the peace process because of the incident. However, Barak and other Israeli officials did call on the PA to "act effectively to prevent terrorists from harming the chances of progress in the peace process."
"Combating terror was a centrepiece of the Oslo Accords," said Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, adding in an almost threatening tone that the PA "had better understand this."
Nevertheless, Israeli officials have not really chastised the PA for the attack, and have stressed instead that terrorism was the common enemy of both Israel and the PA.
On the same day of the attack Sneh admitted that 1999 had been the best year of Israeli-Palestinian security coordination since the establishment of the PA in 1993, noting that the PA was interning hundreds of Palestinians without charge or trial in deference to Israeli security interests.
PA reaction to the incident, meanwhile, was strong and quick. One PA official, Al-Tayeb Abdel Rahim, described the blast as "an act of terror which we condemn without reservations," and called on Israeli security authorities to extend to their Palestinian counterparts all relevant information about the perpetrators.
He accused "elements within Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad," who he said were acting at Iran's behest, seeking to sabotage the peace process and consequently "impede the liberation of additional parts of our homeland." The three groups, he said, were under Iranian tutelage and were plotting to launch a new spate of bombings for the purpose of aborting the final status talks.
The PA had "solid information" to that effect, he added.
However, the charge does not seem genuine. Earlier this month, the Israeli Hebrew press disclosed that a report about a secret meeting between Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizbullah officials in Tehran, which had first been published in the Paris-based periodical Al-Watan Al-Arabi, had actually originated in the "psychological warfare unit" of the Israeli army and had been completely concocted.
Apart from making these allegations, however, the PA has not rounded up suspects as it routinely does in such circumstances, perhaps because of suspicions that the incident was not a "convincing terrorist act" as one Palestinian official put it.
Israeli soldiers at the explosion site in Netanya
(photo: AFP)Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yasin for his part sought to distance his movement from the Netanya blast, saying that Hamas was no longer targeting non-combatant civilians. Yasin said he was sure that the military wing of Hamas, the Izzidin Al-Kassam brigades, had not carried out the bombing, adding that "our fighters don't attack civilians."
Yasin went on to reiterate Hamas' decision, which he described as final, not to attack civilians and non-combatants except when Palestinian civilians were targeted by the Israeli army of occupation. Hamas, he said, had taken a solemn decision to that effect, adding that he challenged the Israeli authorities to reciprocate.
"We decided to take non-combatant civilians out of the dictionary of the conflict," he said. Yasin's recurrent emphasis on this point suggests that he personally pushed for the decision, which was first announced in a leaflet circulated last month signed by Hamas' military wing.
The motive behind the decision, it seems, was both moral and political. Hamas, Yasin has argued on several occasions, ought to return to 'Islamic purity', which entails that it refrain from attacking women and children, as is commanded by Islam.
Moreover, Yasin seems to have realised that killing and maiming Israeli civilians in the full view of the world's media hurts rather than serves the overall cause of Hamas and gives it a pariah image. Some governments may then use this as justification to act against Hamas leaders and supporters, as has recently happened in Jordan.
Yasin earlier discounted a leaflet, also signed by the Izzidin Al-Kassam group, which vowed to resume attacks on Israeli targets in the light of the unabated expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.
However, from the leaflet's style and wording, it seems that it is genuine. And if this is indeed the case, then it suggests that those responsible for the leaflet were not necessarily answerable to the Hamas Gaza leadership.
