Nothing really ended
Hamas has drawn its upper echelon from the shadows in a clear challenge to the Palestinian Authority, writes Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank
For the first time ever, the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, revealed the names of its top military commanders. The movement published pictures of, and videotaped interviews with, seven resistance chiefs giving their names and ranks.
Hamas also published personal details of each of the seven military commanders, including their resistance history, how many years they spent in Israeli jails and how many times they escaped assassination attempts by the Israeli occupation army.
The bold step is being viewed here as an expression of growing self-confidence and a psychological challenge to Israel. Critics say that the feat constitutes pre- electioneering on Hamas's part and that the movement is trying to take credit for the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Hamas has maintained all along that the Israeli decision to withdraw from the Strip was taken under pressure of the sustained armed resistance in which the Islamic movement played a leading role. Some observers also think the step amounted to a tacit warning to the Palestinian Authority (PA) that "Hamas 2005" is not "Hamas 1996", and that the Palestinian leadership should think twice before clamping down on the movement.
In the mid-1990s, the PA security agencies clamped down on Hamas, detaining and, it is alleged, occasionally torturing its top political leaders, including the movement's founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and his deputy, Abdul-Aziz Al-Rantisi. Both Yassin and Al-Rantisi were assassinated by Israel in 2003.
However, Hamas's strength and popularity grew significantly during Al-Aqsa Intifada, which broke out in September 2000. This enabled the movement to pose a serious challenge to the nationalist and quasi- secular PLO leadership headed by Mahmoud Abbas, aka Abu Mazen. Hamas has already won key local election posts in the West Bank and Gaza, prompting the PA to postpone legislative elections originally slated to take place in July of 2005. Observers interpreted the decision as giving Fatah, the de facto ruling party of the PA, more time to get prepared for the elections, now rescheduled for January.
The revelation of the movement's top resistance commanders coincided with growing pressure by the United States and Israel on the PA leadership to "reciprocate" the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza with a crackdown on "terrorist groups". President George W Bush said last week the PA would have to demonstrate its capability of fighting terror as well as good governance. However, the PA, while reasserting its commitment to maintain calm, has indicated that it won't follow American and Israeli dictates to the letter.
"We will not trigger civil war just to appease Israel and America and make Bush happy," said a high-ranking Palestinian official this week. The official, who didn't want his name in print, said the PA would see to it that there be "one authority and one weapon".
"But we will not fight Hamas on Israel's behalf. We have our own way of resolving our problems, and we will not be at Bush's or Sharon's beck and call."
Hamas has consistently rejected calls for giving up its weapons, describing such calls as "strange" and "suspicious". "How could we do such a thing? Is the occupation over? How about the West Bank, how about Jerusalem, how about this hateful wall, has it been dismantled?" asked Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Al-Zahar.
He added, rather angrily, "what would we do if the Israeli army and death squads resumed murdering our children and women and families?"
Al-Zahar's son, Khaled, was killed two years ago during an Israeli assassination in downtown Gaza City.
Al-Zahar's stand was backed up by warnings by Raed Saad, 33, one of the Hamas military commanders whose names have been revealed.
"The resistance groups will stay to protect our borders because we are not safe from the Zionist enemy. This enemy might return again after the withdrawal," he said. Earlier, Hamas's military chief, Mohamed Deif warned that Palestinian military resistance to Israel would continue as long as the Israeli occupation continued.
It is not clear how the PA and Hamas will overcome the problem of "Hamas's weapons". The PA believes that the "roadmap" should be given the benefit of the doubt and that the "Gaza experiment" ought to be allowed to succeed under all circumstances. In other words, Hamas must never be allowed to rock the boat by "thwarting the experiment".
Hamas doesn't have much faith in the "roadmap" nor, indeed, in the peace process as a whole. But Hamas's views in this regard are constantly enforced and even vindicated by Israeli statements and behaviour in the West Bank.
This week, the Israeli defence minister declared plans for the construction of thousands of additional settler units at the settlement of Ariel, the second largest in the West Bank. Moreover, Israeli government officials have reasserted their determination to carry out the E1 plan to build thousands of settler housing units between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Maali Adomim.
Furthermore, the Israeli government announced this week that it would complete the "separation wall" in the southern part of the West Bank by the end of 2005.
These Israeli actions, coupled with characteristic US refusals to exert any meaningful pressure on Israel to carry out its roadmap obligations and freeze Jewish settlement expansion, are convincing Hamas that the Gaza withdrawal is nothing more than a brief respite, and that the bloody confrontation with Israel is returning sooner or later.
With such a conviction on Hamas's part, the group feels it would be foolhardy to agree to give up its weapons. Such a step, Hamas says, would border on political if not actual suicide.
This is not to say that Hamas will soon disburse itself of the ceasefire agreement, reaffirmed by its leaders during recent meeting with visiting Egyptian General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman. The more likely scenario could be the transfer of Hamas "theatre of resistance" from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. But even this is unlikely to materialise very soon, especially before the parliamentary elections in January, unless, of course, the Israeli army or Jewish settlers embark on further provocations against the Palestinians.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/759/re3.htm