Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 01:49:06 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Sharon Chose The Hamas (Amira Hass)



Sharon chose the Hamas

By Amira Hass
HaÕaretz, Dec 5, 2001

It's very likely that the young Palestinians who decided to kill as many
people as possible by blowing themselves up in the middle of a large group
of young Israelis and bus passengers, really believed that heaven was
waiting for them. But they, like the other suicide bombers, didn't only
see  heaven waiting. They saw the hundreds of dead - including children,
women, and the elderly - and the thousands of wounded Palestinians from
the past year.
                                        
Despite the prevailing view in Israel, most of those casualties were not
the  result of exchanges of fire between two equally armed forces but
rather a  direct result of a massive, armed Israeli military presence in
the midst of  Palestinian civilian society.
                                        
When they strapped on the bombs, they may have also considered the  broad
popular support for their actions and its results. Most Palestinians  want
revenge. They regard the suicide operations as a just response to the
suffering the Israeli occupation imposes, and not as the reason for that
suffering and occupation. Many think that striking fear into the hearts of
the  Israeli public is an appropriate patriotic response to the fear with
which the  entire Palestinian public has lived for the past year: from
helicopters,  planes, tanks and jeeps positioned at the entrance to
villages and towns  and from which soldiers also open fire on people
trying to get to schools or  to their olive groves.
                                        
At the start of the intifada, there were elements in Palestinian society,
led  by the Fatah, that believed demonstrations inside the territories,
including  rock throwing at soldiers, would persuade the Israelis that the
occupation  still continued and that only its end would guarantee
stability and peace for  the two peoples.
                                        
After a year of unceasing escalation, it seems they've lost all faith in
their  ability to convince Israelis that they are challenging the
occupation.  Therefore, most Palestinians attach no importance to the fact
that the  terrorism is persuading most Israelis that every Palestinian
wants to expel  the Israelis. As for moral opposition to the killing of
civilians: those who  argue that an occupied people should be particularly
concerned with  maintaining moral standards to make sure its message gets
through clearly  to the world, are silenced nowadays.               
                                        
There's no doubt that the people who sent those youngsters to blow up and
be blown up thought that the mission is to convince the Israeli public
that  the occupation is the root of the evil. Despite the denials, it
seems that the  plotters inside the Hamas - which some polls show is now
more popular  than Fatah - also made their calculations based on internal
Palestinian  politics.
                                        
Their warnings since the start of the Oslo process that, despite the
promises of the Palestinian Authority, Israel is not interested in peace,
now  appear accurate to the Palestinian public. Now, only the Hamas is
managing to narrow the gap between the number of Palestinian and Israeli
casualties. That will be a good dowry when the time comes to take over.
                                        
Furthermore, the alienation that the public feels from the leadership is
only  intensifying. A year of intifada hasn't resulted in any significant
changes in  the PA's management, and it is blamed, among other things, for
lacking  leadership and the ability to make long-term plans. That's Yasser
Arafat's  style, people everywhere are complaining: He doesn't consult
with anyone. 
                                        
In effect, Arafat's governing style enables everyone to be a mini-Arafat:
Every organization, every armed person, decides they know the supreme
Palestinian interest and represent that interest, so they can decide to
use  their weapons without consulting anyone. That's how the Popular Front
for  the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) decided that its activists should
avenge  the assassination of their leader; that's how the Hamas operates,
indeed,  how every Fatah cell behaves. Israel says Arafat let that happen,
indeed  planned it that way, choosing the "route of terror."
                                        
The Palestinians are convinced that Arafat hasn't changed his support for
"peace as a strategy" and a two-state solution. They think that the answer
to the question why he didn't foresee the disastrous results of the
multiplicity of armed groups has more to do with his one-man management
style than it does with any "plot" against Israel.                            
                                        
Some believe that if an emergency government including all the Palestinian
political forces were established to set strategy and goals, there
wouldn't  be anyone to defy the joint decisions. Or, if such a government
was in  place, punishing those groups that violated that government's
decisions -  Islamic and others - would be viewed as legitimate and not an
attempt to  please the Americans and Israel or as a step taken too late.                         
                                        
An Authority comes, an Authority goes, but the Palestinian people remain
and will grow a new leadership. It looks like the Israeli government - its
prime minister and its army - have chosen to vote for the Hamas.



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