Five hundred black- and white-bearded Hamas members were sitting opposite me. Venerablesheikhs and young people. On the side, some rows were occupied by women. I was standing on thestage, talking in Hebrew, with the crossed flags of Israel and Palestine on my lapel.
As I have recounted already several times, it happened like this: at the end of 1992, the newPrime Minister, Yitzhaq Rabin, expelled 415 Islamic activists – mostly Hamas members – to theLebanese border area. In protest, we put up tents opposite the Prime Minister’s office inJerusalem. There we spent 45 days and nights – Israeli peace activists (who were later to foundGush Shalom) and Arab citizens of Israel, mostly members of the Islamic movement. Most of thetime it was very cold, and some days our tents were covered with snow. There was a lot of debate inthe tents, the Jews learning something about Islam and the Muslims something about Judaism.
The expelled militants themselves vegetated for a year in the hilly landscape, between theIsraeli and Lebanese armies. The whole world followed their suffering. After a year they wereallowed back, and the Hamas leaders in Gaza organized a homecoming reception for them in thebiggest hall in town. They invited those Israelis who had protested against the expulsion. Iwas asked to make a speech. I spoke about peace, and in the intermission we were invited to havelunch with the hosts. I was impressed by the friendly attitude of the hundreds of people whowere there.
Undoubtedly, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and the spokesman of the expellees, Dr. Abd-al-Azizal-Rantissi (who became Sheikh Yassin’s successor last week) would have been present, too,if they had not been kept in prison.
I recount this experience in order to point out that the picture of Hamas as an inveterate enemyof all peace and compromise is not accurate. Of course, 10 years of bloodshed, suicidebombings and targeted assassinations have passed since then. But even now, the picture ismuch more complex than meets the eye.
There are different tendencies in Hamas. The ideological hard core does indeed refuse anypeace or compromise with Israel. They consider it a foreign implantation in Palestine, whichin Islamic doctrine is a Muslim “wakf” (religious grant). But many Hamas sympathizers do nottreat the organization as an ideological center but rather as an instrument for fightingIsrael in pursuit of realistic objectives.
Sheikh Yassin himself announced some months ago in a German paper that the fight would bediscontinued after the establishment of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.Recently, he offered a “hudna” (truce) for 30 years. (Which strongly reminds one of ArielSharon’s suggestion that Israel would give up the Gaza Strip and retain large parts of the WestBank for an interim phase to last for 20 years.)
Therefore, the murder of the Sheikh did not serve any positive aim. It was an act of folly.
The three generals who actually direct the affairs of Israel – Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,Minister of Defense Sha’ul Mofaz and Chief-of-Staff Mosh Ya’alon – maintain that “in theshort run” the assassination would indeed increase the attacks on Israeli citizens, but “inthe long run” it would help to “rout terrorism”. They are very careful not to spell out when the”short run” ends and the “long run” begins. Our generals do not believe in timetables.
I take the liberty to tell these three illustrious strategists: Nonsense in tomato juice! (asyou say in Hebrew slang). Or rather, nonsense in blood.
In the short run, this action endangers our personal security; in the long run it represents aneven greater danger to our national security.
In the short run, it has increased the motivation for Hamas to carry out deadly attacks. EveryIsraeli understands this and is taking extra precautions these days. But the less obviousresults are much more threatening.
In the hearts of hundreds of thousands of children in the Palestinian territories and the Arabcountries, this murder has raised a storm of rage and thirst for revenge, together withfeelings of frustration and humiliation in view of the impotence of the Arab world. This willproduce not only thousands of new potential suicide bombers inside the country, but also tensof thousands of volunteers for the radical Islamic organizations throughout the Arab world.(I know, because at the age of 15 I joined the armed underground in similar circumstances.)
There is no stronger weapon for a fighting organization than a martyr. Suffice it to mentionAvraham Stern, alias Ya’ir, who was killed by the British police in Tel-Aviv in 1942. His bloodgave an impulse to the emergence of the Lehi underground (nicknamed “the Stern gang”) whichonly four years later was playing a major role in the expulsion of the British from Palestine.
But Ya’ir’s standing was nothing compared to the standing of Sheikh Yassin. The man waspractically born to fulfil the role of a sainted martyr: a religious personality, aparaplegic in a wheelchair, broken in body but not in spirit, a militant who spent years inprison, a leader who continued his fight after miraculously surviving an earlierassassination attempt, a hero cowardly murdered from the air while leaving the mosque afterprayer. Even a writer of genius could not have invented a figure more suited to the adoration ofa billion Muslims, in this and coming generations.
The murder of Yassin will encourage cooperation among the Palestinian fightingorganizations. Here, too, a parallel with the Hebrew underground presents itself. In acertain phase of the fight against the British, there was much unrest among the members of theHagana, the semi-official underground army of the Zionist leadership (comparable to Fatahtoday). The Hagana (which included the elite Palmakh formation) was seen to be inactive,while the Irgun and Lehi appeared as heroes who carried out incredibly audacious actions. Theferment inside the Hagana caused the emergence of a group called “Fighting Nation” whichadvocated close cooperation between the various organizations. A number of Hagana memberssimply went over to Lehi.
Now it is happening among the Palestinians. The lines between the various groups are becomingmore and more blurred. Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade members cooperate with Hamas and Jihad,contrary to the orders of their political leadership, saying that “since we are killedtogether, let us fight together”. This phenomenon is bound to grow and make the attacks moreeffective.
Hamas’ popularity among the population is rising sky-high, together with its capability tocarry out attacks. This does not mean that the Palestinian public accepts the aim of an Islamicstate or that it has given up the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Even among Hamasmembers, many embrace this idea. But the admiration of the masses for the attackers and theiractions reflects the conviction that the Israelis understand only the language of force, andthat experience proves that without extreme violence the Palestinians will not achieveanything at all.
Unfortunately, there is no real evidence for the opposite. The truth is that the Palestinianshave never achieved anything without resorting to violence. Therefore the petitions beingsigned these days by well-meaning Palestinian personalities, calling for an end to the armedstruggle, will have no effect. They cannot point to any other method that will soundconvincing to their public. And our government always, without exception, presents suchmoves as a sign of weakness.
In the even longer run, the assassination of Yassin poses an existential danger. For fivegenerations, the Israel-Palestinian conflict was essentially a national conflict – a clashbetween two great national movements, each of which claimed the country for itself. Anational conflict is basically rational, it can be solved by compromise. This may bedifficult, but it is possible. Our nightmare has always been that the national struggle wouldturn into a religious one. Since every religion claims to represent absolute truth,religious struggledo not allow for compromise.
The martyrdom of Sheikh Yassin pushes even further away the chance of Israel ever attainingpeace and tranquility, normal relations with its neighbors, with a flourishing economy. Itincreases the danger that future generations of Arabs and Muslims will view it as a foreignimplantation, installed in this region by force, with every decent Muslim, from Morocco toIndonesia, duty-bound to strive for its uprooting.
Such insights are far from the capability of our three generals to absorb. Sharon, Mofaz,Ya’alon and their ilk understand only brute force in the service of a narrow nationalism.Peace does not inspire them, for them compromise is a dirty word. It is quite clear that theywill feel much more comfortable if the Palestinian people is led by fanatical religiousfighters than by a man prepared to compromise like Yasser Arafat.