'Not Suicide Attacks But Martyrdom Operations'

I met Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1999. I was one among a group of International students and journalistsfortunate enough to be granted an audience with the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, the Islamicmilitant movement.

In that year the so-called peace process between the Palestinians and Israelis still had meaning and YasserArafat was not confined to House Arrest in Ramallah. In the Gaza Strip, more destitute, over-crowded andconfined than the West Bank, support for Hamas was strong and Sheikh Yassin was regarded as the most reveredPalestinian leader after Arafat. However, while Arafat was co-operating with the Israelis and America onsecurity matters, the Sheikh was still advocating suicide bombings against Israeli targets. His uncompromisingstand against the Israeli Occupation and his support of suicide bombings meant that the Israelis and theirsponsors, the Americans, saw him as nothing more than a terrorist. Except Sheikh Yassin, elderly and confinedto a wheelchair, did not exactly fit the model of a gun-toting guerrilla.

We were taken by bus to meet Sheikh Yassin in a large, dusty, anonymous warehouse on the outskirts of GazaCity. Within five minutes of being seated, the Sheikh’s motorcade had arrived. He was accompanied by a20-strong entourage of bearded men, two of which carried him into the warehouse and placed him into hiswheelchair. Like most revered religious leaders, there was something purely charismatic and calming about hispresence. His hooded face was long, narrow, and framed by a pointed white beard, and while he was consideredalmost blind, his eyes were open, clear and sharp.

With bodyguards standing behind him and speaking through a translator, he began to explain the militantideology of Hamas. "We are a People dispossessed and oppressed. There are 8 million Palestinians, half ofwhom are living under Occupation, the other half are in the Diaspora. Our People have two choices: to live infreedom and dignity, or occupation and suffering. So there is no other way but to continue the fight to getour Homeland. This is the path we have chosen, we either reach victory or gain martyrdom."

The Sheikh went on to explain that the struggle with Israel was not a religious one. "Jews are People ofthe Book, and in Islam we are asked to deal with them as equals and with decency. Before the British came toPalestine, Jews, Muslims and Christians were living in peace together. Our struggle is with Zionists and isabout Rights and Justice. They came here illegally and kicked us out of our land. In 1947 when the Britishwithdrew, the Palestinians didn’t have weapons whereas the Jews had organised armed movements which attackedand dispelled Palestinians from their villages and towns. My family was expelled from Majdal which is nowcalled Ashkelon. So if we have our Rights, we have no problem living with Jews and Christians."

One of the main reasons why Hamas was considered an ‘enemy of Peace’ was their rejection of the OsloPeace Accord signed in 1993 between Arafat and the Israeli prime minister, the Late Yitzhak Rabin which inessence was to lead to the creation of a Palestinian State. The Sheikh explained Hamas’s rejection of Osloin terms of what it really offered the Palestinian people. "When Arafat’s Palestinian Authority signed theOslo Accord, it helped Israel secure what they have gained illegally. Israel doesn’t want Peace, it onlywants a neighbour that succumbs to its needs and provides it with cheap labour. With Oslo, Israel gave awaythe least amount of land that it needed to give - only 3 per cent of Palestine - and is continuing to drag itsfeet in endless negotiations. Israel doesn’t want to solve the problem of Occupation, it only wants to dealwith the resistance to their illegal acts."

The Sheikh lamented that the United States and Europe were ineffective on putting any pressure on theIsraelis to make territorial concessions, therefore the only alternative was to continue the Resistance. "Wehave no airport or seaport, checkpoints are everywhere, prisoners are still in jail, our houses are stilldemolished, our lands confiscated and the Palestinian Authority cannot stop this. The only way we can make adifference is by Resistance."

The issue of Resistance led to the question of suicide bombings. I asked the Sheikh whether the killing ofIsraeli civilians in buses and restaurants was not in fact counterproductive to the Palestinian cause. TheSheikh somewhat bypassed my question by seizing on the definition of a suicide bomber. "These are notsuicide attacks but martyrdom operations, there is a difference. Someone who commits suicide doesn’t want tolive whereas a martyr is someone who likes life after death."

However while stressing that it was against the teachings of Islam to attack civilians, women children andthe elderly, the Sheikh sought to justify the ‘martyrdom operations’. "These operations against Israelare committed after major Israeli massacres of our people. They are committed in response to Israeli crimesagainst us. So we will stop once Israel declares that it will not harm our people anymore."

Unfortunately, after the Sheikh’s own assassination, that day seems to be ever more in the far distantfuture.