Three Generals, One Martyr

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 the stage, talkingin 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 the Lebanese borderarea. In protest, we put up tents opposite the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem. There we spent 45 daysand nights - Israeli peace activists (who were later to found Gush Shalom) and Arab citizens of Israel, mostlymembers of the Islamic movement. Most of the time it was very cold, and some days our tents were covered withsnow. There was a lot of debate in the tents, the Jews learning something about Islam and the Muslimssomething 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 were allowed back,and the Hamas leaders in Gaza organized a homecoming reception for them in the biggest hall in town. Theyinvited those Israelis who had protested against the expulsion. I was asked to make a speech. I spoke aboutpeace, and in the intermission we were invited to have lunch with the hosts. I was impressed by the friendlyattitude of the hundreds of people who were there.

Undoubtedly, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and the spokesman of the expellees, Dr. Abd-al-Aziz al-Rantissi(who became Sheikh Yassin's successor last week) would have been present, too, if they had not been kept inprison.

I recount this experience in order to point out that the picture of Hamas as an inveterateenemy of all peace and compromise is not accurate. Of course, 10 years of bloodshed, suicide bombings andtargeted assassinations have passed since then. But even now, the picture is much more complex than meets theeye.

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, which in Islamicdoctrine is a Muslim "wakf" (religious grant). But many Hamas sympathizers do not treat theorganization as an ideological center but rather as an instrument for fighting Israel in pursuit of realisticobjectives.

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 Ariel Sharon's suggestion that Israelwould give up the Gaza Strip and retain large parts of the West Bank for an interim phase to last for 20years.)

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 the short run"the assassination would indeed increase the attacks on Israeli citizens, but "in the long run" itwould help to "rout terrorism". They are very careful not to spell out when the "shortrun" 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 representsan even 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 obvious results are muchmore 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 with feelings offrustration and humiliation in view of the impotence of the Arab world. This will produce not only thousandsof new potential suicide bombers inside the country, but also tens of thousands of volunteers for the radicalIslamic organizations throughout the Arab world. (I know, because at the age of 15 I joined the armedunderground 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 blood gave animpulse to the emergence of the Lehi underground (nicknamed "the Stern gang") which only four yearslater 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, a paraplegic in awheelchair, broken in body but not in spirit, a militant who spent years in prison, a leader who continued hisfight after miraculously surviving an earlier assassination attempt, a hero cowardly murdered from the airwhile leaving the mosque after prayer. Even a writer of genius could not have invented a figure more suited tothe adoration of a billion Muslims, in this and coming generations.

The murder of Yassin will encourage cooperation among the Palestinian fighting organizations.Here, too, a parallel with the Hebrew underground presents itself. In a certain phase of the fight against theBritish, there was much unrest among the members of the Hagana, the semi-official underground army of theZionist leadership (comparable to Fatah today). The Hagana (which included the elite Palmakh formation) wasseen to be inactive, while the Irgun and Lehi appeared as heroes who carried out incredibly audacious actions.The ferment inside the Hagana caused the emergence of a group called "Fighting Nation" whichadvocated close cooperation between the various organizations. A number of Hagana members simply went over toLehi.

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 ordersof their political leadership, saying that "since we are killed together, let us fight together".This phenomenon is bound to grow and make the attacks more effective.

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 Islamic state or thatit has given up the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Even among Hamas members, many embrace thisidea. But the admiration of the masses for the attackers and their actions reflects the conviction that theIsraelis understand only the language of force, and that experience proves that without extreme violence thePalestinians will not achieve anything 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 being signed these days bywell-meaning Palestinian personalities, calling for an end to the armed struggle, will have no effect. Theycannot point to any other method that will sound convincing to their public. And our government always,without exception, presents such moves 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 clash between two greatnational movements, each of which claimed the country for itself. A national conflict is basically rational,it can be solved by compromise. This may be difficult, but it is possible. Our nightmare has always been thatthe national struggle would turn into a religious one. Since every religion claims to represent absolutetruth, 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. It increases thedanger that future generations of Arabs and Muslims will view it as a foreign implantation, installed in thisregion by force, with every decent Muslim, from Morocco to Indonesia, 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 notinspire them, for them compromise is a dirty word. It is quite clear that they will feel much more comfortableif the Palestinian people is led by fanatical religious fighters than by a man prepared to compromise likeYasser Arafat.