Intelligence

Analysis: Behind the Palestinian attack

United Press International - Intl. Intelligence - Analysis: Behind the Palestinian attack

By JOSHUA BRILLIANT
UPI Israel Correspondent

JERUSALEM, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- Just a few hours passed from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' emphatic public demand for an end to attacks on Israel and the moment 21-year-old Hassan Muhammad Abu Zeid detonated his powerful charge at a falafel stand in Hadera, halfway between Tel Aviv and Haifa.

The blast killed four Jews who were between the ages of 53 and 68, a 48-year-old Israeli Arab and the bomber, and wounded more than 30 others.

"I am not here to defend the Israelis," Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, told the Legislative Council members. "It is so easy for someone to say the occupation is the cause of problem but we should not give them the excuse to attack us," he stressed.

Those who take the law into their owns hands "should be confronted with an iron first," he warned in an addressed broadcast on Al-Jazeera TV.

The Islamic Jihad assumed responsibility for the Hadera attack. Khaled Al-Batsh, one of its leaders, told the Palestinian Ramatan news agency the bombing was "a natural retaliation to the Israeli ongoing violations of truce, including the assassination of Loai al-Sa'di and Mohammed Sheikh Khalil."

The two were killed in a gun battle in Tul Karem earlier this week.

The Islamic Jihad's explanations need not be taken at face value. The group was behind this year's suicide bombings in Tel Aviv and Netania, the killing of a settler in the West Bank, and the planning of more attacks. Eleven Israelis were killed in the earlier attacks.

It accepted the intra-Palestinian agreement to maintain quiet this year, but Israeli specialists maintained its acceptance was limited and it looked for excuses to strike.

Unlike Hamas that has a social agenda, that wants to enter politics and that does not insist Israel be liquidated now -- something that opens the door for understandings -- the Islamic Jihad's raison d'etre is the fight against Israel and the aim to eradicate it. Not just push it out of the occupied West Bank, but kick it out of the entire land.

In its view, "there can be no foreign sovereignty in an area that Islam had ruled," noted Yohanan Tzoreff, a senior research fellow at the International Policy Institute for Counter Terrorism.

Islamic Jihad gained some popularity during the intifada, but Palestinian and Israeli experts maintain it remained small. According to Israeli military and foreign assessments, its armed wing, the al-Quds Brigades, has a "few hundred" members.

It is not yet clear how the bomber reached Hadera since Israel has an effective security barrier there. He might have crossed in the Jerusalem area, where the barrier is not complete, or gone with an Israeli who smuggled him through one of the many crossings that Israeli soldiers maintain. Security checks in those crossings are usually cursory.

The attack underlines also the Palestinian Authority's weakness.

Abu Mazen genuinely opposes terror. He criticized the armed struggle even when it was not popular to say so. However, the Palestinian government has failed to enforce law and order. His hopes for "one gun" in the Palestinian Authority are, so far, just dreams.

According to a recent public opinion poll by the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 77 percent of the public support continuation of the cease-fire. The vast majority also wants an end to anarchy. Still, the Palestinian security services have failed to sustain that.

Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia readily admitted the shortcomings in Wednesday's address to the Legislative Council. "I tell you in all honesty that no one side alone can control the security situation," he said.

The security services' shortcomings are not an excuse the Israelis would accept and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government has authorized a series of military measures from airstrikes to artillery shelling of areas from which Qassam rockets have been launched. Tanks were positioned near the Gaza Strip, only Palestinians with special humanitarian needs would be allowed into Israel, and more targeted killings are to be expected.

"The Palestinian Authority takes no steps ... to fight terror so we decided that we shall conduct the struggle against terror," Sharon declared Thursday.

"Our activity will be broad, without letup until we bring terror to an end," he added.

Unless the Palestinian Authority takes real, serious action against terror, "there will be no political progress ... I shall not meet Abu Mazen and the Palestinians will lose all their national dreams," he stated.

The danger of deterioration is clearly there. Israeli attacks would probably prompt Palestinian "retaliations." Targeted killings have generated a Palestinian sense of solidarity and a desire for revenge, noted Tzoreff. Very often innocent people have been hurt in those attacks. Closing the Gaza Strip and West Bank towns worsens people's economic conditions that are already awful with wide spread unemployment.

Palestinian parliamentary elections are scheduled for Jan. 25 and all this could hurt the Fatah Party. As it is 84 percent of the Palestinians believe Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was a victory for the resistance to the occupation. Most of them credit Hamas. Clearly it was not a result of Abu Mazen's negotiating skills. The Israeli withdrawal was unilateral, and Palestinians despairing of any deal with Israel might turn to Hamas.

On the other hand, if conducted wisely, if Israel convinces the people it is only after the militants trying to poison any deal, its strikes might produce the desired results.

Since the Islamic Jihad is adamant on liquidating Israel, there is no room for a compromise with it. Fighting will continue until Israel, or the Palestinians, put an end to that movement.

The Islamic Jihad does not have a widespread popular following. If it is crushed, if its leaders are killed or jailed and quiet is restored, even temporarily, Abu Mazen might have a chance to exercise his strategy and prove to his people there is more to gain more by following him.

© Copyright 2005 United Press International, Inc.

October 27, 2005 at 02:04 PM in Middle East | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home