Hamas trying to bypass US
By ERAN LERMAN
jpost.com
Jun. 19, 2002
The pattern of these terrorist horrors is becoming familiar, frighteningly so. It is not as if Hamas is not trying to strike at any target, at all other times. But again and again, large-scale operations designed to exact a heavy price in civilian lives, and thus push the levers of further escalation have been timed by the organization (which takes pride in planning its terrorist activities in line with its strategic vision) to coincide with major American moves.
Previously, they struck during Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visits to the US; this time, the suicide bombing in Jerusalem came when all attention in the region was focused on the up-and-coming speech by US President George W. Bush and the possible initiative to establish a "provisional" Palestinian state.
The message being sent by the Hamas leadership could not be clearer: Do not delude yourselves, in Washington, to think that your ideas and your diplomacy (and for that matter, your power) will determine the course of events in the Middle East; the will of the Palestinian suicide bomber, expressing the determined fight to wipe the Zionist entity off the map, will prevail. It is this story, not the story of American policy, that should be the first item in the news as reported by Al-Jazeera and Al-Manar (the latter being the Hizbullah TV station on which Hamas claimed responsibility for the murder in Jerusalem), and relayed to the eager, angry masses of the Arab and Muslim world.
It is for this reason that the persistence of such attacks serves the strategic interests of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, who does nothing to prevent them (in fact, his own Fatah activists are very much in gruesome "competition" with the Hamas in killing Israelis).
The attacks also serve Syrian President Bashar Assad, who offers sanctuary to the military wing of the Hamas as well as to the jihad leaders and a large number of other terrorist organizations, while letting Hizbullah heat up the northern border and serve as a motivating model for all other murderers.
Neither Arafat nor Assad, indeed, see much to hope for in the current American plans (which, in a sense, would bypass them both). In all likelihood, they see them as part of the effort to make the region less volatile, while the US gets serious about the business of deposing Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Hence their common interest, despite their visceral and mutual dislike, in keeping the fires of destabilization burning. (Besides, the realization is growing in Egypt and some other sober Arab regimes that Arafat and Assad are not good for their health).
They seek to derail American plans. But we have every reason not to do so. It is this fine balance of strategic priorities and purposes that Israel should consider when it chooses the options of response to this outrage. |
