From another thread:
The Boston Globe
Zeal for combat filling the Palestinian ranks
Contempt for talks with Israel grows
By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff | December 2, 2006
KHAN YUNIS REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip -- Young militants have flooded the ranks of the Palestinian factions, bringing a new mixture of lethal zeal and contempt for practical, political solutions to a long-term war against Israel they don't expect to win in their lifetimes.
These foot soldiers of the militant wings of Fatah and Hamas have little education and hold much more violent and absolute views than their political leaders. While leaders negotiate with Israel, reaching such agreements as Sunday's fragile cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, most of the young militants oppose negotiations and want to annihilate the Jewish state.
Interviews with the militants reveal a bleak insight, casting doubt on the prospects for peace as autonomous militant groups show complete disregard for political action, and their way of thinking increasingly dominates their factions' leadership.
"For 12 years we have been in peace negotiations, we have given up many things, but achieved nothing," said Abu Ali, 20, who said he was a fighter in the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, ostensibly the most moderate militant faction because of its link to Fatah, which recognizes Israel.
"We don't believe in a political solution, because Israel will never respect it," Abu Ali said. "So we are forced to seek a military solution, even though Israel is stronger. There will be no peace" in the Palestinian territories, he said.
Such pronouncements worry older Palestinian moderates, and lend credence to Israeli security officials who over the past year say they have charted a growing trend toward violence and Islamist militancy in the Palestinian territories, more pronounced in the Gaza Strip than in the West Bank because of the relatively free flow of weapons and activists from Egypt.
According to a senior military official who spoke on condition of anonymity, Israeli intelligence has seen evidence that Al Qaeda is operating in Gaza and that the traditional Palestinian militant factions are smuggling in increasingly sophisticated weapons systems.
Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi'ite Islamist organization, are training and funding young and more extremist Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, the military official said, and believe that they can create a formidable force in the Gaza Strip.
"We're at the beginning of a process in the Gaza Strip," the military official said. "They [Iran and Hezbollah through Palestinian proxies and allies] would like to upgrade their capabilities."
Gaza's young militants acknowledge that they get some funding and training from Iran, and that they are trying to emulate some of Hezbollah's military tactics. But they view their struggle as unique to Palestinians, distinct from the broader global agenda of such groups as Al Qaeda.
The generation that came of age throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers during the era that followed the 1993 Oslo Accords is now in its late teens and early 20s. Most of these radicalized youths have never met an Israeli, and they have none of the links to Israelis that their parents often had. Their contact comes when Israel makes military incursions into Gaza in response to the young fighters' rocket attacks, suicide bombings, and kidnappings.
Despite Israel's pullout from Gaza settlements last year, economic opportunity has shriveled in the territory because Israel keeps the borders sealed to commerce most of the time. Militants from every major faction described a milieu that has convinced them that fighting is the only way forward.
In a series of interviews, eight militants in the Gaza Strip refugee camp at Khan Yunis discussed the rocket attacks, kidnappings, and suicide operations they plan against Israel, and their pessimistic outlook.
Unlike their parents, many of whom still believe that Palestinians can find some political accommodation with Israel, these men say they are convinced that Palestinians will only achieve statehood through force -- and that it might take decades or longer before they can effectively challenge Israel's military.
Three Islamic Jihad fighters who have participated in rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip said their bombardment on Israeli civilians served a significant strategic purpose, even if it did nothing to chip away at Israel's military dominance.
"We are using the rockets to erect a balance of fear with the Israelis," said Abu Talha, 20, a beginning fighter in the Islamic Jihad militia.
Palestinian fighters in Gaza increasingly reflect that philosophy. While the political leadership of Hamas and the other groups occasionally lays out terms for negotiating with Israel, such as the release of Palestinian prisoners or the cessation of attacks, the young fighters say they see politics as a dead end, an old man's game.
Hamas took the leadership of the Palestinian Authority in March but has had no more success politically than its predecessors from the more moderate Fatah faction.
A 24-year-old fighter for the Popular Resistance Committees who gave his nom de guerre as Al Mullah Omar, is representative of the young fighters who embrace militancy as its own goal, rather than as a means to a political end. The resistance organization sprang up in 2000, at the beginning of the most recent intifadah, as a militant catchall group independent of the established Palestinian militant wings.
Anyone interested in attacking Israel -- including hotheads considered too out-of-control for the major factions, especially Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah -- can join, Omar said.
All that matters, Omar said, is that fighters are willing to attack Israelis by any means, no matter how long the odds of success.
The group's ethos of pure militancy has made it the fastest-growing armed wing in Gaza, aided, according Israeli authorities, by generous funding from Iran.
Omar said he doesn't expect his generation to achieve any significant military victories against Israel, but that in time Palestinians will drive Jews out of the Middle East.
"The Jews will not leave the land unless they are killed," he said.
His family life is steeped in a culture of fighting far removed from traditional Palestinian activism, which for decades mixed combat with politics. Some relatives are in Fatah, others in Hamas, he said. He has trained his wife to clean and fire his gun, and expects his children to grow up to be fighters.
"If I have a son and he doesn't join the resistance, I'll snap his neck," Omar said.
After offering sweet sage tea, Omar took a reporter through a series of narrow dirt lanes to the home of a Hamas member whose 17-year-old son had already joined the Hamas militant wing, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades.
In the well-appointed sitting room, with floor cushions lining three walls and a platter of fruit for guests, the generation gap was on display.
Abu Assim, 44, has raised 12 children in Gaza and sees violence as only one part of a broader Palestinian strategy. "To get the attention of a negotiator, you must have the power to pressure the other side," Abu Assim said. But his son, Abu Ataya, spoke softly of his decision to join the Qassam Brigades.
"The anger and hatred inside us is a response to the occupation," he said. "We know that we are on the right course, not following the failed illusory agreements of Oslo or the road map," the US-backed peace plan.
Palestinians widely blame Israel and the Western world for Hamas's inability to govern, because the outside world cut off most funding when Hamas took power. But the Islamist party's difficult leadership tenure has emboldened the more extremist, less politically oriented youth, who argue that no faction can win a Palestinian state through politics.
"The Jews should go back to their original countries and dismantle the Israeli state," said Abu Anas, an Islamic Jihad fighter. "Ten years of politics has achieved nothing. But five years of tough resistance, and they withdrew from Gaza."
© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company |
