"Hamas's current leadership - or, more accurately, what remains of it after Israel's assassinations - will not lend a hand to involvement by Al-Qaida in their struggle. Like Arafat and the PLO, and also like Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which operates under Iran's auspices, Hamas leaders view this as a national struggle against the occupation, not as part of a global struggle against the evils of a decadent West... Israel's government - which boycotts the Palestinians' national government and no longer views it as a partner for diplomatic dialogue, and is now also threatening to attack Hamas leaders in Syria - is thus liable to bring about a situation in which, on the ruins of these organizations, wild growths that are many times crueler and more dangerous will spring up." ---------------------------------------------------------------- Many times crueler and more dangerous
By Danny Rubinstein in Ha'aretz
Many people, including Palestinians, stressed the fact that 10 of the hostage-takers who perpetrated the horrifying bloodbath in a school in Ossetia in southern Russia were Arabs (this was the main headline in Al-Ayyam on Saturday). The fact that Arab terrorists, members of Al-Qaida, participate in operations by Chechen separatists has been known for some time. There are a few hundred Arab volunteers, graduates of the war in Afghanistan, who, after fighting in Bosnia, came to Chechnya about 10 years ago. They are the ones who gave the Chechens' ethnic-nationalist struggle, which has been going on for centuries, the flavor of an extreme Islamic jihadist war.
Following the Al-Qaida terror attacks in the United States and throughout the world - and after Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and Chechnya - the question arises: Why would these volunteers and their ilk not also come here? Why would they not also mobilize to help the Palestinian struggle in the West Bank and Gaza? There have already been a few such incidents. Al-Qaida terror has struck Jewish targets associated with Israel, such as a hotel in Mombasa and synagogues in Istanbul and Djerba, Tunisia.
From a technical standpoint, at least, such a development is possible. Al-Qaida terrorists are capable of infiltrating into the territories. They might obtain help from Palestinian Muslim extremists, and would try to carry out atrocities such as they have committed in other parts of the world here as well. Such a development is liable to be especially possible if the Palestinian Authority collapses and anarchy, despair and chaos reign in Gaza and the West Bank.
It is interesting to note that for now, Al-Qaida's infiltration of or participation in the Palestinian struggle is being blocked by Hamas. Hamas's opposition is rooted mainly in ideology: The movement was born from and grew up in the ranks of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which is a fierce ideological rival of the Saudi Wahhabi school of Islam that bred Al-Qaida.
Even more important is the political background of this rivalry. Hamas vehemently opposes internationalizing the conflict with Israel and turning it into a global struggle. Hamas leaders have spoken more than once about their unyielding opposition to conducting operations against Israel outside the borders of Palestine. "We have no interest in being at war with the whole world," Sheikh Ahmed Yassin said once. Yassin, like Yasser Arafat and his people, feared that Al-Qaida operations would cause the entire world to depict Muslims and Arabs in the threatening guise of cruel terrorists.
Hamas, like all offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood, also opposes attacks against other Muslims, and therefore harshly denounced Al-Qaida's recent terror attacks in Saudi Arabia.
Hamas's current leadership - or, more accurately, what remains of it after Israel's assassinations - will not lend a hand to involvement by Al-Qaida in their struggle. Like Arafat and the PLO, and also like Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which operates under Iran's auspices, Hamas leaders view this as a national struggle against the occupation, not as part of a global struggle against the evils of a decadent West.
Israel's government - which boycotts the Palestinians' national government and no longer views it as a partner for diplomatic dialogue, and is now also threatening to attack Hamas leaders in Syria - is thus liable to bring about a situation in which, on the ruins of these organizations, wild growths that are many times crueler and more dangerous will spring up.