- GAZA -- On one level, the
strategy behind yesterday's assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin is relatively
easy to understand. The broad consensus is that it will escalate violence.
The peace process is already completely blocked and Israel has shown that
it is in no mood to negotiate as it proceeds with plans unilaterally to
withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
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- If the attack showed anything, it is that the US-inspired
"road-map" has no meaning. It has already been eclipsed by Israeli
annexation of chunks of occupied territory with its controversial fence.
Meanwhile, President George Bush has found more pressing affairs to attend
to as the US election campaign grinds on.
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- Bitterly controversial though the assassination may be
in the eyes of world opinion, the steps which made it likely were taken
at an emergency cabinet meeting chaired by Israel's Prime Minister, Ariel
Sharon, after the suicide bombing which killed 10 Israeli civilians at
the port of Ashdod. Responsibility for this was claimed jointly by Hamas
and the Al Aqsa Brigades, linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah, eight days ago.
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- Not only was the bombing widely seen as indicating a
potential trend of attacking strategic targets, it was also the first,
during the past three and half years of the intifada, to have been carried
out by Palestinian suicide bombers from within the confines of the Gaza
Strip.
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- The Israeli Prime Minister was reportedly determined
to mount attacks on Hamas's leadership, as part of the intensified campaign
against militants in Gaza. Although Israeli intelligence has been suggesting
that Fatah-linked groups have been increasingly more prominent than Hamas
in organising attacks on Israelis in the West Bank in recent weeks, the
hold that Hamas has in Gaza is not in doubt. Seeking to underpin this logic
yesterday, the hawkish Israeli foreign minister Sylvan Shalom said it was
less sensible to ask why the assassination had been perpetrated now than
why it had not been done before.
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- At the same time, however, there may also be deeper political
factors behind the decision. Mr Sharon has been taking strenuous steps
to convince Likud Cabinet ministers who are sceptical about his stated
intention to "disengage" from Gaza and possibly some settlements
in the West Bank.
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- The sceptics include some powerful figures, such as the
finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu and possibly Mr Shalom himself. Without
yet having a clear Cabinet majority of the strategy - the exact scope and
details of which have still very much to be decided - Mr Sharon may have
wanted to embark on a strategy which was congenial to the Likud right.
That isn't to suggest anything other than he personally believes in the
legitimacy and - just as controversially - the effectiveness of targeted
assassinations; it merely may help to explain why, at a time when he needs
to convince international opinion that he is serious about disengagement,
he decided to take a step which was bound to provoke an avalanche of international
criticism and invite the blood-curdling promises of vengeance that were
being pronounced here yesterday.
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- It remains to be seen how high a price he will have to
pay for the decision While Mr Shalom insisted to reporters in Washington
that the idea was to convince Hamas and its supporters that its militant
strategy of suicide bombings could not succeed, there was little evidence
so far that that message was getting home to the man - or woman - in the
Gaza street any more than it was to the surviving Hamas leadership.
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- The fear being expressed by Israeli commentators in Ha'aretz
newspaper yesterday was that the Gaza Strip will be consumed by anarchy,
and that Hamas will take control of the street, preventing Yasser Arafat's
pragmatic Palestinian Authority forces from imposing law and order.
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- The writer Danny Rubinstein concluded that the assassination
"may well turn out to be a blow, not to Hamas, but to the Palestinian
Authority".
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- The two organisations are locked in a power struggle
and it is Yassin's organisation, not Arafat's, that has the Palestinian
street behind it. Hamas is seen as an organisation with leaders free of
the taint of corruption and ready to make the ultimate sacrifice.
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- These tactics have turned Hamas into a extremely powerful
machine, while Arafat's strategy has seen his power base vanish. There
is little hope now that Arafat will be in a position to restrain Hamas
and curb its rank and file.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=504105
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