A tamer Sheikh Yassin is back
Palestine, Politics, 10/6/1997

Preparations in Gaza came to a peak Monday afternoon waiting for the return of Hamas founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin who announced in an ad-hoc press conference in Jordan that a ceasefire with Israel will not be attained unless the Israeli occupation has ended. But the rhetoric announcement by the Sheikh in Amman was later smoothed by his explicit declaration that Hamas is part of the Palestinian people who are "seekers of peace."

Israeli and Palestinian sources alike were busy over the past few days trying to analyze the impact on Palestinian domestic politics by Sheikh Yassin's return to the Gaza Strip with most Israeli observers believing his return would step up suicide attacks by Hamas activists against Israel. Palestinians, however, expected the Sheikh would contribute to bridging the gap between Hamas and the Palestine National Authority. Many even spoke of the possibility that Sheikh Yassin received from PNA President Arafat a symbolic position within the PNA, thus making Hamas an integral part of the PNA.

Speaking at the press conference in Amman, Sheikh Yassin stressed that his movement is "an integral part of the Palestinian people as well as the PNA which is also an integral part of the Palestinian people." He added that both the PNA and Hamas are committed to working for the unification of all sectors of the Palestinian people, noting that there won't be any room for inter-Palestinian fighting. "Even if you extend your hand to kill me, I won't extend mine to kill you," said the Sheikh whose dominant leadership of Hamas is seen to be a major factor in determining the future position of the organization.

Over the past nine years of imprisonment in Israeli jails, Sheikh Yassin has formed his own mode of moderation within the movement which he founded shortly after the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation broke out in December 1987. It was from within the rank and file of the Muslim Brotherhood movement that Hamas was founded, and due to the pressing circumstances in the Israeli-occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Hamas decided to take more action against Israel, in comparison to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose activities remained confined to political agitation against Israel as well as against the Arab and Palestinian left in general.

It is not clear yet as to how will Sheikh Yassin lead the movement after his return with the current deep split between not only the political leadership of Hamas and the command of its military wing, known as Izziddin Al Qassam Brigades, but also among Hamas political leaders themselves. After the Israeli Mossad fiasco in Jordan and the failed attempt on the life of a Hamas leader, Khaled Mishal, last week, had led to the release of Sheikh Yassin, local leaders of Hamas in Gaza expressed anger at the fact that the Sheikh was being sent to Jordan. They even branded his release a deportation, a matter that both Jordan and Israel hurried to deny. Besides, the moderate tone voiced by Hamas leaders in Amman, including Mishal himself, and their close affiliation with the Jordanian government, and with King Hussein in person, had caused embarrassment among local leaders of Hamas in Gaza who felt the rug was being pulled from underneath their feet.

"It has become very difficult for us to criticize the PNA and denounce the peace process when we see that the movement leaders in Jordan have not only failed to distance themselves from the peace process but have in fact come closer to the kingdom and to the fruits of the peace treaty that was signed between Jordan and Israel some three years ago," said a Hamas official in Gaza earlier this week. He noted that without the peace treaty between Jordan and Israel, the former would never have released the two Mossad agents and as such the Sheikh would not have been released to Jordan. The official saw in the release of the Sheikh a signal to the local leadership of Hamas that a new generation has started, certainly with a new political line that cannot always hide behind Arab and Islamic rhetoric.

Others, not necessarily first class leaders but members who come from within the rank and file of the movement, felt the return of Sheikh Yassin might help strengthen the local leadership as opposed to the mounting influence of the military command of the Hamas, believed to be based both in Damascus and Beirut. Two prominent militants of Hamas are being blamed for most of the suicide attacks against Israel. Imad Alami in Damascus is said by Israel to be the one in charge of the latest round of suicide bombings in Israel. Mustafa Liddawi in Beirut is suspected of being the link between Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran. Both Alami and Liddawi had spent years in Israeli prisons until their deportation out of their country.

Back in Gaza, thousands of Palestinians gathered at the Yarmouk stadium close to the house of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin waiting for his return. Many of those who came to receive the Sheikh never were members of Hamas neither did they agree with the movement's political line. But for them, the Sheikh was yet another Palestinian hero who had spent the last nine years of his life in Israeli jails, in addition to many years he already served before that in Israel prisons. Big posters of the returning Sheikh were hung next to those of PNA Chairman Arafat and of assassinated PLO military commander Abu Jihad, whom the Mossad killed in Tunis in April 1988. Big banners decorated the streets to the Yassin family's house, with some reading: "Welcome to the Sheikh of the intifada, welcome to the founder of Hamas."

Previous Stories:
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