Divided loyalties in Palestine

As the US-led bombing campaign zeroes in on targets in Afghanistan, the main protagonists in the war, George Bush and Osama bin Laden, have faraway Palestine on their minds.

In a bid to court Arab and Muslim countries, Mr. Bush recently voiced unprecedented backing for Palestinian statehood. Mr. bin Laden, meanwhile, has vowed that Americans will never be safe unless Palestinians are.

Their duel over what is arguably the most resonant and emotive cause in the Arab world began echoing on the streets of Gaza Monday, when Palestinian security forces shot dead two people during protests against the bombings. The deaths are part of a struggle between Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA), which views a more sympathetic Washington as the linchpin of its struggle for statehood, and Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, which sees the United States as the problem, not the solution.

President Bush made a qualified endorsement of Palestinian statehood for the first time last week, saying, "The idea of a Palestinian state has always been part of a vision, so long as the right to Israel to exist is respected."

Palestinian resistance to the US bombings in Afghanistan, though at present not very widespread, is not confined to Hamas alone, as young supporters of other factions also joined Monday's protests. Some of them taunted the Palestinian police, controlled by Arafat, as "traitors."

"I'm optimistic because day by day, the mask that America is a country that supports democracy and freedom is being lifted, and we are seeing the colonialist country that is always finding excuses for its greed and control of others," says Ismail Abu Shanab, a Hamas leader. "Every day people see the bombings on television and support for our point of view grows."

Abu Shanab distrusts bin Laden's commitment to the Palestinians, but says the point is not bin Laden so much as the US military action. "We in Hamas see that the Americans are driven by a crusader attitude against Islam, as Bush himself has said," he says.

Hamas, notorious for its suicide bombings, has rejected all US-backed peace efforts here, and seeks the eradication of Israel and its replacement with a country governed by Islamic law. Despite its extremist ideology, political pragmatism has enabled Hamas to survive and at times flourish as the leading opposition group to the largely secular nationalist PA.

One of those killed Monday was a 13-year-old boy, Abdullah Rifrangi. Twenty others were injured as PA police dispersed what they said was an illegal protest. More than 10 policemen were reported injured. Demonstrators later attacked a police station. It was the worst inter-Palestinian fighting in seven years, and amid charges of excessive force by police, the PA agreed to set up an inquiry commission.

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