As hope dwindles, Hamas thrives

The Hamas arrests have been so unpopular that Arafat supporters, such as Hasan Safi, a Fatah student leader, justifies them by arguing they are carried out "in order to protect some of the personalities from assassination."

Back in the 1980s, the Israeli military planners who facilitated the growth of Islamic fundamentalist institutions in the occupied territories hoped they would challenge PLO influence.

The Gaza Strip wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, headed by Sheikh Yassin, an offshoot of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, preached a return to what it defined as true Islam and an education free of Western values.

Under Israeli occupation, the brotherhood was able to build up a network of mosques, clinics, childcare centers, sports clubs, vocational training programs, charities, and schools.

It is this grassroots network, a leadership which is perceived as authentically emanating from the population, a financial base independent of the PLO and PA, and a strong religious appeal, that have enabled Hamas to endure challenges from Israel, including a mass deportation of leaders in 1992, and from the PA, according to Amira Hass, the Palestinian affairs correspondent for Haaretz. Hamas bombings, she says, are aimed not only at Israel, but also at the PA, to say its views must be taken into account.

Ephraim Inbar, director of the Besa Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, has a different interpretation. "Arafat uses Hamas to bleed Israel, to wear it down."

It was only after the outbreak of the first Palestinian uprising in 1987 that the organization took a leading role in armed activities and announced its new name, Hamas, meaning zeal.

Hamas's 1988 charter outlined its long-range goal: the establishment of an Islamic state in all of the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, and its opposition to the PLO's idea of a secular, democratic state.

The PLO's opting for self-rule, leading to what it believed would be a two-state compromise with Israel under the Oslo Agreement, was bitterly rejected by Hamas, which tried to torpedo the peace process with bombings. In 1994, after the PA arrived in Gaza City, it signalled it would tolerate no challenge to its rule. PA police shot dead 16 demonstrators after Friday prayers.

In 1996, after Israel assassinated a leading bombmaker, Yihya Ayyash, Hamas embarked on a series of suicide bombings. Arafat undertook a massive arrest campaign against Hamas.

Now there is anger over the arrests. But there is also a sense that Israel has given Arafat no inducement to inflict real damage. "The authority knows that even if it does what Israel is asking," says a young man at the Islamic University, "Sharon will give them nothing."

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