'For us, the preferred way of ending our lives would
be martyrdom'
By Robert Fisk in Gaza City
28 April 2002
Abdul-Aziz Rantissi is constantly interrupted by
calls. But his young bodyguard, Kalashnikov rifle
nursed upside down on his knee, hands him a big
military two-way radio receiver, not a mobile phone. I
think ? but I do not say ? that this is to protect the
Hamas leader. Mobiles are traceable to within a few
feet. Israel's death squads became masters of analogue
and digital technology in Lebanon.
>From time to time, I notice that my eyes stray to the
window. Am I watching for an Apache helicopter? Do
Israel's victims ever see the missiles streaking
towards them? Not that Mr Rantissi has any illusions.
"It's something to be expected so far as we are
concerned," he says. "But the thing I can say is
something that can only be understood by someone who
holds the Islamic faith the way I do. "We believe that
our lifetime is always predicted and that our death
has already been determined by God, and this cannot
change. There are many different reasons that could
lead to the end of a person's life ? a car accident,
cancer, a heart attack ? so I'm not saying I'm making
a choice to shorten my life. But the preferred way of
ending my life would be martyrdom." My eyes glance
again towards the window. Of his 55 years, Rantissi
has spent 26 in prison or in exile on a Lebanese
mountainside. That's where I met him first, nine years
ago amid the flowers of Marj el-Zuhour after his exile
by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, along with 460
other Hamas and Islamic Jihad followers. In those
days, he was still trying to understand how to run the
organisation. Now he talks coolly ? coldly,
frighteningly ? about suicide bombers and death. Hamas
has its own death squads. They kill not just soldiers
but also women, children, the old, the sick.
"Up till now, in this 'intifada', the Israelis have
killed more than 2,000 Palestinians. Following the
killings in Nablus and Jenin, the number of children
killed has passed the 350 mark. This proves that the
Israeli side is intentionally committing massacres
against civilians." I have been down this path before,
of course. Every time you ask a Hamas leader to
confront the wickedness of suicide bombing, you are
taken down the statistics trail. What about the kids
in the pizza parlour, the old folk at the Passover
dinner? "We are fighting people who violated our
land," he replies, very quickly. "They are all
soldiers or reserve soldiers. It was reserve soldiers
in Jenin who killed civilians ? these are people who
in ordinary life are Israeli doctors and lawyers. They
were civilians just hours before they went into Jenin.
But, of course, our fighters have orders to avoid
civilians, especially the children." Orders to avoid
killing children? Or is this just a numbers game? The
military phone pips again and Rantissi talks for
several minutes. Is he in touch with Hamas leaders in
the West Bank? He smiles bleakly. "There is some
communication on a political level with leaders in the
West Bank, yes. But they are wanted men and besieged
and underground." This, I note in the margin of my
notebook, is the first time Hamas has acknowledged the
effects of the Israeli re-occupation. "You take Hassan
Youssef, a political leader in Ramallah ? he is
calling me for information about what is going on. But
ultimately Sharon will not be able to put an end to
resistance in the West Bank. When the Israelis
deported 460 of us in 1993 and arrested another 1,500
Hamas members the same day, they said they had 'put an
end' to resistance and to Hamas. After that, Yahyia
Ayash [a Hamas bomb-maker later assassinated by the
Israelis] escalated the resistance." Marj el-Zuhour,
the hillside upon which the Hamas and Islamic Jihad
men spent more than a year of their lives after
deportation, became a kind of Islamic college. "It was
a stage which changed the Palestinian struggle,"
Rantissi accepts. "It changed the history of Hamas for
ever. Before that it was a local movement. After our
exile on the hillsides of Lebanon, it became an
international organisation, known all over the world.
We received the benefits of Israel's mistakes."
There is no doubt who Rantissi's principal enemy is.
"Sharon wanted to rip up the Oslo [agreement] papers,"
he says. "He is exercising his power over the
Palestinian people ? destroying or wilfully killing
them ? in order to compel them to leave. He wants to
break our will so that we will accept his humiliating
conditions. He also wants to create a conflict between
the Palestinian Authority and the people." So is the
Gaza Strip next for Israeli re-occupation? "I want to
remind you of something that Rabin said ? that he
hoped to wake up one morning to find Gaza swallowed by
the sea. Gaza is a big, overcrowded prison. Sharon's
entry into Gaza would mean widespread killings among
the Palestinian people. "And heavy casualties to the
Israeli forces. Sharon would have to provide a reason
for this to the Israeli people. His justification for
the re-invasion of the West Bank was because
'martyrdom' [suicide] operations had been launched
from there. He cannot use the same excuse about Gaza
because it is so tightly besieged. So I think the
chances of invasion are smaller rather than greater."
So what, I ask, about Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that
Palestinian suicide bombers will soon be stalking the
streets of New York? "We have just one enemy that is
occupying our land," he replies. "We have just one
front which is against the occupiers and we will not
at any time attack targets outside the borders of
Palestine." And what if Israel withdrew to the 1967
borders? Would that end the Hamas war?
"Firstly, I want to hear from the Israelis. Are they
prepared to do that or not? Arafat asked them to do
that. They refused. Bear in mind that Sharon, during
the election, was referring to Jenin as occupied land
that belonged to Israel. We can't be expecting to
offer endless compromises when they are occupying our
land and our holy places." Which, to utilise Winston
Churchill's old saw, sounds more like war-war than
jaw-jaw.
________________________________________________________________________
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at: http://in.sports.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html
be martyrdom'
By Robert Fisk in Gaza City
28 April 2002
Abdul-Aziz Rantissi is constantly interrupted by
calls. But his young bodyguard, Kalashnikov rifle
nursed upside down on his knee, hands him a big
military two-way radio receiver, not a mobile phone. I
think ? but I do not say ? that this is to protect the
Hamas leader. Mobiles are traceable to within a few
feet. Israel's death squads became masters of analogue
and digital technology in Lebanon.
>From time to time, I notice that my eyes stray to the
window. Am I watching for an Apache helicopter? Do
Israel's victims ever see the missiles streaking
towards them? Not that Mr Rantissi has any illusions.
"It's something to be expected so far as we are
concerned," he says. "But the thing I can say is
something that can only be understood by someone who
holds the Islamic faith the way I do. "We believe that
our lifetime is always predicted and that our death
has already been determined by God, and this cannot
change. There are many different reasons that could
lead to the end of a person's life ? a car accident,
cancer, a heart attack ? so I'm not saying I'm making
a choice to shorten my life. But the preferred way of
ending my life would be martyrdom." My eyes glance
again towards the window. Of his 55 years, Rantissi
has spent 26 in prison or in exile on a Lebanese
mountainside. That's where I met him first, nine years
ago amid the flowers of Marj el-Zuhour after his exile
by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, along with 460
other Hamas and Islamic Jihad followers. In those
days, he was still trying to understand how to run the
organisation. Now he talks coolly ? coldly,
frighteningly ? about suicide bombers and death. Hamas
has its own death squads. They kill not just soldiers
but also women, children, the old, the sick.
"Up till now, in this 'intifada', the Israelis have
killed more than 2,000 Palestinians. Following the
killings in Nablus and Jenin, the number of children
killed has passed the 350 mark. This proves that the
Israeli side is intentionally committing massacres
against civilians." I have been down this path before,
of course. Every time you ask a Hamas leader to
confront the wickedness of suicide bombing, you are
taken down the statistics trail. What about the kids
in the pizza parlour, the old folk at the Passover
dinner? "We are fighting people who violated our
land," he replies, very quickly. "They are all
soldiers or reserve soldiers. It was reserve soldiers
in Jenin who killed civilians ? these are people who
in ordinary life are Israeli doctors and lawyers. They
were civilians just hours before they went into Jenin.
But, of course, our fighters have orders to avoid
civilians, especially the children." Orders to avoid
killing children? Or is this just a numbers game? The
military phone pips again and Rantissi talks for
several minutes. Is he in touch with Hamas leaders in
the West Bank? He smiles bleakly. "There is some
communication on a political level with leaders in the
West Bank, yes. But they are wanted men and besieged
and underground." This, I note in the margin of my
notebook, is the first time Hamas has acknowledged the
effects of the Israeli re-occupation. "You take Hassan
Youssef, a political leader in Ramallah ? he is
calling me for information about what is going on. But
ultimately Sharon will not be able to put an end to
resistance in the West Bank. When the Israelis
deported 460 of us in 1993 and arrested another 1,500
Hamas members the same day, they said they had 'put an
end' to resistance and to Hamas. After that, Yahyia
Ayash [a Hamas bomb-maker later assassinated by the
Israelis] escalated the resistance." Marj el-Zuhour,
the hillside upon which the Hamas and Islamic Jihad
men spent more than a year of their lives after
deportation, became a kind of Islamic college. "It was
a stage which changed the Palestinian struggle,"
Rantissi accepts. "It changed the history of Hamas for
ever. Before that it was a local movement. After our
exile on the hillsides of Lebanon, it became an
international organisation, known all over the world.
We received the benefits of Israel's mistakes."
There is no doubt who Rantissi's principal enemy is.
"Sharon wanted to rip up the Oslo [agreement] papers,"
he says. "He is exercising his power over the
Palestinian people ? destroying or wilfully killing
them ? in order to compel them to leave. He wants to
break our will so that we will accept his humiliating
conditions. He also wants to create a conflict between
the Palestinian Authority and the people." So is the
Gaza Strip next for Israeli re-occupation? "I want to
remind you of something that Rabin said ? that he
hoped to wake up one morning to find Gaza swallowed by
the sea. Gaza is a big, overcrowded prison. Sharon's
entry into Gaza would mean widespread killings among
the Palestinian people. "And heavy casualties to the
Israeli forces. Sharon would have to provide a reason
for this to the Israeli people. His justification for
the re-invasion of the West Bank was because
'martyrdom' [suicide] operations had been launched
from there. He cannot use the same excuse about Gaza
because it is so tightly besieged. So I think the
chances of invasion are smaller rather than greater."
So what, I ask, about Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that
Palestinian suicide bombers will soon be stalking the
streets of New York? "We have just one enemy that is
occupying our land," he replies. "We have just one
front which is against the occupiers and we will not
at any time attack targets outside the borders of
Palestine." And what if Israel withdrew to the 1967
borders? Would that end the Hamas war?
"Firstly, I want to hear from the Israelis. Are they
prepared to do that or not? Arafat asked them to do
that. They refused. Bear in mind that Sharon, during
the election, was referring to Jenin as occupied land
that belonged to Israel. We can't be expecting to
offer endless compromises when they are occupying our
land and our holy places." Which, to utilise Winston
Churchill's old saw, sounds more like war-war than
jaw-jaw.
________________________________________________________________________
For live cricket scores download Yahoo! Score Tracker
at: http://in.sports.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html