There are some -- including in his Fatah movement -- who see Yasser Arafat's death as an opportunity for change. Not so , leader of the Al-Aqsa Brigades in the northern West Bank. Graham Usher spoke with him in Jenin On 15 November the Israeli army ended a two- week long incursion into Jenin. Nine Palestinians were killed, including four civilians, 25 wounded and 25 arrested. One arms cache was found. It is the third morning of the Muslim Eid Al-Fitr feast, the fifth after Yasser Arafat's death. Jenin is a ruin of shell-cratered roads and lampposts flattened by tanks. As the Israelis drive out, we drive in -- looking for the same man. is the leader of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (AMB) in the northern West Bank, a militia ever more loosely tied to Arafat's ruling Fatah movement. The latest raid was Israel's fourth try at killing him. The first time the Israelis thought he was cornered in Jenin refugee camp; the second, on the second floor of a house; the third, in a stolen army jeep. Each time he evaded them, though five of his men were killed in the jeep, including a 14-year old boy. This time too he slipped the noose, but with the loss of his AMB deputy, Alaa. We find him in a "safe" house. He is wearing a blue anorak, a fur collar turned up against the cold. A Kalashnikov is propped up beside him on the sofa. Outside the window children play at "Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades versus the army". They are firing plastic Kalashnikovs. One of them is Zubeidi. "Bang!" He is 27 years old, but looks younger, helped by his black hair worthy of a pop star and his large brown eyes. The youthfulness is reinforced by what can only be described as a kind of innocence. At one point an older woman kisses him on both cheeks. He is troubled by the intimacy, but at a loss to prevent it. Yet he is an age older than his years. His face is seared from a bomb blast, whether his own or Israel's is not clear. He smokes incessantly. When a firecracker goes off outside the window his shoulders hunch. His life -- or what remains of it -- has entered folklore, tracking in its violence the latest descent of the Israel- Palestine conflict. Thousands like him have walked the same trail. They are the so- called fourth generation of Fatah leaders, Palestinians born and bred under Israeli occupation but betrayed by Oslo and the promise of freedom it held out. His walk goes like this. As a child Zubeidi was part of a joint Palestinian-Israeli theatre troupe, when peace seemed possible, even in Jenin. At 14 he was jailed for six months for throwing stones at an Israeli patrol. In all he has spent seven years in Israeli prisons. In the bloody eye of the Intifada he has seen his mother and brother killed by the Israelis, his home destroyed, two of his brothers imprisoned and dozens of his peers detained, maimed or executed. In revenge, he has dispatched dozens to kill Israelis, including civilians, including mothers and brothers, inside Israel. He is married, with one son who, he says, will continue the fight. He knows he is standing on a burning bridge, that the Israelis want him dead. But it is not his death that concerns him when we meet. It is that of his leader and the consequences this has for his movement and his cause. When he says leader, he doesn't mean Abu Mazen. "Yasser Arafat's death is a big blow to the AMB," he says. "With Yasser Arafat I was assured that our political aims were safe, while we were fighting the occupation. For the last four years I have lived as a fighter, like Yasser Arafat. I felt he understood me because he had been in my place at a certain point in his life. Now ... now I am not so assured". "You think Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] doesn't understand you?", I ask. "I don't trust Abu Mazen with our national constants -- I mean, Jerusalem and the right of return for the Palestinian refugees. None of the factions do. All of the factions saw Arafat as the trustee of our cause. That's why he was poisoned. That's why Israel killed him." "So you are opposed to Abu Mazen becoming the next Palestinian Authority president?" Zubeidi looks at his three colleagues in the room. "If a majority in Fatah supports Abu Mazen's candidacy, I will commit myself to that decision," he answers, "as long as it is decided by elections throughout Fatah and not just the Central Committee [the highest decision- making body in Fatah]. But if Abu Mazen starts to mess with our unalterable positions -- with Jerusalem, the right of return, a Palestinian state, the release of prisoners -- we will not recognise his leadership". So you would act against him? "I belong to Fatah. I cannot use my weapons in an internal struggle." So the AMB would split from Fatah? "The AMB will not split from Fatah. We would have to accept these differences". I ask Zubeidi who he would vote for. "Marwan Barghouti [Fatah's imprisoned West Bank leader]," he fires back. "But I am speaking for myself, not the AMB," he adds, with another glance around the room. Zubeidi's shifting, edgy answers reflect the confusion into which Arafat's death has thrown Fatah, particularly its young militias. Where once there was an anchor -- even if marooned in its Ramallah headquarters -- today there are rapids, streaming towards different shores. Zubeidi has no clue whether he (and hundreds like him) are about to be saved by the current, or dashed to pieces on the rocks. What is clear is that Abu Mazen and others in the new leadership want to end the "chaos of arms" in the Palestinian areas, such as the skirmish that left two Palestinian policemen dead while Abu Mazen was attending Arafat's mourning tent in Gaza. Zubeidi condemned the killings in a phone call to Al-Jazeera TV, disassociating the AMB from the "flaw". But he knows he and his men are among those in Abu Mazen's sights. In June Zubeidi abducted the then PA governor of Jenin, Haidar Irshard, and (in Zubeidi's words) "beat the shit out of him" for refusing to pay salaries to the AMB. He also burnt down the local office of the elected Palestinian Legislative Council. Zubeidi says his struggle is not against the PA. "We want the PA to fulfil its role on the ground. But in the absence of law I have to fill the vacuum for Fatah," he says. It's not clear whether Palestinians in Jenin want this kind of guardianship. According to polls, what they want are new presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections and the rule of law. Zubeidi does not. "I want the Central Council to recognise the AMB as Fatah's military wing. But they reject us. I want Fatah to be reconstructed. But they say the occupation doesn't permit this. So how come they can organise presidential elections under the occupation? Democracy is not feasible under occupation. Suppose Hamas were to win the elections to the PLC -- the Israelis would lay siege to the building." "Look," he says. "We are at war. We need a commander- in-chief. But instead we are separating our powers. Abu Mazen is head of the PLO, but not of the PA. Abu Ala [the PA prime minister] is in charge of the security forces. The leader of Fatah [Farouk Qaddumi] is outside the West Bank and Gaza. All of this opens the window to an internal struggle among the Palestinians. It will breed chaos. It gives Israel the upper hand". We drink bitter coffee to mourn Arafat's death and eat dates to celebrate his martyrdom. The talk turns to money, the cause of Zubeidi's fight with Irshard and other Fatah officials. "We never relied just on Fatah. We had other sources. But the situation now is difficult. Everything will be influenced by Yasser Arafat's death. If we could move -- if we were free -- I wouldn't have had to burn down the PLC building. One trip to Arafat in Ramallah and the problem would have been solved." When he looks to the future, is it with hope or with fear? "I don't fear for my life. I fear for our final, crucial decisions. I fear for the AMB because our situation is more dangerous now," he says, cradling his gun. "In the military we have a saying: Fear not your foes -- fear your friends."
