To what extent will the political map of the Middle East be changed by Sharon's assassination of the Hamas leader, asks Mohamed Sid-Ahmed The missile attack launched under the personal supervision of Ariel Sharon on Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin represents a dangerous escalation of an already volatile situation. The massive outpouring of grief and anger his assassination provoked in the Palestinian street and throughout the Arab world attests to the moral authority he wielded and the respect he commanded as the spiritual leader of the Islamic resistance movement. The common people who took to the streets to condemn his murder represented what is arguably the largest popular uprising ever witnessed in Gaza. A wheelchair-bound quadriplegic, Sheikh Yassin was unable to move, let alone wield any kind of weapon. Despite the harsh treatment and torture he suffered for many years in Israeli prisons, his will remained unbroken and he never wavered in his resolve to resist the Israeli occupation in the face of tremendous odds. Can his total dedication to the cause of freedom for his people be described as terrorism even though he never even held a gun? That is a question that needs to be thoroughly looked into by legal scholars. Unlike Arafat, who, in the eyes of the international community, enjoys legitimacy as the elected president of the Palestinian people, Sheikh Yassin derived his moral authority from an altogether different source. Despite, or perhaps because of, his physical frailty, he symbolised the indomitable will of the Palestinians to pursue their liberation struggle at any cost. As such, he was, and continues to be even in death, a force to be reckoned with. The murder of Sheikh Yassin is an insurmountable obstacle in the way of a negotiated settlement. This latest Israeli outrage has notched up the level of violence to new heights, making any prospect of containing it more remote than ever. Violence and counter-violence have engendered a dynamic towards yet greater escalation that will inevitably affect all Palestinian activists without exception, even those who, like Sheikh Yassin, occupy central positions in the resistance movement. There is not one among them who is safe from Sharon's campaign to liquidate the Palestinian issue altogether. A question worth asking is why Sharon decided to get rid of Sheikh Yassin now. The ostensible reason, which is to avenge the latest Palestinian suicide attack, does not ring true. After all, there have been many such attacks, some of which claimed even more Jewish victims. But it is only now that the decision to do away with the Hamas leader was put into effect. The most plausible explanation is that Sharon does not want his planned unilateral withdrawal from Gaza to be interpreted as a sign of weakness. The continued occupation of Gaza, one of the most densely populated spots on the face of the earth, is stretching Israel's resources to the limit. Holding on to Gaza has proved to be more of a liability than an asset. Hence Sharon's decision to move out. However, he is planning to use the security fence he is building to separate wide chunks of the West Bank from their environment and add them to Israel proper, or have them divided into small administrative units along the lines of Switzerland's cantons or South Africa's Bantustans. Sharon is paving the way for an unequal peace tailored to fit Israel's territorial ambitions and security requirements, a "peace" closer to an unconditional surrender than to a balanced, sustainable settlement acceptable to both parties. To that end, he is trying to humiliate the Palestinians and break their pride to prevent them from standing up to Israel in the future. The assassination of Sheikh Yassin was part of his plan to crush Hamas ahead of the planned withdrawal. This master plan is being tested with the construction of the separation fence mostly inside Palestinian territory. In defiance of the growing international outcry over the assassination of Sheikh Yassin, an unrepentant Sharon has vowed to go after all Palestinian activists, dubbing them "legitimate targets" in Israel's campaign to "root out terrorism". Arafat himself cannot be excluded. The criteria by which Sheikh Yassin was chosen are said to apply to Arafat as well. Sharon describes the Palestinian leader as a terrorist and has systematically refused to deal directly with him. Under virtual house arrest inside his compound in Ramallah, Arafat could well become a target of Israel's stepped-up assassination campaign. Israeli leaders have been quick to deny that Sheikh Yassin's assassination is in any way related to Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, claiming that the decision to murder the Hamas leader was taken many months ago. But taking the decision is one thing, implementing it quite another. There are good reasons to believe that a similar decision has been taken with regard to Arafat. Indeed, he came close to being killed on a number of occasions. The fact that he is still alive does not mean the decision to do away with him has been shelved, only that its implementation is being deferred for the time being. The spree of extra-judicial executions on which Sharon has embarked can in no way be attributed to a quest for peace. Although it is now obvious that peace will never be achieved while Sharon, or another extreme right-wing hardliner, is in power, the Arab parties continue to stick to the principle that peace is their strategic objective. And despite the existence of more than one model for an overall peace plan accepted by peace-oriented Israelis and Palestinians (particularly, the Beilin-Abed Rabbu Geneva Accord), the Arab parties have been keen not to sever relations with Sharon, on the grounds that he is Israel's elected prime minister. Obviously, the situation is critical. When interlocutors for peace existed, they failed to reach agreement on a number of key issues. Now than more than one model for a peace agreement exists, Sharon is not interested in peace. How to break the impasse? The main stumbling block is that mutual hatred between the protagonists has reached unprecedented proportions. Can an alternative emerge that could neutralise the mutual abhorrence, and thus ensure that things move forward again after Sheikh Yassin's demise? Shimon Peres, now in the opposition, denounced the killing of Sheikh Yassin as a mistake that will increase terrorism. He added that terrorism cannot be eliminated through the liquidation of leaders of the resistance movement. And, indeed, we are likely to see a surge in violence throughout the region, as militant Palestinians step up their attacks to avenge the killing and Sharon retaliates with ever increasing ferocity. Ayman El-Zawahri, Bin Laden's right- hand man, declared a few days ago that Al- Qa'eda is in possession of nuclear weapons. This could be true or not. But the sceptics who dismiss his claim as highly unlikely are the same people who accused Al-Qa'eda of launching the 9/11 attacks, which were marked by a high degree of technical skill. What should we believe, their assertion that Al-Qa'eda was capable of carrying out the highly sophisticated attacks of 9/11 or their assertion that it does not have the technical capabilities to deploy nuclear weapons? Today weapons of mass destruction are acquiring a new dimension. They can now be owned by networks which resort to all-out violence, such as Hamas and Al-Qa'eda and Hizbullah in Lebanon. This will strengthen the radical Islamic groups. It will generalise and universalise similar extremist organisations in the region and in the world at large. And there is no doubt that Sheikh Yassin's assassination will encourage and promote such a trend. Israeli spokespersons have argued that Arafat does not differ from Yassin. The only difference is that Yassin did not conceal his objectives and openly declared them, while Arafat tended to dissimulate his real intentions. After the failure of Camp David II between Clinton, Arafat and Barak, relations between Clinton and Arafat deteriorated. It has been said that Clinton advised Bush not to trust Arafat. But now that open war has been declared between Israel and Hamas, the US could find itself compelled to deal once again with the leader of the PLO. Eventually even, to go as far as to embrace the Geneva Accord and recognise a Palestinian state.
