News Brief

-29/3/04

Christian peacemakers in Israel have been cheered by the news that sixty prominent Palestinians have urged their people not to retaliate for Israel's killing of the Hamas founder, but instead to transform the 3-year-old violent uprising into a peaceful protest for statehood.

A call for restraint came from a second direction as relatives of a Palestinian youth caught with a suicide bomber's vest at an Israeli roadblock demanded that militants stop recruiting children.

Despite the appeals, the Hamas military wing has issued a rare videotaped statement, threatening retaliation against Israelis in graphic terms, after marking Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon as a target.

The statement pledged ``a strong, earthshaking response to make the sons of monkeys and pigs taste a painful death.''

In the videotape, given to the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV channel, a masked man declared, ``We say to the pig Sharon that we will pound your fortresses and make you curse yourself 1,000 times for merely thinking of assassinating our leaders and symbols.''

However, some Palestinians are questioning whether violent resistance has done them more harm then good. Their economy has been decimated. Israeli checkpoints, closures and other restrictions, which Israel says are necessary to stop attackers, have made their lives miserable.

Since violence erupted in September 2000, 2,762 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 942 on the Israeli side - but Palestinians are hard pressed to show any accomplishments.

On Thursday, a group of respected Palestinians put a half-page advertisement in the PLO's Al-Ayyam newspaper calling on Palestinians to lay down their arms and turn to peaceful means of protest toward ending Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Similar calls in the past have had little impact on public opinion, and Thursday's ad was greeted with little enthusiasm by many Palestinians.

The intellectuals who signed the ad - including peace advocate Sari Nusseibeh, lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi and Abbas Zaki, a leading member of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement - said revenge attacks over Yassin's assassination would lead to strong Israeli retaliation and further hurt the Palestinian cause.

The group called on the public to ``rise again in a peaceful, wise Intefadeh (uprising).''

Some Palestinians doubted the ad would be greeted with a similar call for restraint by Israelis, noting Israel has announced plans to kill all Hamas leaders.

``We had many previous experiences with the Israelis,'' said Ahmed Radi, 32. ``There was a truce with Israel, but Israel has not stopped its aggression.''

For its part, Israel has said it plans to kill the entire Hamas leadership.

Israeli troops have engaged Palestinian militants in isolated gunfights since Yassin's killing, but there has been no major escalation in violence. Still, Israelis are jittery, and security has been beefed up throughout the country.

Stepped up security measures paid off for the Israelis on Wednesday when soldiers stopped 16-year-old Hussam Abdo, who had a suicide bomb vest strapped to his body, at a West Bank checkpoint, setting off a tense encounter with soldiers.

The teenager's family said he was gullible and easily manipulated, and demanded that militants stop using children for attacks.

``It is forbidden to send him to fight. He is young, he is small, he should be in school. Someone pressured him, maybe because they killed Ahmed Yassin,'' Abdo's mother, Tamam, said.

The aftermath of Yassin's assassination has been felt in Israel. The president of Romania called off a trip set for Monday, tour operators report that many tourists have canceled their trips, and a leading European basketball team refused to fly to Israel for a league game on Thursday.

The Yassin killing was part of Sharon's effort to crush Hamas ahead of a possible Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Sharon has suggested the Gaza pullout as part of a plan to unilaterally separate from the Palestinians in the absence of a peace agreement. The plan is expected to include a limited pullback from the West Bank, where Israel would impose a boundary.