Islamic Fundamentalists Gain Strength in West Bank, Gaza at Expense of PLO : Israel: Many Palestinians in occupied areas despair of the course of the revolt and slow pace of diplomacy abroad.

Islamic fundamentalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are gaining strength at the expense of the Palestine Liberation Organization as Palestinians despair of the course of the revolt against Israeli rule and the slow pace of diplomacy abroad.

The strict Muslims preach no compromise on the question of sharing with Israel the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, undercutting the current PLO line of a two-state solution to the conflict.

The PLO, which itself is torn over the issue of compromise, has been trying to persuade fundamentalists of the Islamic Resistance Movement to come under its wing. But the movement, known as Hamas, or zeal, in its Arabic acronym, has resisted taking a subordinate role and is demanding parity with Fatah, the majority wing led by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

With Hamas holding out, one PLO activist said, the PLO has embarked on a parallel track to tap the energy of Islam: bolstering Islamic Jihad, a longtime PLO affiliate that is much smaller than Hamas but is far better known.

This move is fraught with risks, however, because Islamic Jihad holds to the doctrine of “armed struggle” to recover all of historic Palestine for Muslims. Last week, a telephone caller to a Jerusalem-based news agency, who identified himself as an Islamic Jihad member, took responsibility for a bomb blast Monday that killed one Israeli and wounded nine others in a market.

By supporting Islamic Jihad, the PLO, in effect, would undermine its own public stand toward limited violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where the tools of attack are mostly stones. It also weakens its case with Washington, which maintains a dialogue with the PLO on the grounds that it has renounced terrorism.

“This is classic PLO technique: If you can’t compete, back a faction that can,” observed one PLO activist in the West Bank, who said hundreds of thousands of dollars are being poured into Islamic Jihad’s coffers.

The appeal of the fundamentalists not only threatens the idea that the PLO is the sole representative of Palestinians but also undermines PLO dogma that secular nationhood best provides the key to Palestinian identity.

“There is a problem for the PLO,” said another Palestinian activist, who is close to the underground leadership of the uprising, or intifada. “It must legitimize a group that in fact eats away at the bases of PLO ideology. But the PLO has no choice. Hamas has grown during the course of the uprising.”

The precise strength of Hamas is hard to gauge, but everyone agrees that its numbers are increasing. In Gaza, Hamas leaders claim the allegiance of 60% of the 600,000 residents; among the West Bank’s 1.1 million inhabitants, they claim 40%. PLO officials put Hamas’ total following at 25%.

Overall, Islamic fundamentalism is a persistent current in Arab political life, with movements periodically coming forward--and often being repressed--in numerous countries. Islamic activists are committed to setting up religious regimes, much like Iran’s, and to sweeping away secular powers established in countries created by colonial division earlier this century.

And the trend is not limited to Gaza and the West Bank. In Israeli municipal elections last year, Islamic candidates took charge of several Arab municipalities, breaking a longtime hold by the Communist Party. In Jordan, where many Palestinians are settled around the capital of Amman, Islamic parties showed strength in parliamentary elections, taking 33 of 80 seats at stake.

At the same time, Gaza has long been a stronghold for fundamentalist beliefs. Last month, when the coastal strip was inflamed by the deaths of seven Arab day workers at the hands of an Israeli gunman, residents took to the streets screaming “God is great!” while loudspeakers on mosques urged them to assault Israeli soldiers with rocks.

Rarely these days do women in Gaza appear publicly without a head scarf and long kaftan, both emblems of Muslim modesty. Hamas-designated strike days compete with those called by the PLO-oriented leadership of the uprising, although both sides say there are ongoing efforts to coordinate shutdowns and avoid clashes between Hamas and PLO street captains.

The secret of Hamas’ strength, observers say, is a fervor instilled in members through Muslim education. In a mosque in the teeming city of Gaza, visitors witnessed 12-year-old boys chanting Hamas songs, with the emphasis always on the Koran.

The steady toll of Palestinian dead also has influenced young people to seek refuge in religion.

“Youth from Fatah join Hamas. No one from Hamas joins Fatah,” said one young, bearded Hamas street activist in Gaza. “We are selective; Fatah takes anyone. We are ready to die for God. Does not the Koran say, ‘If you defend God, God will defend you?’ ”

Another man, a recent convert from Fatah to Hamas, declared: “To die for God is to go to heaven. To die for Fatah is for nothing.”

The inability of the PLO to translate the suffering of the intifada into diplomatic moves to end Israeli occupation also has drained confidence away from it, Hamas followers say.

“We are punishing ourselves to show foreigners that we want peace. What good is that?” asked Mahmoud Azahar, a Hamas political leader in Gaza. “We have given the PLO sufficient time. They have proven that they cannot succeed on a secular basis.”

Israel took Hamas lightly during the early months of the intifada, with some officials privately expressing pleasure that a rival to the PLO held its own in the occupied land. However, this divide-and-rule attitude changed with the violent direction taken by Hamas, exemplified by last year’s abduction and slaying of two Israeli soldiers who were hitchhiking near the Gaza Strip.

Last fall, Israeli authorities designated Hamas as an illegal organization, and troops rounded up scores of activists. In January, Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, went on trial on charges of ordering the soldiers’ abductions and funneling money to the organization.

Yassin denied the charges, although his lawyers pleaded that his client views it as “not only his right but his duty to establish these organizations to battle the occupation.”

The sheik also was charged with overseeing the executions of three Palestinians suspected of vice and drug dealing. Such executions have been a signature of Hamas, which views crime as an anti-Muslim disease caught from Western culture.

Yassin, 53, is reported to be in ill health and is paralyzed from the neck down as a result of a sporting accident in his youth. Recurrent rumors of his death have set off violent protests in Gaza, where he lives. The trial has been delayed to await a written defense response to the charges.

Hamas followers say funds for the movement come both from inside the occupied land--through religious gifts--and from abroad. In papers filed in court, Yassin was charged with collecting and distributing more than $500,000 from foreign sources, mostly Jordan, Egypt and Britain, where a donation was reported from Muslim activist Youssef Islam, the former rock singer once known as Cat Stevens.

In the summer of 1988, Hamas issued a statement of policy that asserted that all historic Palestine is indivisible Islamic land. The document reviled Jews and said no compromise could be reached with them.

“When have infidels ever dealt justly with (Muslim) believers?” the covenant asked.

Islamic Jihad, whose name means Islamic Holy War, also rejects the PLO’s political line of dividing the land with Israel. PLO leaders insist they have no control over the well-organized group; activists say they have tried to dampen Islamic Jihad’s enthusiasm for violence by pointing out that “armed struggle” already has failed to end Israeli occupation and could harm a PLO campaign to convince the world that it has peaceful intentions.

Islamic Jihad members reject such arguments, however. “We are not in favor of the political process,” one member in Gaza declared. “We should change the intifada from stones to arms.”