Palestinians See Hopes of Peace Blowing Apart

As the fourth suicide bomber in nine days prepared to blow himself up in a crowd of Israelis, tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip rallied against terrorism, and residents of this Palestinian-run city wrung their hands over the quickly fading prospects for peace.

Although a gulf of bitterness divides average Palestinians from the Israelis who still control most of the West Bank, workers and business people in Palestinian-run territories on Monday condemned the indiscriminate murder of Israeli civilians that they say is killing the fragile peace accord.

“What the hell are they doing?” asked Ali Sakar, a 31-year-old falafel vendor. “Even in the most intense times of the intifada [Palestinian uprising], they were not doing this. This is not in the interest of the Palestinian people.”

From Gaza to Ramallah and even in contested East Jerusalem, Palestinians expressed outrage over the spate of suicide bombings apparently carried out by members of the Islamic extremist group Hamas. Even before the bomber from Ramallah killed himself and 13 others in Tel Aviv on Monday, they were bracing for the fallout from the terror campaign.

“This is too much,” said Mohammed Mustafa, 39, the owner of a market in Ramallah. “The solution is a political solution, not a solution of closures, arrests or bombings. This paints us all as terrorists and Islam as a terrorist religion. Well, I am a Muslim and I am not Hamas.”

Experts on Hamas were at a loss to explain the bombing campaign that began in Jerusalem on Feb. 25.

“It is just beyond comprehension that this is happening,” said Ziad abu Amr, an authority on Islamic fundamentalism and member of the newly elected Palestinian legislative council. “We don’t even know what we are talking about here. A new group? An underground? Splits within Hamas?”

Originally, leaflets distributed by Hamas indicated that the bombings were retaliation for the killing of Hamas bomb maker Yehiya Ayash. He was assassinated Jan. 5 by explosives planted in a cellular telephone in what is believed to have been an Israeli undercover operation.

“It is obvious this is a lot more than just avenging the death of Ayash,” Abu Amr said. “This is a series of serious attacks, apparently . . . to sabotage the whole peace process and undercut the Palestinian Authority, to create chaos and an unstable situation.”

Adding to the confusion is the fact that alleged Hamas leaflets have twice been issued claiming that the wave of violence would be halted--only to be followed by more violence.

Founded in January 1988, a month after the beginning of the intifada, Hamas opposes the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement signed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that traded peace for autonomy in some West Bank areas and the Gaza Strip. Rabin was slain Nov. 4 by a Jewish law student opposed to the accord.

Hamas wants an Islamic state in all of former Palestine--Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It views Arafat as a sellout and boycotted the Jan. 20 Palestinian vote, in which Arafat was elected rais, or president, of the Palestinian Authority by an overwhelming majority.

But many Palestinians are dissatisfied with the peace process. While opposing Hamas tactics, they at least share the group’s desire for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as the capital. They feel that the peace process is moving too slowly and has not improved their economic situation.

That feeling is prevalent in the West Bank, where Palestinians control six cities and about 400 towns and villages but Israelis retain control of most of the roads and countryside and the right to enter the villages any time. Israel controls the flow of goods in Palestinian-run territory and the borders between Palestinian areas and Egypt and Jordan.

Since the bombings in Jerusalem and Ashkelon on Feb. 25, Israel has closed off the territories, preventing tens of thousands of Palestinians workers from going to their jobs in Israel.

“We suffer when there is a mild closure, and so we suffer more when there is a strict closure,” said a 30-year-old Ramallah taxi driver who declined to give his name.

But he opposed the bombings. “We are a people who chose peace. We did not get all of our rights, and Hamas is trying to get them from Israel. But we do not agree with their bombs.”

Polls show most Palestinians are against the campaign of violence. According to a survey in August and September, the most recent data from the Nablus-based Center for Palestine Research and Studies, 74% of Palestinians polled opposed armed attacks against Israeli civilian targets and only 18% supported them. That was a dramatic change from November 1994, when only 34% opposed such attacks and 57% supported them.

Now Palestinians apparently feel they have something to lose in the bombings. That was the message Arafat brought to the Gaza crowd Monday during the Palestinians’ first rally denouncing the violence against Israel.

“We chose the path of democracy, democracy for all. We won’t accept for anyone to take the path of weapons and violence,” Arafat said.

The masses before him chanted, “No to violence, no to violence.” The crowd appeared to be as large as the one that turned out for the funeral of Ayash in January, to celebrate the “martyred” bomb maker and protest Israeli intervention in Palestinian territory.

“Every time we get close to tasting peace and materializing the Palestinian dream, these attacks come, this violence, this terrorism, to try to hit not only the peace process but the Palestinian people,” Arafat said.

His voice was heard in the streets of Ramallah, at least.

Said Sakar, the falafel vendor: “If they [Hamas] keep doing this, we’ll never have a state.”