Palestinians Seek to Bring Hamas Into Political Fold

An unofficial delegation of Palestinian political leaders and intellectuals, hoping to act as intermediaries between the militant Islamic group Hamas and Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, plans to travel to Jordan later this week to meet with leaders of the extremist organization.

The self-appointed mediators said Sunday that they aim to restart negotiations between the two sides that broke off before Palestinian elections in January and to bring the extremists into the emerging Palestinian political system. They said they are seeking an end to terrorist attacks against Israel and to sweeping Palestinian police arrests of Hamas activists.

The group is led by Faisal Husseini, Arafat’s representative in mostly Arab East Jerusalem, and includes Marwan Barghouti, the West Bank leader of Arafat’s mainstream Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. But they insist they are acting independently, and Arafat has said he is not interested in the negotiations.

Arafat told a Palestinian Authority Cabinet meeting in the West Bank town of Nablus on Friday that he no longer believes Hamas political leaders can control the group’s military wing and will not negotiate further with them.

The developments came as Arafat spokesman Nabil abu Rudaineh denied a report published in the London-based Al Hayat newspaper last week that Arafat told Hamas he is prepared to discontinue arrests and release some detained activists from Hamas and another militant group, Islamic Jihad, in exchange for a halt to military operations against Israel through the country’s May 29 elections.

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Al Hayat quoted a Hamas leader as saying that Arafat’s goal appeared to be “to give the Israeli peace camp a chance in the election.” A suspension of terrorist attacks would boost the election bid of Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who was one of the architects of the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian peace accord and who offers Arafat his best shot at completing peace negotiations.

Final negotiations are scheduled to begin May 4 on the outstanding issues of West Bank Jewish settlements, control of Jerusalem and the borders, and the status of the Palestinian-rule area. The Palestinians want an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Ghassan Khatib, one of the members of the team of would-be mediators, said he believes Arafat will eventually resume talks with Hamas. “I don’t think a phenomenon like Hamas can be uprooted by force,” Khatib said.

But he said he fears that “external forces” could prevent the two sides from engaging in serious negotiations, saying, “I am not very optimistic, but I feel a duty to try.”

Israeli and American officials have pressured Arafat to crush the political and social infrastructure of Hamas as well as its military wing; exiled leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad view Arafat as a lackey of the Israelis and still support military actions against the Jewish state.

Since a recent Hamas campaign of suicide bombings in Israel, which began Feb. 25, took 62 lives, Arafat has arrested an estimated 700 to 800 suspected Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists, and Israel has sealed off Palestinian-ruled areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Both Islamic groups have vowed to continue the attacks.

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The idea for a group of mediators was born last week after 11 well-known Palestinian intellectuals and political leaders issued an unusual public call for Hamas and Arafat to resume a national dialogue. The group, led by Husseini and representing several Palestinian political factions, urged the Islamic fundamentalists to stop military actions and appealed to the Palestinian Authority to release prisoners held without legal justification. It also called for a commitment to freedom of expression and assembly, and a unified front against Israeli measures.

After receiving a positive response to their statement, the group decided to seek more backers and to try mediating.

“We are trying to mobilize civil society behind this,” said one member who asked not to be identified.

Hamas publicly rejected the mediation effort along with Arafat, but the mediating group is persevering. Husseini went to the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Sunday to set up a meeting with Hamas leaders there, and the rest of the delegation is expected to follow later in the week.