Hamas

JERUSALEM -- Like its patron, the United States, Israel has specialized in making all the possible errors in approaching its Arab neighbors. Hence the serious impasses Israel drives itself into, at times when it follows the American example and at other times when it is left to go its own way. In either case, neither the United States nor Israel seems to be able to learn from its mistakes in order to avoid repeating them - the underlying assumption being...

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas sharpened the war of words against his Hamas rivals yesterday, saying it was time to "bring down" the militant group's regime in the Gaza Strip. Abbas' comments against Hamas, whose fighters defeated his Fatah faction to take control of Gaza five months ago, reflected his anger over a deadly clash in the coastal enclave earlier this week. "We have to bring down this bunch which took over the Gaza Strip by force and which is trading on the suffering and misery of our people," Abbas said in broadcast remarks marking the 19th anniversary of the Palestinian declaration of independence.

The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, poses no strategic threat to Israel but every menace to the Palestine Liberation Organization and embryonic Palestine. Yet it is Israel that has rightly gone to battle against Hamas, and against the PLO that coexists in a tacit truce with Hamas in Gaza, being too insecure to confront its mortal enemy.The first duty of the government of Israel, since the founding of the state, has been to protect Israeli citizens. After the Hamas kidnapping and murder of an Israeli soldier and the suicide bombing of a crowded bus in Tel Aviv killing 21, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin took every measure possible to reassure his citizens.

JERUSALEM -- Scattered clashes were reported yesterday around the Gaza Strip and West Bank, a day after fierce fighting between the ruling Hamas movement and rivals in the formerly dominant Fatah party. However, both groups appeared to pull back from even greater confrontations after shootouts the previous day had left at least eight people dead and scores wounded in the Gaza Strip, the deadliest violence during a months-long power struggle. Hamas withdrew its force of about 3,000 officers from the streets yesterday after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ordered security force members, mostly from his Fatah movement, to halt protests over the government's failure to pay them.

A CNN headline last week left an unmistakable impression: "Al-Qaida's Ayman Zawahiri congratulates Hamas on its victory." Al-Jazeera's take on the same story left an altogether different impression: "Zawahiri attacks Hamas" for embracing the "traitor secularists." A careful reading of the Arabic text of the statement by Mr. al-Zawahiri, No. 2 to Osama bin Laden, shows that al-Jazeera was more accurate in its emphasis. But the contrast served to underscore that Middle Easterners and Americans are judging Hamas through different lenses, and the degree to which that contrast could change.

JERUSALEM -- As preliminary results in some municipal elections in the West Bank showed the militant group Hamas making political gains, Israel continued its weeklong offensive against Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Israeli forces killed two wanted men in a raid near Nablus yesterday and seriously wounded another, while also killing a young Palestinian who was throwing stones, witnesses said. In the six days since Israel's operation began in response to rocket fire from Gaza, Israel has arrested 441 alleged members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and killed at least five in raids, with three militants killed Thursday near Jenin.

KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip - Uniformed police officers returned to the streets of Gaza yesterday with machine guns in hand as Hamas sought to reassert control over the battered enclave. "Hamas emerged from this battle with its head held high," said Hamad Ruqb, a Hamas official in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip. "Every Israeli attack only increases our support." As Israeli tanks and soldiers continued their withdrawal, residents began to assess the damage. In addition to a death toll of more than 1,300, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimated infrastructure and economic losses at almost $2 billion, with 14 percent of the buildings in Gaza destroyed.

An open letter to a Hamas supporter in Gaza: So, over the last 40 years, Israelis have been told constantly by the world to pull out of Gaza and the West Bank. Two years ago, we did evacuate Gaza, but what did we get in return? A barrage of deadly missiles on our south and a Palestinian government led by the Hamas people you had elected - people who openly advocate the destruction of Israel. You have been busy the past few days, but when you finish leveling the homes of your rivals, when you finish killing off their leaders, when you have reasserted your prominence in the Gaza Strip, here is my prediction: You will most probably continue to launch those primitive Qassam missiles on our southern town of Sderot.

JERUSALEM -- Israeli forces staged a fiery missile attack yesterday that killed a top Palestinian fugitive who had been blamed for the deaths of three Americans in the Gaza Strip in 2003. The slain man, Jamal abu Samhadana, had recently been named to a senior security post by the Hamas-led government, a move that angered Israel and the United States. Three other militants from abu Samhadana's group, the Popular Resistance Committees, were killed in the explosion at one of the organization's training camps in the southern Gaza Strip.